Are you a foster, kinship, or adoptive parent who has experienced stress or challenges because of your role caring for children? If so, we want to hear from you.
It is normal and common for resource parents to experience second-hand stress when caring for children who have experienced trauma. Sometimes called “vicarious trauma” or “secondary traumatic stress,” this type of stress is the result of observing the impact of trauma on the children in your care (see sidebar).
Foster Parent College is working with Rowena Mudiappa, LCSW, to create an online course that will help resource parents build an individualized plan to manage this type of parental stress so they can improve their own health and well-being.
We need your help with this project! We are looking for parents who have faced these parenting challenges and would be willing to share their self-care strategies with other resource parents, by creating selfie-style videos that will be integrated throughout the course.
Applicants selected to participate in this project will be provided with a list of questions to respond to in their videos. (See questions included below.) We anticipate that it will take about 2 hours to prepare, practice, and record the video.
Compensation: After the video file and a signed video release form are submitted, participants will receive $150.
Participants: Participants must have experience being a foster, kinship, or adoptive parent, and they will need to record the videos themselves, using a phone or laptop that takes a high-quality video.
Sample questions: These are the types of questions participants will be asked to answer in their recording.
How have you integrated self-care into your life? How do you ensure your self-care happens regularly? How do you stay motivated?
Does your self-care plan include spending special time with your support systems (for example, spending quality time with loved ones, having regular meals with family or friends, connecting with your faith community)? If so, tell us how you do that and what you do together.