Foster Care Training

Are you caring for a court dependent infant between the ages of 1 and 8 months old? This course is for you! You’re invited to join with your infant to be guided through special and unique opportunities to explore and reflect on the meanings, values, and experiences of touch in our lives. If you do not yet have an infant in your care but are preparing to support a court dependent infant, you are also welcome to attend- we will have some infant dolls available for practice. This course will promote:

1. A sense of the shared parenting and cultural communities.
2. Awareness of infants’ developmental and social-emotional needs and cues.
3. Nurturing and respectful touch, communication, bonding and connection.

The instructor will review massaging materials, recommended environments, and stimulating and soothing touch strokes along with caregivers-infant dyads. This friendly and relaxing class will collaboratively hold a range of perspectives from various theories, research, multiculturalism, neurodevelopment, trauma, the welfare systems, and, simply, perspectives of each infant in the room. Across 6 consecutive weekly courses, a wide range of discussion topics will be explored and facilitated. Some of them will include self-care and parenting experiences among caregivers, culturally-unique ways of communicating and bonding with infants, current research on the benefits of touch and music on infants, infant communication cues and needs, and topics of mutual trust and consent. Each class will simultaneously address needs, successes, and questions as they arise, in order to facilitate rich learning and bonding experiences for each participant.

*Please make sure to register for ALL sections.