By educating yourself, and working with experts who have helped other foster parents and foster care staff for decades, you will take your skills to a whole new level. In this article we wanted to let you know that you’re not alone in this. Cristy Schlientz has made it her life’s work helping people just like you become the best foster parents and foster care staff that you can be. She has been in the industry for several decades. Over the years she has converted her knowledge into practical training materials for foster parents and foster care staff.

Teaching Family Model for Foster Parents and Foster Care Staff

The Teaching Family Model is an evidence-based program used throughout the country to help youth and their families deal with physically, emotionally, and sexually abused children; delinquent youths, emotionally disturbed, autistic and medically fragile children. The Teaching Family Model teaches the skills they need to lead a productive and satisfying life. It is one of the only childcare models that is well defined and therefore can be effectively replicated.

The Teaching Family Model is designed to train and support the direct care workers knowing that if the children are going to be successful, it must begin at home. Eligible participants for implementing the Teaching Family Model include, but are not limited to, Group Homes, Treatment Foster Care, and Home-Based Treatment.

Training Materials for Foster Parents and Foster Care Staff

Cristy Schlientz has taken her experience as anIndividual Developer for the Teaching Family Model and created training materials that can be purchased from this website. Before Cristy created these training materials for foster parents and foster care staff it used to be that people would have to spend thousands of dollars to either certify in the Teaching Family Model or another similar program. Obviously that certification is still extremely critical for agencies that have the resources to certify. That said, through these training materials, foster parents and foster care staff can educate yourselves for a few hundred dollars. So, with that being said, what topics do these materials cover? Below are just a few of the dozens of training materials that can be purchased in our online store.

• Building Positive Relationships with Youth
• Praising and Correcting Youth Behaviors
• Protecting Youth Rights
• Strategies for the Uncooperative Youth

The four documents above are just a few of our best training materials for foster parents and foster care staff. These documents are part of the Pre-Service Workshop from the Teaching Family Model. One nice thing about purchasing these documents is that you’re not going to break the bank. Cristy wanted to make sure that everyone who wants the documents can afford them. They range from under $10 to $25, but that’s about as high as individual documents go. We hope you will consider making a purchase and continuing educating yourself on how to become the best possible foster care provider that you can be. If you have any questions about any of our foster care training materials, please feel free to use the contact form on the website to send Cristy a note.

Values Strategies which are compatible with the Teaching Family Model can be broken out into 5 core components, which are:

1. Relationship Development
2. Values Introduction
3. Recognition
4. Guidance
5. Self-Determination

Now that we know which strategies to use for teaching personal and family values to children, let’s dig into how to apply each one of them to your daily life.

Relationship Development

The most important thing that you can do to help model relationship development for young children and pre-adolescents is to spend quality time together with them. For adolescents this is accomplished through open and honest communication. Far too often we let our busy lives, technology, and other “trivial” things get in the way of spending real quality time with our children. If you want to help your children learn personal and family values, it starts with relationship development. Turn the TV off and have a conversation.

Values Introduction

Once relationships are formed with your children, you can begin inserting values information into your conversations. In order for children to learn personal and family values, those values must be explained to them. Start by defining the value you wish to instill. For example, if you are trying to teach your children to be polite, explain what it means to be polite, provide examples, and then model it for them. Be sure to give reasons why it’s important to be polite, so that your children understand how it impacts them, and others.

Recognition

Once you’ve explained the different values that you’re hoping to pass along to your children or foster children, it’s time to start helping them recognize when they should use those values. Also, if they use the values on their own, it’s IMPERATIVE that you praise or compliment your child for doing so. Young children and pre-adolescents prefer praise and adolescents prefer compliments.

Guidance

When personal and family values are not used in a situation that calls for them, or if they are used incorrectly, it’s important that you provide guidance to your children. Here are the steps to follow when providing guidance to children:

1. Empathize
2. State the values conflict
3. Give a reason
4. Redirect or correct
5. Optional consequence (compensation or remediation)

Self-Determination

Self-Determination helps to equip the child/adolescent with the skills to recognize and act on opportunities that enable the child to make responsible decisions in areas that affect his or her life.  These skills require that the child consider his or her personal values when making decisions or choices, problem solving, or expressing concerns.

