SUPPORT GROUP TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES

The following list includes various training options for support groups.  The blue listings are trainings that are lead by an instructor.  The green options are are DVD/VHS trainings available through IFAPA.

OTHER SUPPORT GROUP TRAINING SUGGESTIONS

Support group leaders are often looking for suggestions of trainings and trainers they can access locally to supplement the trainings offered by IFAPA.  Here is a list of suggestions of local resources that have been utilized by various support groups around the state. Your local ISU Extension Office, local AEA, area therapists, and medical personnel are often great resources for group trainings.  View other support group training suggestions

(Each course has been approved for 2 hours of foster parent credit)

Confidentiality Training

This training is available to support groups in certain areas of the state.  It provides an overview of Iowa’s Confidentiality Laws, Best Practices for Foster Parents, Penalties for Breaching Confidentiality and Liability Issues.  Participants will learn about foster parents rights and responsibilities regarding confidentiality, as well as attaining and releasing information.

Building Bridges: Helping Your Foster or Adoptive Child Succeed in School

Obtaining a good, basic education is essential to living an independent fulfilled life.  Yet many children reach adulthood without this important ingredient for success.  For a variety of reasons, children who are in foster care or who have been adopted often face extra educational challenges.

Module One:  Basic Educational Advocacy

This module will give you the basic information you need to be a better educational advocate for your foster/adoptive child.  You will learn the importance of educational advocacy for all children, but especially for foster/adopted children.  You’ll also learn how to create relationships with school staff and others who can help; how to communicate your ideas in ways that allow others to understand them; how to be manage student records and be prepared for meetings; and how to find resources, support and help for your child.

To schedule one of these trainings for a support group, please contact Lori Brenno via e-mail at lbrenno@ifapa.org or via phone at 800-277-8145 ext. 155 or 515-289-4224.

(The following topics are DVD or VHS 2-hour trainings with discussion guides.  No instructor is leading these topics, so support group leaders will facilitate these discussions. Each course has been approved for 2 hours of foster parent credit)

Creating Sexual Safety in Foster Care & Adoption - DVD

by Dr. Wayne Duehn

Current estimates of sexual abuse among children in placement range from 75 to 85%.  Given this high number, it is important that foster and adoptive parents understand their role in the healing process.  During this training parents will develop knowledge and skills to create a healing environment to counteract the trauma experienced by children who have been sexually abused. This trauma impacts their thinking, their behaviors, and their self-esteem.  Parents will learn how to become THE CENTRAL INGREDIENT in the recovery of these children and their special needs. During this class, parents will have the opportunity to learn the dynamics of sexual abuse, the special needs of children who have been sexually abused, and specific parenting skills.  They will have the chance to practice skills, watch video demonstrations, have group discussions, and role plays, and share their own experiences. 

Separation and Loss Issues for Foster Families - VHS

by Dr. Vera Fahlberg

Dr. Fahlberg talks with foster parents, foster teenagers, and adults who spent their teen years in foster care.  The pain of separation and loss is the universal experience of every foster child.  Dr. Fahlberg talks with foster parents, foster teenagers, and adults who spent their teen years in foster care.  They offer insight on how the foster care system could lessen the impact of transition and strengthen a child’s relationships with both foster and birth parents.

Building Brilliant Brains Through Bonding - DVD

by Nancy Thomas  of Families by Design in Colorado

This tape is filled with ideas to understand and activate the brain. It is especially geared toward children with emotional illness such as Reactive Attachment Disorder. Humor and insight combined to make this film clear and compelling. Come, join Nancy Thomas and her special guest Lawrence Van Bloem of the Cascade Center in Orem, Utah as they share the insights gained from combined 50 years of working with difficult children with broken hearts and wounded minds. Learn the secrets to success in healing the brain of a traumatized child!

Parenting the Explosive Child - DVD

by Ross W. Greene, Ph.D. and Stuart Ablon, Ph.D

Explosive and noncompliant children and adolescents present significant challenges to parents and cause distress to all family members. Such children tend to be quite misunderstood and their behavioral challenges are often poorly addressed by traditional discipline strategies which conceive such challenges as attention-seeking, willful, and manipulative. Research suggests that such children may actually lack cognitive skills essential to handling frustration, solving problems, and mastering situations requiring flexibility and adaptability. In other words, the difficulties of these children may be best understood as a learning disability. Naturally, if a child is lacking crucial cognitive skills, the goal for parents and other adults is to teach those skills. In this two-hour program, Dr. Ross Greene (author of The Explosive Child) and his colleague, Dr. Stuart Ablon, help parents understand the specific cognitive skill deficits that can impair a child's capacities for flexibility and frustration tolerance and provide step-by-step guidance on their approach -- known as Collaborative Problem Solving (CPS) -- for teaching these skills. This video features live interviews with parents of behaviorally challenging children and provides answers to many of the common questions parents have about the CPS approach.

