New online course helps resource parents engage teens in conversations and tap into their own desires for a better life

September 12, 2022

Eugene, OR — Trust is necessary for youth in the foster care system who are struggling with the effects of the trauma they have experienced. This is especially true for teens, who are not only facing the challenges of adolescence but also need to move towards living independently. Their struggles can lead to behavioral issues and what appears as a lack of motivation. A recently produced online course, Building Trust, Motivating Change, will help foster, adoptive, and kinship parents (also known as resource parents) develop additional skills to engage youth in "change talk" in order to bring about the change youth desire.

Building Trust, Motivating Change teaches resource parents how to use "motivational interviewing" to provide an open, nonjudgmental environment, where the youth can strengthen their motivation and commitment to change. At the same time, the skills taught in this course will also help parents build mutual trust with their child, which is needed for change to happen.

The course begins by showing how motivational interviewing (or MI) can help resource parents apply their innate abilities to be compassionate, empowering, and accepting to create a partnership with youth. Then it demonstrates how to use open-ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, and summaries to help youth tap into their own desires for a better life.

This interactive course is a collaboration between Dr. Liz Barnett, a skilled trainer in motivational interviewing, and the training website FosterParentCollege.com. Dr. Barnett is a lecturer at California State University, Long Beach, and a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers. She has trained thousands of diverse discipline practitioners across the country, and she developed the MI Companion, an online resource of MI practice modules.

Foster Parent College (FPC), which produced the course, is an online learning resource for foster, adoptive, and kinship parents that recently hit a milestone of 1,100,000 courses taken. The website offers over 70 self-paced online courses, and Building Trust, Motivating Change follows their innovative approach to adult online learning. The course may be available at no cost to resource parents through their state or child welfare agency (public or private) or may be purchased by the individual.

To watch a short preview of the course, Building Trust, Motivating Change, visit fosterparentcollege.com/course-info/motivational. For additional information about the course or FosterParentCollege.com, contact Liz Brooks Wilburn at Liz@northwestmedia.com.