Support for All
Another new home, which means a new bed, new siblings, new house, new foods; everything is different and unfamiliar. But not in a “new” exciting way. But in a way that feels unstable and scary. This is the reality of a child in foster care.
Children living in foster care placed with Boys & Girls Aid have experienced several foster home moves. These children have diagnoses that include behavior, attachment, and other psychological or mental health disorders. The labels describe the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional adaptations their young brains and bodies have made to adapt to the early childhood trauma and maltreatment they experienced. Their coping mechanisms now manifest as behavioral problems. While meeting the needs of foster children can be difficult, the hopeful news is it is not impossible. With years of consistent care, treatment, and understanding, we can create better lives and futures for these young people.
In 2018, under the leadership of our President and CEO, Dr. Huntington, Boys & Girls Aid worked to adapt programming models to focus on overall family support to best serve foster children. BGAid Family Support Specialist explains, “When people feel authentically valued, they are more able to see their own inherent worth. When children feel safe, their capacity to learn and grow is activated.”
The goal of our Family Support Program is to help create stability for foster children and families. Boys & Girls Aid Family Support Specialist provides skills training for children, Collaborative Problem-Solving training for parents, which allows caregivers to address challenging youth behaviors through empowerment, empathy, and mutual solving of problems, along with other trauma-informed parenting tools. Julie notes that she often has to get creative with her approach to working with youth and families.
“With one child I purchased a LEGO set to work on. Even though he was not the one building the set, he enjoyed checking my work and giving me little pointers as I completed each step in the instructions. Being the teacher gave him the opportunity to build confidence, practice patience, and take another person’s perspective, all skills I teach during a typical in-person skills training session.”
Photo by Victoria Borodinova from Pexels
From day-to-day the Family Support Specialist role may shift based on the needs of the youth we serve, “I recently worked with a foster family where both parents worked full-time, and they needed in-home school support for their foster child. Because of my small caseload, I was able to be in the home twice a week for several hours each time.”
In addition to our Family Support Program, Boys & Girls Aid has adapted its programming to best provide therapeutic foster care services. The Nest residential treatment home is an example. The program offers around the clock professional support tailored to meet the needs of foster families and children to help them thrive. The home also offers relief care, providing care for foster children on a temporary basis, for a day or two at a time. This type of programming supports full-time foster parents, providing time-off when needed and helping to ensure Oregon's foster children receive the best possible care.
“When people feel authentically valued, they are more able to see their own inherent worth. When children feel safe, their capacity to learn and grow is activated.”
“The Nest model does a great job of supporting foster parents by offering built-in respite care on a weekly and monthly basis, as well as weekly meetings where foster parents receive peer support,” BGAid Family Support Specialist.
We understand the respite need is critical to ensuring our foster parents do not experience burn-out and have time to stay connected with their own families and support systems.
The Nest and Family Support Program have shown to be effective in providing quality care and services that help stabilize families and support children in foster care. But more can still be done. Over the coming year, Dr. Huntington is focused on expanding the Family Support Program. This would allow BGAid to serve more families and create greater stability for children leading to more successful outcomes. This would benefit children by creating greater stability for them, which leads to successful outcomes.