Programs

Voices Lite: A Program of Self-Discovery and Empowerment for Girls addresses the unique needs of adolescent girls and young women. This is a shorter 12-session version of the full 18-session Voices: A Program of Self-Discovery and Empowerment for Girls. The program includes modules on self, connecting with others, healthy living, and the journey ahead. Topics include bullying, the pressures of social media, gender exploration, and binge drinking. Texting, social media, and online or “in real life” (IRL) friends also included.

The facilitator’s guide includes background information about young women, gender-responsive principles, and the theoretical foundation of the program. It provides information about conducting the twelve group sessions that are the core of the program (the structure and content for each topic and activity), as well as a program overview and lists of materials needed for the sessions. The program materials also can be used to train staff members in working with girls.

The participant’s journal utilizes an established process called Interactive Journaling®. In the context of girls’ lives, structured journaling provides an outlet for creativity, personal expression, exploration, and application of new concepts and skills.

The LIFE (Live In Family Enhancement) program offers a unique alternative to traditional out-of-home care for families involved in the child welfare system. The program provides the opportunity to keep the family together while the children are in care through the placement of the entire family in a supported and supervised setting. The parent(s) and their children live together in a foster home for a period of eight months to a year. During this time, the LIFE Caregiver mentors, guides, supports, and serves as a role model for the LIFE parents. The LIFE Caregiver focuses on building and securing the parents’ attachment to their children, developing routines, building confidence in parenting abilities, and development of both new skills and a new direction for their parenting future.

The Success Coach Service (SCS) is a voluntary service that provides ongoing support and enhanced case management to children and families in an array of post-care services. The primary goals of the Success Coach are to support the family providing a stable and safe environment for their children, to build family resiliency, and to implement support services building a positive long-term effect on strengthening the permanent placement and enhancing child wellbeing for children who achieve permanency. Success Coaches work with the families to assess their strengths and needs, create a success plan, and achieve their goals. This is done through reducing risk factors and increasing protective factors via monthly face-to-face sessions with the family. However, these sessions can be completed through virtual means, community visits, or other settings to meet the needs of the family.

Works Wonders® promotes increased well-being, career development, employment and education engagement, relational competencies, and self-determination for youth who are currently in (or have aged out of) foster care and/or involved in other systems. Works Wonders® is not designed to simply place youth in jobs but works to help them explore career paths that align to their individual interests and needs while assisting them to build the social competencies that are necessary for positive, productive workplace relationships. The program addresses barriers to employment and educational attainment through community partnerships and leveraged resources. Works Wonders® aims to empower youth to achieve success as they transition into adulthood.

AFFIRM Youth is an eight-session, manualized affirmative cognitive-behavioral group intervention. It is designed to reduce depression and improve coping skills and self-efficacy for LGBTQ+ youth. Using a trauma-informed approach, AFFIRM Youth is tailored to the experiences of LGBTQ+ youth and provides them opportunities to develop identity cognition (e.g., self-awareness, identifying risk), mood (e.g., recognizing the link between thoughts and feelings), and behavior (e.g., identifying strengths and ways of coping), as well as equipping them with the tools to self-manage their mental health.

Listening and Led by Youth in Foster Care: Grief, Hope, and Transitions (L.Y.G.H.T.) is a trauma-informed peer grief support program designed to address both death and non-death losses experienced by adolescents and young adults (ages 12–23) in foster care. L.Y.G.H.T. is a youth-led and youth-driven program facilitated by supportive adults who work within the child welfare system. Participants meet biweekly to engage in discussions and provide peer support in navigating the myriad of issues they have experienced during and after removal from their homes and placement into foster care. Participation in L.Y.G.H.T. groups is voluntary, and participants are grouped by age (teens and young adults) and supported by two trained adult facilitators. The topics for discussion are generated by the participants, prioritizing peer support and fostering a sense of shared understanding. The program does not follow a fixed curriculum, allowing for a flexible and participant-driven approach.

