Interview by Nancy Fortunato, Jeanette Vega and Robbyne Wiley
Glenn Saxe, a developer of Trauma Systems Therapy and professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine, explains how caseworkers can respond to signs of possible trauma.
Q: How can you tell if a parent’s actions are related to past trauma?
A: As a caseworker supervising visits, you may see surprising responses, like a parent getting very withdrawn in certain moments. Over time, you may see … Read More
VIDEO: Parent-to-Parent TIPS for Supervised Visits
Parents come to foster care agencies experiencing not only the trauma of losing their child but also the confusion of navigating a complex system. Parents must:
• Keep track of appointments at multiple agencies and in court;
• Understand the roles and expectations of professionals in their case;
• Believe they can meet these expectations.
Research shows that stress affects our ability to think and plan. Giving parents information both verbally and in writing … Read More
Rise’s TIPS handouts, videos and posters offer parents clear information and peer guidance to navigate their cases, and provide frontline foster care professionals with tools to strengthen communication and trust with parents.
Developed in partnership with parents and frontline staff at three NYC foster care agencies–Graham Windham, JCCA and Sheltering Arms–our first set of TIPS focuses on visits. Rise has trained caseworkers, visit coaches and parents advocates to use the TIPS to orient parents when their children enter … Read More
When child protective services took my son Logan, I thought my life was over. Logan was 9 months old. I didn’t know anything about the foster care system.
After an emergency hearing, I got visits with him twice each week for one hour. I spent two years visiting him without missing any of those visits. But I didn’t leave Logan’s father, who the agency considered a threat.
When I learned that the agency had moved my case “upstairs” … Read More
When I learned about a program called Visit Coaching, which is designed to help families have better quality visits, I decided to get trained to be a coach.
I know from experience how important visits are. My own son was in foster care. By coming early to visits and playing with him, I was able to show him that I loved him even though we were separated. But visits can also reflect all the pain, anger, … Read More
