|
|
Square Peg Teens in Round-Hole Families & Facilities: Let's Stop the Insanity
The Saving F.A.C.E. Approach to finding Permanent Homes for Teens
If you would like to listen to any of the workshops before you give us a call you can order them on-line by clicking below:
http://www.adoptiontapes.com/home/cart/view_item.asp?Item_ID=640
Keynote Address
Square-Peg Teens in Round-Hole Families & Facilities:
Let's Stop The Insanity
Description for Brochure: Square-Peg Teens are Teens who need permanent parents before they leave foster care. Round-Hole Families & Facilities (i.e. traditionally prepared foster "parents", therapeutic foster "parents", residential treatment centers, group homes) are programs that house kids temporarily and provide temporary care at best. Albert Einstein was once quoted defining Insanity as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." This keynote will clearly make the case that we practice institutional insanity every time we place a square-peg teen in a short-term temporary round-hole family or facility and expect any result other than homelessness upon the teen's discharge from the foster care system. The keynote will make the case that we must stop the practice of placing square-pegs in round-holes and recruit permanent square-peg parents for every square-peg teen due to be discharged from the foster care system to no one but him or her self. The keynote will incorporate some of the themes noted in the workshop description below as well as offer concrete ideas about how anyone who knows a teen in foster care can be instrumental in helping recruit a permanent parent for that teen before the teen's discharge from the foster care system.
WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS:
The Saving F.A.C.E. Approach to finding Permanent
Homes for Every Teen in our Care - Barring No one!
Description for Brochure: This presentation will discuss how to find unconditionally committed permanent parent(s) for teens using this three prong recruitment approach: Friends, Acquaintances, & Community Education.
Outline:
1. The Need: Will note the need to find permanent homes for every teen in our care in order to prevent their homelessness upon discharge from care. Will also go over various myths about where the homeless come from.
2. Independent Living: Will note how this child welfare permanency planning goal is the primary culprit that causes half the homelessness in our culture.
3. Will discuss outcome studies about what happens to youth after their discharge from care to no one but themselves.
4. Will discuss how our attitude is the only obstacle to finding permanent parents for any teen in our care.
5. Recruitment: How to find permanent parents for every teen in our care once we have established the need and the perspective that there is an abundance of them out there.
a) The Friends Approach: How to identify parents from the teenager’s lifecycle among the people they know.
b) The Acquaintance Approach: How to utilize our agency's training and education classes and curriculums to get teens and prospective families in the same time and space so that they can meet each other and become acquainted with each other in a non-pressurized learning environment. Inviting youths in as consultants to educate and train prospective and waiting families is an incredibly effective learning experience for prospective families as well as a great opportunity to meet teens in need of permanent homes.
c) The Community Education Approach: This approach will highlight three effective ways to engage the community into learning about the extraordinary needs of teens in foster care who need permanent parents: 1) How we use our 10 week A-OKAY (Adopting Older Kids And Youth) education curriculum to engage the community in a learning experience; 2) How we use our weekly half hour cable access show to engage the Brooklyn community in learning about the great need for parents for teens in foster care; and 3) How we use our weekly hour-long radio forum to engage the general public in knowledge about the permanency needs of teens in foster care.
INTENDED AUDIENCE:
The intended audience for this presentation is for anyone who wants to learn more about how to get teenagers adopted or otherwise placed in lifetime permanent homes.
PRESENTER:
Pat
O’Brien, MS, CSW
Executive Director
Pat O’Brien is the Executive Director and Founder of You Gotta Believe!, a child placing agency and homelessness prevention program that attempts to prevent homelessness by finding permanent parents for teenagers in foster care without regard to whether the teenager is freed for adoption or not. Pat has his Master of Science in Social Worker degree from Columbia University School of Social Work.
FULL DAY TRAININGS:
Full day training will also incorporate an afternoon of options including:
· Recruitment Case Senarios for participants in attendance at workshop to directly challenge, if necessary, the presenter’s worldview and belief that no child should be discharged from foster care without a permanent parent who agrees to permanently parent the youth for the remainder of their own (the permanent parent’s) life.
· Any other area of skills development that the group identifies as necessary to do the job of finding permanent homes for any teen in our care who is due to be discharged to no one but him or her self.
· Discussion of Preparation of families who will be taking in teens.
· Discussion of services to provide to families after the placement of teens.