Provide your children with developmentally appropriate freedoms and responsibilities so that they will learn to put their values into practice when making everyday choices and decisions that effect their lives. In doing so you will strengths his/her values of responsibility, trust, honesty, friendship, loyalty, restraint, integrity and more.

Teaching Personal and Family Values to Children

By following the steps above, and making your children a priority, you will be much more effective in teaching personal and family values to them. Modeling is important. Your children pick up on everything that you do. Be sure to practice what you preach or your children will begin to pick up negative habits. Teaching values to children is critically important to their development. Without a core set of values, children will have a difficult time in life building and maintaining relationships with others. It’s up to you to ensure this does not happen. Your children can learn. Be sure that you’re there to help them do so.

Why is Proper Implementation of Evidence-Based Programs Important?

For very obvious reasons, if you believe in a program enough to infuse it into your current treatment system, you believe in its benefits. It’s important to properly implement an evidence-based program like the Teaching-Family Model because it must be implemented properly in order to realize all of its benefits. Also, failure by one practitioner to fully adhere to all of the principles that guide evidence-based programs, can negatively impact other areas and other practitioners. We all know that learning a new program or system takes time, and can be challenging, but if you truly believe in the importance of the program that you’re implementing, failure is not an option.

Failure to Implement Evidence-Based Programs

Many practitioners have a difficult time adhering to a new evidenced-based program when they are not implemented properly. According to the authors, DeBattista, Trivedi, Kern, & Lembke  of “The Status of Evidence-Based Guidelines and Algorithms in the Treatment of Depression”, published in 2002, “even when guidelines are carefully implemented through intensive physician education or well publicized through distribution or publication, their use and influence in clinical practice remains elusive…Evidence suggests that even if a physician adheres to a guideline initially, adherence often diminishes over time” (p. 662). Sometime practitioners adhere fully to all aspects of the new evidence-based program, but that adherence diminishes as the months and years go by. Others only full implement certain aspects of the new program. Whatever the issue is, the result is the failure to properly implement the evidenced-based program. This begs the question, how can we do a better job implementing the program?

Get Help Implementing Evidenced-Based Programs

Implementing a new program like the Teaching-Family Model within a local agency takes time, education, coaching, evaluation, and feedback. You have to follow a similar procedure to that of the program itself when you’re implementing the program at your agency. Bringing in the right help to not only provide your practitioners with the education on the evidence-based program, but also to be there as coaches while those practitioners practice, evaluate each of them against the guiding principles of the program, and then provide feedback to practitioners to help them learn where they are succeeding and where they are falling short is the only true way of ensuring proper implementation of an evidence-based program like the Teaching-Family Model. Implementing an evidence-based program is never easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard, and you don’t have to worry about failing to properly implement the new program IF you work with the right people to support your implementation process.

Initial Contact and Assessment

The first step for getting certified in the Teaching Family Modelwould be to reach out to an Individual Developer like Cristy Schlientz of Innovative Teaching Systems and schedule a free site assessment. Not all Individual Developers offer a FREE on-site assessment, so please keep that in mind when making your decision for who you will use to help you certify in the Teaching Family Model. During the Site Assessment phase, this is what you can expect. We:

• Use a standardized assessment tool to assess your agency’s strengths and program needs
• Review all program information and supervision systems
• Review of training provided to direct care staff and supervisors
• Review of evaluation processes
• Review of administrative systems such as policies and procedures, budget, personnel recruitment and hiring, financial resources, admissions procedures, records, etc.
• Interview staff and youth utilizing standardized assessment survey instruments
• Provide overview and explanations of the Teaching Family Model hallmarks, philosophies, goals, program components, elements, etc.

Once the Site Assessment is complete we are able to propose an Individualized Development Plan for your agency.

