Session: Three Trauma-Informed Foster Parent Trainings Implemented in the Public Child Welfare Setting: Findings and Implications for Practice (Society for Social Work and Research 22nd Annual Conference - Achieving Equal Opportunity, Equity, and Justice)

The child welfare system must provide services that include protection, safety, and permanency for those served. Related to this is the need to develop a trauma-informed child welfare system. Children involved with child welfare display a range of emotions and behaviors in response to the trauma they have experienced (Dovran et al., 2012). Foster parents are an often-ignored subpopulation of the child welfare workforce with considerable potential to help mitigate the negative effects of childhood trauma. Foster parents have the most contact with children and youth, provide daily services and caregiving, and know the most about their behavior (Chipungu & Bent-Goodley, 2004). Despite the presence of foster parents in these children lives, training for foster parents is inadequate to prepare them for the challenges of caring for children who have experienced trauma. While most states require foster parents to participate in pre-service training and continuing education, the quantity and content can vary widely (Grimm, 2003). Providing trauma training to foster parents can promote better child outcomes, including stability, permanency, and improvements in children's behavioral and social-emotional well-being. This symposium will discuss the results of three studies that implemented different trauma trainings for foster parents. The first paper will examine the implementation of Trauma Systems Therapy-Foster Care (TST-FC) for child welfare staff and foster parents, and the impact on their trauma knowledge and skill development, as well as improvements in placement stability and foster parent retention. Findings suggest that there was high fidelity to TST-FC among both foster parents and child welfare staff, in turn leading to an increase in their knowledge and skills in caring for children in their care. In addition, results show increased placement stability and improved foster parent retention. The second paper will discuss the implementation of Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency, Reflections in foster care (ARC Reflections). ARC is a clinical trauma treatment that was adapted for use with foster parents. Using mixed methodology, ARC was evaluated to determine fidelity to the model, foster parent's knowledge of trauma, trauma-informed parenting, and whether the training was associated with placement stability. Foster parents demonstrated significant improvement in knowledge of trauma, tolerance of trauma-based child misbehavior, and parent efficacy. Authors will present findings on fidelity and placement stability. The third paper assesses statewide implementation of the Trauma-Informed Partnering for Safety and Permanence-Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (TIPS-MAPP), a preparation program for foster parents that emphasizes trauma training. The evaluation examined model fidelity, effects on foster parents' willingness to care for children with special needs, and views on caregiving practices. Training participation had limited impact on willingness to foster youth with special needs, but improvements were observed in some caregiving domains, familiarity with trauma-related content, and receptivity to birth family involvement. Pre-test factors also predicted training completion. Collectively, the papers will contribute to social workers' understanding of trauma-informed care in child welfare, and the importance of preparing foster parents to care for these vulnerable children. The session will encourage audience discussion of implications for social work research, policy, and practice.