This document was printed from the website of the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC), which you can access at http://www.cebc4cw.org/
This document was printed from the website of the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare (CEBC), which you can access at http://www.cebc4cw.org/
Type of Maltreatment: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Physical neglect
Target Population: Foster, adoptive, and kinship parents, as well as social workers and other mental health professionals who work with resource parents.
Brief Description:(The information in this program outline is provided by the program representative and edited by the CEBC staff.)
Foster Parent College (FPC) has been rated by the CEBC in the area of Resource Parent Recruitment and Training. FPC is an online training venue for foster, adoptive, and kinship parents. Interactive multimedia courses offered through the site provide resource parents with in-service training on clinical aspects of and parent interventions for their child’s behavior problems. Instructional content is based on social learning theory and attachment theory. There are currently 27 courses on FPC, 15 of which address specific child behavioral and emotional problems. Course topics also include safe parenting, positive parenting, resource parents’ marriage relationships, working with schools and birth parents, home safety, and kinship care. Most FPC courses can be taken individually via computer or in groups via DVD. Two newer online courses are advanced parenting workshops that were designed to be conducted in a group setting, with a discussion board and homework assignments. In addition, agencies can adapt any of the self-paced individual courses for delivery as group workshops with a discussion board, adding their own homework assignments.
Each individual, self-taught course on Foster Parent College:
Courses purchased on DVD include:
Foster Parent College was not designed to be conducted in a group.
Foster Parent College has not been tested for use in a group setting.
Recommended intensity: The average time it takes to complete an individual course, including completion of interactive exercises, reading handouts, and completing a review questionnaire, is 1-2 hours.
Recommended duration: Each course can be completed in 1-2 hours. Courses need not be completed in one session, but most people complete them in 1 or 2 days. Once purchased, courses are available to individuals for 30 days. Workshops are scheduled to be completed over a 3-week period.
Foster Parent College includes a homework component.
Description: Individuals taking courses are expected to complete online interactive exercises and read printable handouts on the Web site.Workshop participants are expected to complete at least 7 of 9 homework assignments and participate in the discussion board 3 times a week for 3 weeks.
Foster Parent College is typically conducted in a(n): Adoptive Home, Community Agency, and Foster Home.
Foster Parent College was designed with a Parent Component.
Foster Parent College addresses the following presenting problems and symptoms: Parents of children with behavior problems or emotional disorders in foster children, including: anger outbursts, stealing, running away, wetting and soiling, sexualized behavior, sleep problems, lying, fire-setting, eating disorders, self-harm, RAD, Anxiety, and ADHD/ADD/ODD.
Foster Parent College was not designed with a Child Component.
Foster Parent College was not developed for children with developmental delays.
Foster Parent College has not been tested for children with developmental delays.
Foster Parent College does not have materials available in a language other than English.
There is not a manual that describes how to implement this program.
There is training available for Foster Parent College.
Training contact: Northwest Media staff people can be contacted for training: Laurie Coffman, Phone: 343-6636, x100; Email: nwm@northwestmedia.com. There are also regularly scheduled one-hour Webinars that provide training for agencies on using the site’s management system.
Number of days/hours: Available as needed; management training usually takes one hour.
Training is obtained: By phone/computer or Webinar.
There currently are additional qualified resources for training.
List of additional qualified resources: Generally, agencies assign an employee to become a trainer for the Web site and provide in-agency training to other staff and support parents.
The typical resources for implementing Foster Parent College are: Individuals taking either the self-taught online courses or the advanced parenting workshops need a computer with high-speed Internet access and audio speakers. For agencies using the DVD version of the courses in a group setting, a single instructor or facilitator is needed, along with seating capacity for participants, a DVD player, and a large enough screen to be seen by everyone in the group. Other options for viewing include using a projector from a laptop, or having individual laptops for everyone in the group. DVDs are also used in a lending library situation, requiring the parents to have access to a DVD player.
Practitioners accessing the online courses need to have minimal computer skills. When agencies use the course material in a group setting, the course facilitators need training and/or experience in social work or counseling with foster and adoptive families. To present the DVD version of a course, there are no minimum qualifications, although group instructional skills are desirable.
Foster Parent College is rated a "3 – Promising Research Evidence" on the Scientific Rating Scale based on the published, peer-reviewed research available. The practice must have at least one study utilizing some form of control (e.g., untreated group, placebo group, matched wait list) establishing the practice's benefit over the placebo, or found it to be comparable to or better than an appropriate comparison practice. For more information on the rating of a “3 – Promising Research Evidence,” please see the Scientific Rating Scale.
Pacifici, C., Delaney, R., White, L., Cummings, K., & Nelson, C. (2005). Foster Parent College: Multimedia training for foster parents. Social Work Research, 29(4), 243-251.
Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of participants: 74 parents
Population:
Location/Institution: U.S.
Summary: (To include comparison groups, outcomes, measures, notable limitations) Participants were randomly assigned to receive a DVD course on managing children’s anger outbursts or two a control group who received no information. Both groups were administered a baseline questionnaire on parenting knowledge drawn from the anger outbursts course content and on parents’ self-perceptions regarding their children’s angry outbursts. The self-perception questionnaire focused on confidence in parenting skills, comfort with anger problems and objectivity towards anger problems. After two weeks in which the intervention parents had been instructed to view the DVD at least twice a week, the questionnaires were re-administered. Results showed higher performance scores in knowledge and perception for the group who had received the DVD course. Limitations included lack of validation and reliability for the parental knowledge and perception measures and a small sample size.
Length of post-intervention follow-up: None
Pacifici, C., Delany, R., White, L., Nelson, C., & Cummings, K. (2006). Web-based training for foster, adoptive and kinship parents. Children and Youth Services Review, 28, 1329-1343.
Type of Study: Randomized controlled trial
Number of participants: 97 parents
Population:
Location/Institution: California
Summary: (To include comparison groups, outcomes, measures, notable limitations) Parents were recruited through the Foster and Kinship Care Education Program of California Community Colleges. Courses were monitored by trainers from each of nine college sites. Participants received course content on two topics: lying and sexualized behavior. Parents were randomly assigned to receive one of the two courses first. When that course was completed they received the second course. Each course included a pretest and posttest on knowledge. Questionnaires developed for the course content assessed knowledge and parent self-perceptions regarding lying and sexualized behavior. Analyses found that parent knowledge on both topics was significantly greater for the intervention groups than for the control group parents who had not yet received that course content. Parents in the intervention group on lying also scored higher on the perception test than did the control group. Groups did not differ on perception scores for sexualized behavior. Limitations of the current study include a small sample size and self-selection of participants.
Length of post-intervention follow-up: None.
There are currently no reference materials on Foster Parent College.
Contact name: Lee White, CEO & President
Affiliation/Agency: Northwest Media, Inc.
Email: research@northwestmedia.com
Phone: 541-343-6636 x102
Fax: 541-343-0177
Website: http://www.FosterParentCollege.com