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The PRIDE Program
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CWLA is pleased to offer the innovative program: Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education (PRIDE)--a model for developing and supporting foster families and adoptive families.
The PRIDE program is designed to strengthen the quality of family foster care and adoption services by providing a standardized, consistent, structured framework for the competency-based recruitment, preparation, and selection of foster and adoptive parents, and for foster parent in-service training and ongoing professional development.
The program was developed through a multiyear project initiated by the Illinois Department of Family and Children's Services and CWLA. The project involved the collaboration of 14 state child welfare agencies, one private family foster care agency operating in several states, two national resource centers, one foundation, and several universities and colleges.
PRIDE represents the state of the art in foster and adoptive parent preparation, development, and support. The content of the products is consistent with the CWLA Standards of Excellence for Family Foster Care, which specify the competencies and training approach provided by the PRIDE program.
The Model
PRIDE is a 14-step process to develop and support resource families. PRIDE has three major training components: Foster PRIDE/Adopt PRIDE Preservice, Foster PRIDE Core, and Foster PRIDE Advanced and Specialized Training.
PRIDE Preservice is a program for recruiting, preparing, assessing, and selecting prospective foster and adoptive parents. PRIDE Core, an in-service training program for new and experienced foster parents, addresses the competencies required of all foster parents, regardless of the child's condition or conduct. PRIDE Specialized and Advanced Training (Teens in Care: Supporting Attachment and Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Domestic Violence) builds upon core competencies to offer more comprehensive training in specific areas, such as working with teens or helping children manage anger. Although designed for foster parents, much of PRIDE Core and Specialized and Advanced Training will also be of interest to adoptive parents.
Integral to all three components is the belief that protecting and nurturing children at risk and strengthening all their families (birth, foster, or adoptive) requires teamwork among individuals with diverse knowledge and skills, but all working from a shared vision and toward a common goal. Foster and adoptive parents are essential members of this team. They, like caseworkers, require preparation and training to acquire the knowledge and skills they need to be effective members of the professional team.
PRIDE Preservice, PRIDE Core, and PRIDE Specialized and Advanced Training are all designed to teach knowledge and skills in five essential competency categories for foster parents and adoptive parents:
- protecting and nurturing children;
- meeting children's developmental needs, and addressing developmental delays;
- supporting relationships between children and their families;
- connecting children to safe, nurturing relationships intended to last a lifetime; and
- working as a member of a professional team.
PRIDE Preservice
This program offers a competency-based, integrated approach to recruitment, family assessment, and preservice training. Through a series of at-home consultations and competency-based training sessions, prospective families have an opportunity to learn and practice the knowledge and skills they will need as new foster parents and adoptive parents. The readiness of families to foster or adopt is assessed in the context of their ability and willingness to meet the essential competencies.
PRIDE Preservice comprises the following resources:
- The Process to Develop and Support Resource Families Practice Handbook addresses the 14-step process--for example, planning and implementing recruitment strategies, responding to telephone inquiries, and conducting at-home family consultations using ecomaps, genograms, and other competency-based assessment tools to identify strengths and address areas of concern. The skills addressed focus on culturally competent assessment regarding prospective families' competencies at the preservice level and willingness to use those competencies as members of the agency's child protection team.
The Practice Handbook includes the Family Development Plan (FDP), a written plan describing a foster family's competencies, annual training goals, methods for reaching those goals, and how to determine if goals have been met. The family and agency develop the FDP together. It guides the ongoing process of developing and supporting individual foster families and can direct the agency's overall system for enhancing the collective competencies of its foster parents. The FDP helps foster parents and agencies determine how to get "the right training to the right foster parents."
- Trainer's Guide (available in English and Spanish) provides content and direction for conducting nine three-hour preservice sessions.
Session One: Connecting with PRIDE
Session Two: Teamwork Towards Permanency
Session Three: Meeting Developmental Needs: Attachment
Session Four: Meeting Developmental Needs: Loss
Session Five: Strengthening Family Relationships
Session Six: Meeting Developmental Needs: Discipline
Session Seven: Continuing Family Relationships
Session Eight: Planning for Change
Session Nine: Making an Informed Decision: Taking PRIDE
- The PRIDEBook (available in English and Spanish) includes all the resource materials for participants in the sessions and may be used as a reference at home after children are placed. The materials include worksheets for use during the sessions, a summary of session content, resource readings for the home, and worksheets that link the training experience with family assessment and the at-home consultations.