Positive Indian Parenting (PIP) is an 8- to 10-week curriculum that is designed to provide practical and culturally specific training for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) parents. Parents are assisted in exploring the values and attitudes expressed in traditional AI/AN child-rearing practices and applying them to modern parenting.

The curriculum is composed of eight sessions which draw on the strengths of traditional Indian parenting practices including:

• Traditional parenting
• Lessons of the storyteller
• Lessons of the cradleboard
• Harmony in child rearing
• Traditional behavior management
• Lessons of Mother Nature
• Praise in traditional parenting
• Choices in parenting

In addition, the historic impact of boarding schools, intergenerational trauma and grief, and forced assimilation of parenting are addressed. PIP aims to empower Indian families to reclaim their right to their heritage to be positive parents.

MST-BSF is an ecologically based treatment model for families involved with child welfare services due to physical abuse and/or neglect plus parental substance misuse. MST-BSF is designed to provide all families with intensive safety planning, Reinforcement-Based Treatment for adult substance misuse, a relapse prevention group, and clarification of the abuse or neglect. On an individualized, as-needed basis, children and adults receive treatment for clinical challenges such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), parenting, and family communication. To assure model fidelity, an array of quality assurance procedures is integrated into the model. The model is operated through a team consisting of a supervisor, a family resource specialist who focuses on basic needs, and three therapists that carry a caseload maximum of 4 families. Services are provided a minimum of 3 times per week plus there are on-call services for crises available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. A psychiatrist is available 10-20% time. A close working relationship with child welfare services is important.

The Michigan Model of Infant Mental Health Home Visiting (IMH-HV) is a needs-driven, relationship-focused intervention for parents and infants/toddlers aged 0 (pregnancy) to 36 months. IMH-HV aims to meet the needs of families at risk for relationship problems, child abuse and/or neglect, and behavioral health concerns. Families are eligible for IMH-HV if either the parent or child have concerns that make them more susceptible to disruptions in the parent-child relationship (e.g., parent mental health, child social-emotional and regulatory concerns). IMH-HV is delivered weekly in families’ homes by Master’s-level providers. Through a multifaceted approach, IMH-HV aims to increase parental competencies, promote mental health and sensitive caregiving, and thus reduce risk for the infant/toddler and lessen the probability of intergenerational transmission of the effects of unresolved loss and trauma in parents.

The Kinship Caregiver Engagement and Support Program is a trauma-informed, triad-centric, child welfare intervention that aims to increase the likelihood of a placement with relatives or fictive kin. In turn, this placement can lead to improved outcomes in safety, well-being, and permanency for children. Additionally, the kinship placement ideally facilitates higher levels of devotion to meeting placement goals for the entire family, as the kinship caregiver has more insight into family dynamics than a traditional foster parent would possess. Kinship Caregiver Engagement and Support Program is designed to assist the local Child Welfare agency in:

• Identifying kinship family supports
• Providing education on kinship licensure processes
• Finding emergency kinship identification for placement options for children being removed
• Finding kinship identification for children in congregate care
• Increasing culturally and racially relevant placements

The core services at Relief Nursery are home visiting, parenting education, respite care, basic needs support, and therapeutic early childhood classrooms. Relief Nursery provides support services to families with a limited-income, who are raising children birth to age six, with multiple stressors which may include domestic violence, addiction, mental health challenges, unemployment, unstable housing, being a teen parent, parental or child history of trauma, etc. Additional services may include child and family counseling, early intervention/early childhood special education, and addiction recovery peer support services.

The Kinship Navigator (CHN-KN) Children’s Home Network provides supportive services to any relative or nonrelative raising a child on a full-time basis when a parent is unable or unwilling to provide care. Nonrelative refers to someone unrelated who has a significant or family-like relationship to the child. This program provides services to families regardless of their status with the child welfare system, therefore serving informal and formal families. CHN-KN provides a centralized intake line, comprehensive assessments, family conferencing, and navigation services that include securing concrete needs, enrollment in public assistance, linkage to key community resources, development of informal and formal supports, service and crisis planning, support groups, and follow-up contacts at 3-month intervals postcompletion of the program.