A publication dedicated to making foster care and adoption in North Carolina the best they can be
Placement When children enter your home, everyone and everything is strange to them. They are wondering what they did wrong to make them leave their parents. They are afraid and confused. In this situation, possible child behaviors can include crying, screaming, shaking, running away, cursing, defiance, silence, bed-wetting, and fear (e.g., of the dark, the bathroom, people in the home).
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by Tonia Deese • As a resource parent, you have an important role in supporting all areas of permanence for children and youth in care. Permanency is not just about long-term living arrangements and who has legal responsibility for the child. In this article, I will focus on cultural permanence, or maintaining a child’s connection to their family, traditions, race,
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by Jamie Bazemore • We all know resource parents provide love, nurturing, and care to meet the immediate needs of young people in foster care. But their support for the child’s permanent plan is just as important. In this article, I’d like to highlight some of the ways resource parents take action every day to support permanence. The Permanent Plan
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by Glenda Clare • While COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for all North Carolinians, grandfamilies have been especially hard hit. More than 89,000 North Carolina children and youth are members of grandfamilies created when a grandparent or other family member raises the child of a relative unable or unwilling to parent. Although most heads of grandfamilies are under age 60
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by Jamie Bazemore • The pandemic has brought loss and hardship to so many of us. But for me it has also been a reminder of how adaptable and creative humans can be. Even when faced with disruption and challenges, we somehow find a way to innovate and move forward. I hope when COVID is behind us we will continue
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by LeAnn McKoy • COVID-19 created the opportunity for the NC Division of Social Services to review its policies and practices to ensure the safety of children and families. We all have learned to wear masks, wash our hands more, and maintain physical distance from family and friends. New processes were adopted, while safety of children and families remained the
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The Foster Family Alliance of North Carolina would like to thank each and every one of you for all that you do for our families. We celebrate every victory that you and your children have overcome together. As we announced in the last Fostering Perspectives, we are working with organizations throughout the state to host conferences. We are still discussing
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When reading profiles of waiting children, I’ve noticed there is often a request for the child to maintain contact with a birth family member, such as a sibling or grandparent, after the adoption. What type of contact is allowed? Is that safe for the child and for adoptive families? Each adoption is unique, especially those involving children in the foster
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by Rose Marie Wentz • Make a top 10 list of what you like about your child. Send it to them; may be one each day. Send pictures of yourself doing different activities, in different places, making funny faces, etc. Make a video or audiotape of you reading bedtime stories. Send it to your child along with the book. Send
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It can be hard for foster parents and staff to balance ensuring that a baby is well cared for without taking over the parenting role and sidelining the young parent. Here, Martha Edwards, the director of the Ackerman Institute’s Center for the Developing Child and Family in New York, explains how foster parents and staff can help young parents gain
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