Kinship Care: A Manual for Families
Charles E. Confer, LSW, ACSW, RTC
In the United States one of the major innovations in the delivery of services to children within the past decade has been the development of formalized "kinship care" networks and programs. There has been a dramatic increase in the number of children who live with and who are being raised by relatives other than their parents.
Agency sponsored kin-care programs help to mobilize the resources of individuals who are concerned about ensuring the welfare, safety and well being of their own family members.
This Kinship Care training program is designed to ease the tensions between carer and staff and to make the most of the training requirements for carer and the staff members....to the end that children who experience the loss of parental care can receive the best substitute care that is humanly possible.
In order to embark on a successful kin-carer training program, staff members must keep in mind two objectives: (1) exercise and teach good social work practice skills; and (2) keep four "special" kin-care ideas or notions in the forefront of professional involvement and interaction.
The four special items are:
- Remember that kin-carers often may experience greater or lesser amounts of shame and guilt. Carers often believe that they have failed as parents or family members because their relatives must be brought into care. Professional social workers must be kind and recognize the grief and pain kin-carers have experienced.
- Often kin-carers must be helped to manage anger. Most carers have reached that time in their lives when they had planned for freedom, relaxation, travel or retirement from family cares. They were looking forward to the leisure years and instead they are again washing diapers and supervising children. Many carers are conflicted and torn: On one hand they feel cheated; and on the other hand, they love the child and want nothing but the best for him/her.
- Social work professionals must maintain an attitude of "partnership" with the carer. Workers cannot come into the kin-care home ordering, commanding and treating kin-carers as if they knew little or nothing about caring for the child. Partnership is required; many (if not all the kin-carers) have known the children who are placed in their homes since birth. As one kin-care grandmother told a social worker, "Don't come in here telling me about this kid; I know this kid and I have known this kid since he was born. So, quit telling me about things I already know."
- Carer training material is to be presented in an environment that is free from criticism, blame and judgment. There is absolutely no place for any of these three attitudes or actions in a successful Kinship Care educational program.
The Manual is comprised of fourteen (14) chapters:
Chapter 1. Family Care: A Chance for Treatment or Treatment by Chance?
Chapter 2. Control Theory Psychology
Chapter 3. Building and Cultivating the Relationship with Children
Chapter 4. Reality Therapy
Chapter 5. Discipline I: Rules, Regulations, Values and Principles of Discipline Practices in Services to Children
Chapter 6. Discipline II: Skills to Resolve Discipline Problems
Chapter 7. Getting Your Message Understood, or Helping the Other Person to Grasp the Meaning of What You Want to Say
Chapter 8. Understanding the Other Person, or Helping the Other Person to Clearly State the Message
Chapter 9. Managing the Youth's Anger
Chapter 10. Case Manager and Care Providers: Working Together
Chapter 11. Teaching Safety in the Home
Chapter 12. Working with Children Who Have Been Known to Set Fires
Chapter 13. Caring for the Adolescent
Chapter 14. Caring for the Adolescent: Hazards, Risks and Promises
Kinship Care: A Manual for Families
Provides a fourteen topical chaptered text offering in-service instruction on fourteen issues common to the kincare parenting experience. The skills-based content of each chapter is equivalent to material covered during one to two hours of face to-face\group training. Kinship Care: A Manual for Families may be used as the text in group instruction or as independent study. 72 pages.
#9610 - $9.50 Ea., 10+ Copies - $8.20 Ea.
Kinship Care: Trainer's Guide
A Trainer's Guide was developed to aid the trainer in presenting the curriculum in a group training format. The Trainer's Guide comes complete with step-by-step instructions, exercises and overhead transparency masters which may be used to create trainer's aids when presenting Kinship Care in a group training environment. The Trainer's Guide lends itself to a variety of training methods for the trainer. The Trainer's Guide includes one copy Kinship Care: A Manual for Families, a content outline for the Manual, with a set of overhead transparency masters and a generic certificate of course completion. In addition, the Trainer's Guide provides a series of chapter specific self tests which may be distributed with each manual and can serve as a hand in/mail-in-to-the-agency for training credit. Loose-leaf format, three ring binder.
#9611 - $50.00 Ea.