Vol. 8, No. 1• November 2003

North Carolina Foster Parents Association News

by Kay Gillis, NCFPA Communications Chair

The North Carolina Foster Parents Association has been busy working to meet the needs of foster, adoptive, and kinship parents across our state.

A prime example of this is what we have done to make it more convenient for you to get the training you need for relicensure. Our one-day conferences in Davidson and Greenville will be history by the time you read this, but save Saturday, February 28, 2004 for the Fayetteville conference. You should also plan to attend our statewide conference in Raleigh/Durham on Saturday-Sunday, April 24-25, 2004. Conference brochures will be at the website <www.ncfpa.org> early in January 2004. The single day conferences allow attendees to earn six hours of training credit. Attend one regional and one statewide conference and complete the training quiz in each issue of Fostering Perspectives and you will have earned the 20 hours of training required for re-licensing!

You should also know that the NCFPA was involved in the recent, successful effort to increase North Carolina’s foster care board and adoption assistance rates. Thanks to legislative action in July 2003, foster parents and adoptive parents whose children are eligible for adoption assistance now receive $365 per month for children aged birth through five, $415 for children aged six through 12, and $465 for children aged 13 through 18. This increase, the first since 1992, passed in a year when funding cuts were the norm!

The new ex officio positions added to the Board are having some exciting impacts. Special thanks to:

• Karen LeClair (Family Support Network) for providing meeting sites and getting our contact information included in thousands of brochures that FSN developed for the state.
  
  
• Jeanne Preisler (NC Kids) for enabling us to mail 10,000 conference brochures to foster and adoptive parents, and for providing us with a permanent home.
  
  
• Dr. Dana Leinenweber for her efforts to establish a continuum of care for foster children, developing a survey for foster parents to complete, and working to secure grant funding.
  
  
• Joanne Scatturo (NCDSS) for her attitude of “anything I can do to help?” and making lovely thank you cards.
  
  
• Frank Byrd (SaySo) for being willing to educate us about issues and concerns of teens in the system.
  

Do you have ideas or concerns? Let us know! Call our toll free number, write us via snail mail, or use our interactive website <www.ncfpa.org>. Click on the map on the “About Us” page for e-mail addresses.

Please visit our website regularly. New pages on Lifebooks and Local Associations have been added recently, as well as new links to other sites of interest. Look for forums/discussion groups in the near future, as well as a listing of local association contacts. We will also be adding a printable lifebook page each month that you can add to and use in you children’s lifebooks.

Thanks to Linda Hargrove for her excellent choice of graphics and her dedication to maintaining our site!

Copyright � 2003 Jordan Institute for Families