The Casey Foundation and the Justice Resource Institute developed ARC Reflections, a training curriculum to develop foster parents and caregivers’ understanding of traumatic stress, increase their own emotional regulation and provide tools to support their parenting skills. Session nine — the final meeting — addresses a key challenge: managing a child or teen’s transition to reunification or some other form of permanence, in a safe, supportive way. Facilitators help group members discuss how a foster placement might end, examine real-world factors that influence how children and caregivers experience this phase and review helpful transition strategies. Participants also have an opportunity to process their own transition as the ARC Reflections training ends.
Every session includes a check-in to increase awareness and engagement of participants; a facilitator checklist of session materials; practice activities and take home log for participants; a representative case study to follow throughout the sessions; and reflective questions for participant growth and understanding.
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The caregiver needs to anticipate that children or teens may at some point be moving into a more permanent placement — whether with their biological family or elsewhere — and start the transition process from the beginning of a placement. One way to support transition is to help children and teens build and maintain connections to their larger world, particularly those relationships that will continue beyond their placement in this home.