Aging Out - VHS

Aging Out is a compelling film that follows young people as they exit foster care and become parents, battle drug addiction, face homelessness, and even end up in jail.  Despite their struggles, the film also shows these youth using the resiliency they developed during their years “in the system.”  It also forces us to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the public systems that serve these youth, as well as the roles that private citizens and organizations can play. 

This film was created by award-winning producers and directors Roger Weisberg and Vanessa Roth, with support from the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative.  Aging Out is a production of Public Policy Productions for Thirteen/WNET New York.

Methamphetamine Exposed Children: Symptoms & Intervention - VHS

by Dr. Rizwan Shah (This training is 3 hours, 3 hours of foster parent credit)

During our 2004 State Conference, we videotaped a 3 hour training session on children exposed to Methamphetamines presented by Dr. Rizwan Shah.  Dr. Shah is a leading expert in this area.  This 3 hour training by videotape is available to support groups to check out from IFAPA for training credit.  In this video training, Dr. Shah provides an in-depth training focusing on the effects and symptoms of methamphetamine exposure on children’s development.  It will also explore interventions available to parents and caregivers.

DVD Library of Various Behavior Issues

by Dr. Richard Delaney

Dr. Delaney, author and well-known psychologist and foster parenting expert, has created several topics, each running approximately 40 minutes, along with a summary, an interactive question and answer section, and certificates of credit.  Dramatic vignettes, interviews with parents and instruction from nationally recognized child welfare experts present effective and practical messages focusing on specific behavior problems.

The DVD Library includes:

Anger Outbursts

Dr. Richard Delaney addresses some of the toughest child anger problems.  There is no simple solution to anger, but this easy-to-view interactive program will help parents identify problems and think about “out of the box” solutions.

Eating Disorders

Children in foster care often have very serious issues around food.  In this training program, Dr. Richard Delaney helps parents identify and understand eating disorders, and offers some creative yet very practical solutions.

Fire-Setting

The biggest fear in foster care is fire-setting.  This program gives parents a clear understanding of four distinctly different types of fire-setting behavior, and presents some unique and effective ways parents can respond.

Sexualized Behavior

Dr. Delaney helps foster and adoptive parents understand the forces behind children’s sexual acting out behavior.  In this training program, parents learn to pay attention to the warning signs and how to take appropriate actions for obsessive sexual behavior, sexual behavior with siblings, seductive behavior towards adults, and public masturbation.

Lying

Lying is the single most common child behavior problem reported by foster parents.  In this program parents learn to understand and deal with this frustrating problem by looking at four types of lying behavior: lying to get out of trouble, lying to gain attention, pathological lying, and lying to get others in trouble.

Sleep Problems

Some of the most difficult parenting happens at bedtime—just when parents are tired and ready for rest themselves.  In this DVD, Dr. Delaney talks with four families about the sleep problems their children are facing, and offers the viewer understanding, insights, and practical steps to overcome these problems.  This program includes sleep problems caused by Sleeping Alone, Roaming, Night Terrors, and Depression.

Wetting and Soiling

With abused and neglected children, the toilet can become a battleground of emotional upset and rebellion – as well as a window into a child’s past.  This course examines five types of problems: wetting as an emotional outlet, wetting as self-defense, classic wetting problems, soiling and smearing feces, constipation and withholding stools.

Running Away

Each year 800,000 children between the ages of 10 and 18 run away from home and are reported missing – that’s one out of seven kids! In Running Away, Dr. Delaney discusses different types of running away behavior with foster and adoptive families, what parents can do to prevent it and how they can promote more positive behavior.

Stealing

The fact that stealing is a common problem with foster and adoptive children doesn’t make that behavior any less upsetting to parents.  Many worry that it places their child on a collision course with a life of crime.  In this program, Dr. Delaney gives parents the understanding and knowledge to deal with four different types of stealing: shoplifting, stealing because of envy or revenge, stealing from loved ones, and kleptomania.

Self-Harm

Understandably, foster and adoptive parents may feel disturbed when a child engages in self-harm by carving on the body, reckless self-injury, hair pulling, risky behavior and threatening suicide.  In this course, meet five families whose children obsess about and participate in these types of self-harm.  Dr. Delaney offers valuable input about these behaviors in this program.  

To schedule one of these trainings for a support group, please contact Lori Brenno via e-mail at lbrenno@ifapa.org or via phone at 800-277-8145 ext. 155 or 515-289-4224.

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