How To Help Foster Children Transitioning Into Adulthood And College
January 24, 2020
How Therapeutic Mentoring Helps Children In Foster Care
February 28, 2020
All children deserve the chance to grow up in a safe and loving home. Choosing to provide foster care means providing a safe space, both physically and emotionally, for a foster child in need. Once you decide to foster parent, building a support system is key. Whether you are an extended family member of the child or fostering outside of your family, local Child Welfare Agencies like Camelot Care Centers (CCC) can help facilitate a smooth transition and offer support. Finding additional support to help you through your foster parenting journey is also beneficial. Read on to learn more about the importance of extended support when foster parenting.
Counseling
Many foster children face depression, anxiety or other disorders. Knowing how to navigate these can be tricky for foster parents, but know you are not alone. CCC provides In-Home Counseling to help assist foster children as they adapt to their new situation and come to terms with their lives before foster care. Children may need professional help to overcome trauma. Through trauma-informed therapy, foster children can strive towards empowerment and recovery using evidence-based practices. Counselors use unique strategies to meet the individual needs of foster children. The program extends to offer family therapy, community support and case coordination services to help youth feel welcome in the community.
Extended Family Support
The Extended Family Support program goes a step further to provide services for relatives that care for children when biological parents are unable to. These services work to keep the foster child with family, avoiding the child welfare system. Other services include help obtaining guardianship and obtaining legal assistance, help obtaining a child-only grant or other entitlements, help with housing, guidance with enrolling children in school, cash and in-kind assistance, as well as other needed services available in the community. While foster parenting a family member is rewarding, sometimes it can be overwhelming. Know you are not alone.
Therapeutic Mentoring
Therapeutic Mentoring services offer additional training to help foster children improve daily social and communication skills. If these skills remain neglected, they may snowball into bigger problems down the line. The opportunity to work with a therapeutic mentor gives foster children a chance to improve interpersonal relationship skills, including parental interactions, sibling relationships, and relationships with teachers and peers at school. Some of the skills worked on include coping skills, anger management, self-esteem skills, and improved communication.
Additional Support
Along with the help from CCC and extended family members, it is important to build a circle of support around you. Reach out to teachers and counselors, and stay in communication throughout the fostering process. Reach out to other foster parents in your community to find individuals going through the same process as you.
While foster parenting isn’t always easy, know that you are not alone. Local Child Welfare Agencies like Camelot have a variety of programs and resources to help support you and your foster child throughout the process. Look to family and friends to help support you through this journey as well. Embrace the help around you and in time everything will fall into place.
Every child needs and deserves to grow up safe and protected from abuse and neglect, and caring foster parents offer children support and stability when they need it most. At Camelot Care Centers, we specialize in higher-level foster care for children and adolescents that need extra support. We partner with our foster parents/homes to provide trauma informed care and additional services, including in-home counseling, parent support and training, tele-psychiatry, and therapeutic mentoring, to maintain children at the least restrictive, yet most appropriate level of care. Camelot Care Centers (“Camelot”) is a Child Welfare Agency licensed by the State of Illinois, a member of the Illinois Collaboration on Youth (ICOY), and is accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA).