Preparation of an Individualized Development Plan

The outcome of a successful on-site assessment is our Site Assessment Report. The report is a summary of our findings from the on-site assessment. The reports shows:

• Agency/program strengths
• Identified Needs
• Recommendations for Change
• Proposed Service Delivery Plan

Once the report is completed we review it with your agency executives and together we finalize the plan. We collect any input from your agency executives and make sure it is incorporated into plan prior to implementation. Once the report is finalized we move forward in reviewing the following:

• Related costs
• Potential barriers
• Training requirements
• Staffing requirements or changes
• Need for administrative and board support
• Names and qualifications of agency service providers
• Assignment of site coordinator to oversee the delivery of services from your agency

Following the successful negotiation of budget, timing, and the remainder of the items on the list above, it’s time to initiate Teaching Family Model certification training.

Teaching Family Model Certification Services

Innovative Teaching Systems offers many different services to our agency partners. Some agencies need to utilize all of our services, while others only need to train in a few different areas. Below are the Teaching Family Model services that we offer:

• Pre-Service Workshop for supervisory, program & administrative staff
• Pre-Service Workshop for all practitioners
• Consultation Training for Supervisors and Administrators
• Co-Consultation Visits to aid in the application of consultation skills
• Train the Trainer Workshop for everyone involved in the delivery of training services
• Evaluation Training for everyone who will be assigned to evaluate staff performance
• Practitioner pre-evaluation training and evaluations (six month and/or annual)
• Identification of outcome indicators and data collection
  methods
• On-going monitoring and review of program implementation through total systems reviews
• Phone consultation as needed to support implementation
• Development and revisions of training materials
• Organizational structure and job descriptions
• Program & personnel policies and procedures
• Licensing and accreditation
• Program structure and organization
• Strengths-based individualized treatment plans
• Individualized motivation systems
• Parent training and family reunification
• Cultural competence
• Management and leadership training
• Other in-service training

Hopefully this gives you a better idea of what you can expect during the Site Development process. Because this process is so important, we wanted to provide you with more information on different areas of the Site Development process. We will be publishing Part 2 of the Site Development process next month, so stay tuned for that article. If you want to be notified when the article has been published, please consider subscribing to our blog.

In order to help youths develop better problem solving skills, the SODAS method must be taught to them. Far too often youths forget to take a second to think through their decisions before making them. They can get caught up in the heat of the moment or even fall subject to peer pressure. By teaching youths the SODAS method you are arming them with the skills they need to take a step back, analyze the situation, and make the smart decision.

Components of the SODAS Method

By following the steps below Teaching Parents can help youths solve their issues, as well as, teach youths a great method for solving future issues on their own. The components of the SODAS method are as follows:

• Situation – Describe the problem or issue facing the youth
• Options – List the options the youth has for solving his/her issue. Try to find at least three to four different options for solving the situation.
• Disadvantages – Review the Options that you determined could solve the problem and list three to four disadvantages for each Option.
• Advantages – Review the Options that you determined could solve the problem and list three to four advantages for each Option.
• Solution – Finally, review the Options with the Advantages and Disadvantages for each, and select the best Option for solving the youth’s problem.

Situations When the SODAS Method Can Be Applied

Youths are faced with situations every day whereby they can apply the SODAS method to help them come up with the appropriate solution to the situation. Here are a few example situations whereby the SODAS method can be applied:

• A friend or acquaintance starts doing drugs and tells the youth to “try it”
• A student in one of the youth’s school classes asks the youth to “borrow his homework”
• The youth sees someone doing something wrong or even illegal and needs to decide if he should report the offense
• The youth is buying something in a store and realizes that the clerk did not charge him for one or more of the products he purchased

Any of these examples are prime situations when the SODAS method should be applied. By taking time to analyze the situation, determine the options for handing the situation, and compare and contrast the disadvantage and advantages for each option, the youth will more than likely choose the best solution for each situation. Teaching children the SODAS method provides them the skills they need to make the right decisions when confronted with these situations.

One of the first questions that sites looking to implement the Teaching-Family Model ask is, ‘how long does it take to implement the model?’. Full implementation of the Teaching-Family Model usually takes approximately three to five years. Once implemented the model provides a balanced practitioner-based program that is also strengths-based and outcomes-oriented. This model has been proven effective in helping youth learn valuable skills and remediate their problems identified at the time of program admission.

