This Leader's Guide describes the process and content for conducting a 1 hour and 45 minute meeting with the children of prospective foster and adoptive parents. During the meeting, children explore what it means to be part of a foster or adoptive family. By the end of this meeting, the children of prospective resource parents should be able to talk with their parents about being a foster or adoptive family. This will help their parents make an informed commitment based upon their entire family's abilities and willingness to ensure safety, well-being and permanence for children in foster care. This meeting also provides the leaders of the adult preparation and selection program information about the strengths and needs of each family, based upon what they learn from the children.
The guide includes handouts which may be reproduced for the children's group, as well as a video, Children and Youth Talk About Foster Care and Adoption.
This video helps children of prospective foster and adoptive parents think about issues of safety, well-being and permanence for children in foster care. They meet Teddy, who demonstrates how children who are in foster care may be more vulnerable and how behavioral indicators of stress are not unusual for children in foster care. Also featured in the film are Teddy's older sisters, Angela and Michelle, who were placed separately from Teddy and did not know where he was. Nichole and Desiree are sisters who were placed together, and they talk about the confusion of being placed in foster care. Finally, Dan and Moses were separated when they were placed in foster care at a younger age. Now teenagers, they talk about their adoption. Dan was adopted first by Lynetta. After younger brother Moses experienced two failed adoptions, he was also adopted by Lynetta, who helped them both maintain connections with their birth mother, grandmother and siblings.
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