A publication dedicated to making foster care and adoption in North Carolina the best they can be
Children’s Home Society of NC (CHS) worked in partnership with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago to develop a leading-edge practice model to build on the strengths of its Foster Care to Permanency program. A CHS and Chapin Hall team, as well as foster parents, birth parents, and youth with foster care experience, partnered to develop this practice model
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by Corey B. Best • I view myself as worthy, resilient, and filled with hope. However, I never quite understood why systems that were designed to support, nurture, and live by such a high standard viewed me as broken and in fact treated me and others around me as such. This daunting and harsh lesson about systems, specifically our child
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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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by Glenda Clare • Shared parenting was my goal when I decided to assume the custody of my cousin’s youngest child. To be supportive, I accompanied my cousin to Child and Family Team (CFT) meetings and paid for required drug testing. In my head, I was singing Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family.” I knew everything was going to be alright
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by Donna Foster • Tips to help you engage, motivate, and support birth parents as they learn to parent their children in healthy ways. Foster parents are taught about the things children feel when experiencing loss. We are taught in MAPP about the grief cycle and how to help children through each stage. Yet we are not always taught that
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by Jonathan Rockoff • Shared parenting was their biggest fear about being foster and adoptive parents. But they overcame this fear in an inspiring and remarkable fashion. I met Jonathan and Sally Six of Wake Forest, NC five years ago when they first became licensed foster parents. They already had one child of their own, “Mark,” and wanted to open
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by Amy Huntsman • Almost all foster parents I know want to do shared parenting because they know foster care is supposed to be a support for families, not a substitute for parents. But sometimes they do have concerns. Some are new to foster parenting and worried about the unknowns. Others have a specific concern or experience—for example, the child’s
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I visited Darren a lot while he was in foster care and worked hard to get him back. Even though I had two relapses, I went to school full-time and worked part-time. I lived in a shelter some of the time, and I got TANF…. “This story is about Darren, not about us.” After our visits, I always took Darren
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by Donna Foster • One thing children and youth say about being in foster care is that adults talk about their lives and make plans without communicating with them. I have heard many say, “This is my life and I need to know what is going to happen!” I learned this early in my 17 years of fostering and agree
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The theme of this issue of Fostering Perspectives is “foster care as a support for families, not a substitute for parents.” Foster care is intended to be a short-term intervention that strengthens parents’ protective capacities so they can safely care for their children. The goal is almost always for children and youth to return to their families. One of the
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