The Teaching-Family Model is an evidence-based program used throughout the country to help youth and their families deal with physically, emotionally, and sexually abused children; delinquent youths, emotionally disturbed, autistic and medically fragile children. The Teaching-Family Model teaches the skills they need to lead a productive and satisfying life. It is one of the only childcare models that is well defined and therefore can be effectively replicated.

Step 1: On-Site Assessment

The on-site assessment allows Innovative Teaching Systems to get to know your facility, your staff, and your children. It helps us learn about your strengths, as well as, understand what specific needs you have, so that we are able to custom tailor the Teaching-Family Model to your needs. The on-site assessment usually last 3-5 days.

Step 2: Pre-Service

The Teaching Parents receive extensive Pre-Service Workshop training as their initial preparation for operation of the program. Usually lasting 5-7 days for residential settings and 3 days for foster care settings. The training covers all of the components of the Teaching-Family Model. The workshop format includes lecture group discussions, learning activities, and role-play sessions to allow the new Teaching Parents to practice the teaching procedures.

Step 3: Consultation

A program consultant, a childcare professional hired by program administration, offers support and assistance to the Teaching Parents. This “consultant” assists the Teaching Parents in full implementation of the Pre-Service Workshop training, provides continuous on-the-job training for Teaching Parents, assures quality intervention services for youths, and provides program supervision. The Consultation workshop usually lasts approximately 3 days, but there are multiple on-site visits whereby a representative from Innovative Teaching Systems works with Supervisors to ensure they are properly supporting the implementation of the Teaching-Family Model by Teaching Parents.

Step 4: Train-the-Trainer

This workshop is for individuals interested in delivering the Pre-Service Workshop Training to Teaching Parents (Practitioner). In order for the quality standards and professional behaviors that make up the Teaching-Family Model to be effectively taught to Practitioners, staff and agency administrators must first be trained properly, which is where the Train-the-Trainer Workshop comes in.

Step 5: Evaluation

The Evaluation Workshop is on-going throughout the certification process. Teaching Parents undergo an extensive evaluation to ensure that they are implementing the Teaching Family Model, as well as, the strategies as defined by the youth’s individual treatment plans. The evaluation process is a means of obtaining feedback concerning the quality, effectiveness, pleasantness, and usefulness of a treatment program. Teaching Parents (and other direct care workers and practitioners) are first evaluated at 6 months to see if they’ve properly implemented the Pre-Service Curriculum. Anything that needs improvement is addressed at this point. At 1 year, Teaching Parents are evaluated again and can become certified at this point.

Evaluation Workshop

The Evaluation Workshop is designed to be the quality assurance component of the Teaching-Family Model. The Evaluation Workshop:

• Ensures services and treatment are appropriate for individual youth needs and goals
• Measures progress towards individual youth goals and discharge plan
• Ensures appropriate treatment practices and program systems to facilitate the achievement of the individual youth goals
• Values evaluation training as critical to ensure that evaluators are properly prepared to accurately assess program quality

In order to properly evaluate how well the implementation of the Teaching-Family Model is going, data and feedback are collected. The data collected is a measurement of client progress towards achievement of treatment goals. Proper evaluation helps to promote Practitioner professional growth and development while also providing a mechanism for program and agency development.

Evaluations are outcome oriented and strengths-based. Data and observations reflect specific Teaching Parent techniques used to build on youth’s strengths and providing protective factors. Evaluation results represent the Teaching Parent’s success in effectively implementing the Teaching Family Model, identify and reinforce Teaching Parent strengths and to help youths meet their treatment goals, and provide realistic and helpful guidance for further Teaching Parent development.

Without the Evaluation Workshop the other components of the Teaching-Family Model cannot be effective. When becoming certified in the Teaching-Family Model Individual Developers like Innovative Teaching Systems can help execute the Evaluation Workshop so that Agencies who are implementing the Teaching-Family Model can feel confident that they are doing so correctly.

