Fall 2023 Newsletter
Foster Parent College Solutions Newsletter

Healthy Sexual Development: Now Available!

Healthy Sexual Development cover

Sexual health is a critical part of all youth’s development, especially youth who have experienced trauma. Our newest course, Healthy Sexual Development, takes a broad approach to sexual health, with the goal of helping all young people in care develop the skills to set safe boundaries, have healthy relationships, and develop sexual competence.

Healthy Sexual Development was created by health educator, Ellen Friedrichs, MA, and the staff at Foster Parent College. It is presented by Theresa Reed, MEd, an experienced resource parent trainer. It also includes four foster care alumni talking about their experiences around sexual health while in care and the impact of those experiences on their lives.

Ashley, one of the former care alumni, speaks frankly in the course: “I feel like not knowing about my sexual health at a young age made me naive and easy to manipulate from older men who wanted sex from me, with promises of fake love.” She continued, “I think that if I understood my sexual health differently and actually understood my own sexual needs and what was healthy, I would have focused more on school instead of seeking out love.”

Filled with practical strategies and conversation starters, Healthy Sexual Development will help resource parents have conversations with youth that fit the youth’s developmental, emotional, and cognitive levels.

Please note: Foster Parent College serves parents and agencies throughout the United States and several other countries. Laws vary regionally about what is acceptable for resource parents to teach youth about sexual health, and some states or agencies may have blocked this course. If you do not see Healthy Sexual Development available in the course listing, please contact your agency administrator.

See a preview and learn more about Healthy Sexual Development here.


Looking for Experienced Resource Parents to Inspire Others

A priority for the FPC course development staff is including those with lived experiences within our courses. We are currently working on a self-care course for resource parents. This course talks about stress in the lives of caregivers, especially secondary traumatic stress (which is the emotional duress that can result after hearing about the firsthand trauma experiences of another). Then it will walk viewers through the process of creating a personal stress-buster plan for self-care.

We are looking for foster, kinship, and adoptive parents who are interested in videoing themselves talking about their approaches to self-care. These videos will be featured in this course as inspiration to others.

While we are encouraging all applicants, we are especially encouraging men and kinship care providers to apply.

If you work with parents who you think might be interested, please direct them to: https://fosterparentcollege.com/info/selfies.jsp


Autism: A Strength-Based Approach

Autism: A Strength-Based Approach course coverAdded to our website in May, Autism: A Strength-Based Approach was created with Robert Nickel, MD, a developmental pediatrician, and Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, PhD, a specialist on autism, an autistic woman herself, and adoptive mother of a child with autism. This course helps resource parents understand what autism is, what it’s like to be autistic, what services are available, and which parenting strategies will help children get the right supports.

At the end of the course, participants should be able to:

  • Describe autism and its causes
  • Identify the characteristics and behaviors of children with autism
  • Describe common medical issues among children with autism
  • Know what services and treatments are available to children with autism
  • Understand how to support and encourage children with autism
  • Understand how to manage challenging behaviors

Although the course has been available for only a few months, we have already received some very nice comments, including:

“This course is exactly what I needed because my child was just diagnosed with autism.”
“I have already recommended this course to others.”
and
“Very educational course for caregivers and everyone who is involved in caring for [an] autistic child.”

See a preview and learn more about Autism: A Strength-Based Approach here.


New Spanish-Language Courses Added

Since 2016, we have been broadening the availability of our courses to resource parents who prefer to learn in Spanish. With the launch of two new courses early this summer, we now offer 22 Spanish-language courses. These courses are translated from and dubbed over their English-language counterparts. Our two newest courses are:

To see a full list of the Spanish-language courses at Foster Parent College (and to watch previews of each course), visit https://fosterparentcollege.com/info/full-list.jsp#spanCourses.


Courses in Production

The scripting and production teams at Foster Parent College are continually creating new courses on a variety of topics. We are looking forward to sharing these upcoming courses with you:

Other courses in development will cover the topics of: toxic stress, complex trauma, and insecure attachments (being scripted with Beth Tyson, MA); helping children tell the truth (being scripted with Rick Delaney, PhD); and sleep problems (an updated version of our current course).


Quick Website Redesign Update

FosterParentCollege.com (FPC) logoThe staff at Foster Parent College is working away on our website redesign. We know this is taking longer than expected, and we are excited to share the new site with you as soon as possible. Be on the lookout for notices soon, and if you have any questions, please contact us at fpc@northwestmedia.com.


Holidays at Foster Parent College

Please note, the offices for Foster Parent College will be closed to observe the following holidays:


Connect with Us

FosterParentCollege via email fpc@northwestmedia.com
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FosterParentCollege on LinkedIn linkedin.com/company/fosterparentcollege.com


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