Presented by Charles Chamber, Program Director, Kinship Center Family Ties Program
at Input Hearing for Reauthorization of the Older Americans Act
San Francisco, CA, March 3, 2010
To begin, when you refer to “caregivers” in your Topics List, you are primarily talking about a younger person caring for an older person. I would like to request that you add a topic of Kin Caregiver which would refer to an older person caring for a related child. The impact and increase of the elderly having to care for small children in today's society is very profound.
Parents who adopt children from a different ethnic or racial background have additional parenting tasks as they assist their children in developing positive racial and ethnic identity. One of the leading experts in the field of transracial adoptions is Dr. Joseph Crumbley, DSW. One of the experts featured in this video, Dr. Crumbley speaks to the need for parents to not minimize their child's experience of racism and discrimination. As you will see in this clip, this is often a very tricky subject for Caucasian parents.
Reprinted from the Child Trauma Academy Newsletter, February 2010
Children are not simply small adults. They learn differently - often making sense of their world through motion and touch. They even express their feelings in physical ways - when angry, they hit and kick. Because kids do not have the cognitive abilities to understand and control their feelings, in order to change how they feel, they may need to actually manipulate their physical state. Traumatized children are especially prone to confusing and seemingly uncontrollable physical sensations and feelings. Yoga, a form of exercise, relaxation, and meditation is particularly beneficial for these children, and for reasons beyond why exercise in general is helpful.
This list of Children's Rights and Open Adoption offers practitioners in foster care and adoption, as well as parents, a guide for practice and right action. The list also allows us to look at all children in our society through a broader lens. Children come into the world with their rights intact and the adults in their lives have the obligation to preserve those rights until the child can act on them.
A groundbreaking book on the healing power of "mindsight," the potent skill that is the basis for both emotional and social intelligence. Mindsight allows you to make positive changes in your brain–and in your life.
Using the Power of the Five Senses to Increase Attachment
by Margaret A. Creek, MFT, ATR-BC and Laura Ornelas, MSW, LCSW - Kinship Center
Many foster and adoptive parents come to our clinics, asking for the specific, perhaps magical therapy that is going to fully “attach” their foster or adopted child to them . What they frequently do not realize is that they are already holding the key.
Mistaking "symptoms" as "problems" and missing the chance to be therapeutic.
By Lorraine E. Fox, Ph.D.
As I approach my 44th year working with mistreated children and youth and those who serve them, I am continually discouraged by how often I encounter child care workers, foster parents, and others who confuse "symptoms" with "problems." Symptoms are a gift from God/nature, allowing us to know when something is not right with our system, so that we can attend to it and give our bodies the care it needs. How would I know I was coming down with a cold, or flu, if my body didn’t ache, sneeze, cough, and generally feel bad? How would I know that I had an infection if I didn’t run a temperature? Sneezing, coughing, aches, and temperatures are not problems, but signals – signs of distress that cue us of the need to engage in caretaking activities.
Foster Care
December 7, 2009
By Allison Davis Maxon, M.S., M.F.T.
Children in foster care have all experienced varying degrees of abuse, neglect and/or multiple placements. They typically have increased social, emotional and behavioral problems, most often due to their inability to modulate internal affective or feeling states.
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