Goals of the Consultation Workshop

Here’s what the Consultation Workshop will provide:

• assures that Teaching Parents have the guidance and support to fully implement the  pre-service workshop curriculum with fidelity

• continuous professional development opportunities by providing in-service training for Teaching Parents

• quality intervention services for the youth

• clearly defined accountability for program supervision of Teaching Parents

When implementing the Teaching-Family Model professional consultants will work with Teaching Parents to ensure that each child receives individualized treatment. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach for improving youth behavior. In order for the Teaching-Family Model to work, each child needs to be worked with differently, while still following the overall program guidelines. Also, participation in the Consultation Workshop stresses the participation and involvement of the family in planning and implementing treatment goals as well as arranging frequent home visits when possible. It’s important to involve family in this process as parents play a big role in youth development.

Implementing the Teaching-Family Model at your facility definitely requires dedication on everyone’s part. With that said, you’re not alone in the process. The system has been built for people just like YOU. If you’d like to learn more about receiving help implementing the Teaching-Family Model please sign-up for a free site evaluation or even contact Innovative Teaching Systems to get your questions answered. We are here to help!

Case Managers will visit the foster home at least twice per month, or as needed, and provide feedback to foster parents. Together the Case Manager and Foster Parents will set up goals for both the Foster Parents and their Foster Child(ren). The Case Manager will work with both the Foster Parents and the Foster Child(ren), helping them to meet their objectives. Case Managers can help in the following ways:

• Help to develop individual plans for the foster child
• Design systems to motivate the foster child
• Assist foster parent as they perform administrative work
• Help foster parents develop relationships with foster child’s family
• Help foster parents develop communication with the child’s teachers
• Coordinate work with other agency staff

Case Managers will let foster parents proceed with their normal activities while the Case Manager observes foster parents working with the foster child. Case Managers may briefly provide therapy for the child and they will provide verbal and written feedback for foster parents. Having a Case Manager work with you as you implement the Teaching-Family Model at your Foster Home helps make the model that much more effective. If you are looking for a Case Manager to help you implement the Teaching-Family Model at your Foster Home, Innovative Teaching Systems can help. Contact us anytime and someone will get back with you OR you can even sign-up for our Free On-Site Assessment by providing us with your email address. We look forward to hearing from you.

Why Should Teaching Parents Promote Parent Involvement?

The first thing to understand is that parents are vital to a youth’s success. Parents have a lot of valuable information that will help Teaching Parents with the treatment planning process. Having an understanding of the youth’s past history and his or her current situation allows Teaching Parents to be much more prepared for working with the youth.

It’s important for Teaching Parents to begin building a strong relationship with parents early on in the youth development process. One way Teaching Parents can build strong relationships with parents is to show just how committed they are to the parents’ son or daughter. Parents become more comfortable working with Teaching Parents when they realize that Teaching Parents are dedicated to providing quality treatment to their son or daughter. Having a good relationship with parents will also be critical once the youth has completed the program and goes home. Parents will be better equipped to continue working with their son or daughter because they have an understanding of the program and what their son or daughter has been taught.

How Do Teaching Parents Build Relationships with Parents?

The best way for Teaching Parents to build strong relationships with youth’s parents is to make them feel like they are part of the process. As you read above, parents play a critical role during youth development with the Teaching Family Model. Teaching Parents must make them feel good about their role in the process. Teaching Parents should share with the parents the youth’s daily schedule, motivation system, target skill areas, privilege package, and basic program guidelines. Teaching parents should provide opportunities for the youth to visit at home, for the parents to visit at the program, and for parents to participate in program planning and activities. This way parents and youths can interact and continue building those family bonds. When parents cannot attend certain sessions Teaching Parents should contact parents frequently and consistently to share information about their son/daughter’s progress and routine. Remember, the goal is to make parents feel empowered enough to continue helping their son or daughter once they have finished with the program. By building strong relationships with parents, Teaching Parents are getting parents involved in the process and educating them on the Teaching Family Model all at the same time.

When it comes to youth development, everyone has a role to play. With that said, it’s critical to the success of the program that parents are actively involved. Teaching Parents can ensure that happens.