How Therapeutic Mentoring Helps Children In Foster Care

While fostering provides a safe and stable environment for foster children, many continue to struggle with a variety of emotional and communication skills. Camelot Care Centers believes that one way foster children can benefit is through therapeutic mentoring.

Therapeutic Mentoring services focus on intense training that guides foster children; whether they struggle with anger management, or simply require help with daily living, a therapeutic mentor can help. These mentors assist in building self-esteem while helping foster children to recognize their strengths.

At times, a child may respond more to a mentor than parental figure, making these mentors all the more helpful for foster children with unique challenges. Read on to learn more about the advantages of these community based services and how they are helping children in foster care.

Anger Management

Depending on the foster child’s situation, their impulse may be to react with hostility. They may have witnessed parents demonstrating anger and aggressive behaviors, or they simply may use anger as a protective barrier. Anger management tackles the issue head-on to get to the root of the anger. Foster children learn to look inward and to notice when an angry reaction may occur. Rather than react on impulse, they are taught to stop and reflect before reacting. Anger management can do a lot to help a foster child to mature and strengthen their bonds with others in their lives.

Social And Communication Skills

Many foster children lack proper social and communication skills for a variety of reasons. Growing up in an unstable environment, they may have never been taught how to properly speak with their peers or adults, or they may not have been given the opportunity. A therapeutic mentor can recognize the skills a foster child lacks and give them easy tools to help them slowly build up their social skills, for example, learning how to initiate a conversation with a peer or reacting appropriately when approached.

Coping Skills

No matter what your foster child has been through, they will need to learn coping skills to deal with their past trauma and future adjustments to their new life. Learning how to cope with change is important for continued growth and progress. A therapeutic mentor can introduce foster children to others who have been through similar crises and help them to realize that they are not alone. They can also teach techniques such as breathing practices to learn how to calm down, center themselves and refocus.

Self-Esteem

None of these skills are possible without helping a child in foster care to build their self-esteem. A therapeutic mentor recognizes the good qualities in a foster child and helps them to cultivate those qualities in order to grow. For example, a foster child who is good at art may be encouraged to practice it more often and to try new techniques, perhaps even participating in a community art class. A therapeutic mentor can positively guide your foster child toward believing in themselves.

Let’s face it: it takes a village to help support a child in foster care. While providing your foster child with a loving home is a great start, there are a variety of other services available to help, such as therapeutic mentoring. Know that you are not alone in this process and that together as a team, you can help your foster child to grow into their best selves.

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).