New FosterParentCollege.com® Pre-service Class Introduces The Child Welfare Team

PRLog (Press Release) - Sep. 23, 2011 - Caregivers for displaced children need to know how to navigate the child welfare system. Each child’s case is unique yet follows a regulated path towards the goal of a safe and permanent outcome, and each case involves a team of adults who support the child.
In the new FosterParentCollege.com class The Child Welfare Team, Betsy Keefer Smalley of the Ohio Institute for Human Services (IHS) describes how the system works, the stages a typical case follows, and who is on a child’s team and their roles and responsibilities. There is also a brief history of child welfare and a glimpse into the hectic life of a caseworker.
The class is one of a series developed as online versions of the IHS standardized pre-service training curriculum in use throughout the United States. Class 1, Child Abuse & Neglect, launched in 2009 and another, Parent-Child Attachment, launched earlier this month.
The project is funded through a Phase II SBIR grant (#2 R44 HD054032-02) awarded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development.

FosterParentCollege.com® provides interactive online training for foster, adoptive and kinship parents. There are 31 classes and two Advanced Parenting Workshops available at this time. Titles include Substance-Exposed Infants, Grief and Loss in the Care System, Culturally Competent Parenting and Child Safety and Supervision. Brief previews of all classes are available on the website.
FosterParentCollege.com® is:
•   Rated by the California Evidence-based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare
•   Endorsed by the National Foster Parent Association, the Foster Family-based Treatment Association and the Canadian Foster Family Association
•   Approved by the National Association of Social Workers, CASA and the National Adoption Center.
For more information about this article, contact Lisa Siegle at press@northwestmedia.com

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Foster Parent College provides affordable, research-based, interactive, online classes for foster, adoptive and kinship caregivers. Courses are taught by psychologists, pediatricians, behavior specialists and educators and are proven effective.