AUDIO-VISUAL EQUIPMENT NEEDED:
· Overhead Projecter
· TV/VHS/DVD or any other machine that can place a VHS tape and a DVD
· Lavaliere Mic. or any other microphone that will allow me to have two hands free.
· Flip Chart
YOU GOTTA BELIEVE!
The
Older Child Adoption & Permanency Movement, Inc.
1728 Mermaid Avenue
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11224
718-372-3003, 1-800-601-1779 (24 hr), 718-372-3033 (fax),
ygbpat@msn.com (e-mail)
Pat O’Brien, MS, CSW
Executive Director
“Unconditional Commitment: The Only Love That Matters”
The above titled presentation (which can be delivered in either workshop, institute, or keynote format) will discuss the great need for prospective and current parents who come forward to care for children to become unconditionally committed to the children that they care for, particularly teenagers, in order to prevent those very children’s foster care drift or adoption disruptions. The emphasis of this presentation will be that every child in foster care needs one placement and one placement only and that it is essentially never acceptable to have children moved because of a behavior that is unpleasing to the parent.
This workshop will discuss the following issues:
· The root causes underlying why “parents” who come forward to help children many times wind up, instead, re-hurting, re-abandoning, re-rejecting, re-traumatizing, re-victimizing, re-abusing, and re-neglecting the children all over again by putting them out of their homes when the child does a behavior that is unacceptable to the parent.
· Skills needed to deal with children who make adults so angry that they would think about doing the unthinkable: actually hurting a child they originally came forward to help by rejecting the child and putting that child out of their household.
· How an individual’s spirituality can be an inspirational source of strength during difficult times with children that will allow the adult parent to maintain their commitment during hard times.
· What agencies can do to help assure that far less foster and adoptive parents give back their children during times of crisis and stress.
· Helping parents to find the strength from within to deal with even the most difficult of children.
· Helping people understand it is their commitment and their commitment only that is the true source of healing for any child that crosses their path.
If you would like to order a 52 minute DVD entitled Unconditional Commitment: The Only Love That Matters ... to teens" please contact Pat O'Brien at the You Gotta Believe office at 718-372-3003. This DVD features 14 adoptive parents of teens and pre-teens, representing twelve different families, as well as nine young adult who were adopted as teens, speaking about the importance of commitment. You can here about the power of Unconditional Commitment to teens from the two parties we rarely hear from in our field: The parents who have adopted them and reflective young adults who were adopted as teens.
Laugher, Parenting and Bonding (or Laughter for the
Health of It):
The Importance of Laugher Even When Nothing Seems Funny
The above titled presentation (which can be delivered in either workshop, institute, or keynote format) will highlight the importance of laughter for both human emotional and mental health and the importance of laughter in parenting and everyday work and family life. Laughing is one of the most natural and healthiest things one can do when confronted with the major stresses and emotional pains in life. This presentation will highlight how one can bring more laughter into both home life and work life particularly during those times when nothing seems funny.
* Session will open with fun icebreakers
* Session will then introduce myself and my three primary credentials to deliver a workshop on laughter: I'm in a bad mood a lot. I'm not particularly funny. And I have a very serious life.
* Will go over the myths about laughter.
* Will talk about research as it relates to laughter and parenting.
* Will offer concrete empowering ideas and suggestions about how to utilize laughter to help create bonding opportunities with children --- particularly with newly placed teens and pre-teens.
* Will conduct a full group silliness exercise after speaking on the importance of silliness as a major generator of laughter.
* Will end with a presentation entitled "The 12 Step Approach to Independent Laughter" that will offer 12 great ideas about how to incorporate more laughter into one's home life, family life, and life in general.
Teen Panel of Young Adults
Pat will bring a panel of two-four young adults with him who can present on the importance of permanency for older teens. The panel will be youth and/or young adults who got their permanent homes after the age of 16 despite having a history of multiple foster home placements, residential treatment center placements, hospitalizations, and other group care settings. These will be young people who can speak to the importance of having parents long after their years in foster care are over. These folks will make an incredible impression on any audience they present to.
Home | Who Are We? | Articles | Events | Contact | Directions
|
MAILING ADDRESS: |
|
You Gotta Believe! |
|
|
|
1728 Mermaid
Ave. |
| 150A Long Island
Avenue Holtsville, NY 11742 tel.: (631) 654-7970 fax: (631) 654-7980 |