- The 35-minute video Making a Difference (available in English and Spanish and in both VHS and DVD format) for use in Session One, demonstrates the competencies essential for fostering and for adopting and explaining the differences between "making a commitment to be meaningful to a child's lifetime and making a lifetime commitment to a child."
- The 35-minute video Developing Family Resources (available in English and Spanish) demonstrates family assessment strategies and how to incorporate family assessment with preservice training.
- The 35-minute video Foster PRIDE/Adopt PRIDE Program Vignettes (available in English on VHS, in English on DVD, and in Spanish on DVD) portrays 20 situations in the placement process to promote discussion and learning.
- The 17-minute video Family Forever, developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, explains foster-care as a family-focused service, is intended to promote a better understanding of how birthparents experience their children's placement. (Note: Although this video is not officially a PRIDE Preservice component, it is strongly recommended that trainers using PRIDE Preservice include this video in their training.)
PRIDE Core Training
PRIDE Core consists of 11 modules of competency-based in-service training. The modules, which total 87 hours of training, range in duration from 3 to 15 hours each. Each module includes a Trainer's Guide and a PRIDEBook, which contains all the resource materials participants will use in the sessions and at home: worksheets, a summary of session content, and resource readings.
Foster PRIDE Core resources comprise:
- Module 1: The Foundation for Meeting the Developmental Needs of Children at Risk (12 hours)
- Module 2: Using Discipline to Protect, Nurture, and Meet Developmental Needs (9 hours)
- Module 3: Addressing Developmental Issues Related to Sexuality (3 hours)
- Module 4: Responding to the Signs and Symptoms of Sexual Abuse (6 hours)
- Module 5: Supporting Relationships between Children and Their Families (9 hours)
- Module 6: Working as a Professional Team Member (9 hours)
- Module 7: Promoting Children's Personal and Cultural Identity (6 hours)
- Module 8: Promoting Permanency Outcomes (12 hours)
- Module 9: Managing the Fostering Experience (6 hours)
- Module 10 (CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE): Understanding the Effects of Chemical Dependency on Children and Families (15 hours)
- Module 11: Understanding and Promoting Child Development (3 hours)
- Module 12: Understanding and Promoting Preteen and Teen Development
PRIDE Advanced and Specialized Training
Foster PRIDE Advanced and Specialized Modules provide ongoing professional development for foster parents who have completed PRIDE Core training. Advanced and Specialized modules build on core competencies to provide foster parents with resources and tools to respond effectively to complex situations or issues related to caring for children with particular conditions or life experiences. Adoptive parents will find the topics of interest, as this training addressed many issues common to both foster care and adoption.
Like the PRIDE Core modules, Advanced and Specialized Modules comprised one or more sessions, each of which is three hours in length. Each Advanced and Specialized module includes a Trainer's Guide and the PRIDEBook of participant resources for that module.
The first four Advanced and Specialized Modules are now available:
Several additional modules are in development, including helping children and teens manage anger and responding to teens' high-risk behavior.
Implementing PRIDE
Through its work with the collaborating PRIDE states, CWLA's Trieschman Center is experienced in helping agencies design and carry out an agencywide plan for implementing the PRIDE training program. The center's training staff can provide consultation and technical assistance to agency training units and management and planning groups interested in improving the quality of family foster care and adoption services.
Trieschman Center staff can provide a variety of training services, depending on an agency's specific needs, including
- half- and full-day workshops to inform agency staff, foster parents, and adoptive parents about the program;
- onsite intensive training for family development specialists and trainers on conducting the PRIDE Preservice sessions and family assessments;
- training for agency trainers on how to teach the PRIDE program on an ongoing basis to trainers and family development specialists;
- training for trainers on PRIDE Core and PRIDE Specialized and Advanced Training; and
- teamwork skills training for agency staff and foster parents to achieve PRIDE outcomes.
Place an order for:
For more information on PRIDE Training, contact
- Ginnie Waldron
CWLA
4 Casablanca Court
Haverhill MA 01832
978/374-6648
gwaldron@cwla.org
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