Offering orientation and in-service training to Foster Grandparents

Abstract

Foster Grandparents serve as extended family to children and youth with exceptional needs. Orientation and training in the program serves a dual purpose: to empower both the provider of service and those children who are served. These ideas offered by project directors on the NSSCTalk e-mail discussion list in June 2003, can help fulfill orientation and training requirements. Also included is a comprehensive listing of child development videos that are useful in trainings.

Issue

Keeping orientation and trainings fresh and meaningful for volunteers can be a challenge for programs.

Action

Project directors from Foster Grandparent Programs share their ideas for orientation and in-service training sessions:

Community-Sponsored Training:

ADAPT (Alcohol and Drug Abuse Program and Treatment):
- Substance Abuse and the Individual, Family, and Community
- Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
- Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs
- Cultural Diversity: Being Inclusive in a World of Diversity
- Communicating Non-Defensively
Educational Service District:
- Managing Difficult Students in Difficult Situations
- Setting Limits for Success with Children
- Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
Love & Logic Series:
- Shared Control
- Shared Thinking and Decision-making
- Equal Sharing of Consequences with Empathy
- Maintain the Child's Self-concept
Douglas County Early Childhood Planning Coalition:
- "The Significant Journey of Change" (Trey Malicoat, M.S.)
- Children and Grief
- Understanding Sexual Development
- Sexual and Emotional Abuse
- Childhood Depression
- Understanding Aggression and Violence in Children
- Early Detection
- Crisis Management
- Response
Lutheran Brotherhood:
- Brain Development in a Media Age (Based on the article, "Your Child's Brain Growth in a Media Age," by Gloria DeGaetano in The Child Advocate, Magazine of the Washington State Parent/Teacher Association, February 2000.)
Riverside Center (Day Treatment for Youth):
- Managing the Defiant Child
- Depression/Suicide
- Rational Thinking
D.C. Sheriff's Office:
- Seniors and Scams
- Telephone Scams
Search Institute:
- Caring Communities = Healthy Youth Summit
- Building Assets Youth 2000
Health Department:
- CPR/First Aid
- Progression of Disease
- Questions and Answers with a Health Educator
- Basic Computer Instruction (free)
Local Hospital:
- Nutrition, Exercise and Aging
Local School Librarian:
- How to Pick Books for Children
- How to Read Aloud
- How to Read to Small Groups
Local Community College:
- Coping with Depression
- Men and Anger
- Co-Dependency
- Helping a Child with ADHD
- Children and Depression
- Increasing Self Forgiveness (all classes free)
Commission on Children and Families:
- Youth Treatment Workshop Series: Effective Gender-Responsive Programming for Girls

Videos:

The Samantha Abeel Story
Listening to Children
When the Chips are Down (Strategies for Improving Children's Behavior)
Learning Disabilities and Social Skills (Last One Picked -- First One Picked On)
Look What You've Done
Stealing Time (Mastering the Mind, Turning Back the Clock, Quest for Immortality)

Books:

The Read-Aloud Handbook, by Jim Trelease
Common Solutions for the Uncommon Child, by Kimberley Haag
The Out of Sync Child: Recognizing and Coping with Sensory Integration Dysfunction, by Carol Stock Kranowiz
How To Talk so Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
Teaching Our Children to Read: The Components of an Effective, Comprehensive Reading Program, by Bill Honig
Kids Are Worth It! Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline, by Barbara Coloroso
The LD Child and the ADHD Child: Ways Parents and Professionals Can Help, by Suzanne H. Stevens
The Scared Child: Helping Kids Overcome Traumatic Events, by Barbara Brooks
How to Behave So Your Children Will, Too! by Sal Severe
A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention and the Four Theaters of the Brain, by John Ratey
By David J Pelzer,
- A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive
- The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family
- A Man Named Dave: A Story of Triumph and Forgiveness
- Help Yourself: Finding Hope, Courage and Happiness

[Ideas submitted by Roberta Greeson, Foster Grandparent Program, Roseburg Oregon, rlgreeso@co.douglas.or.us]

In-service topics:

Child-related Topics:
- Developmental Stages of Children
- Positive Discipline
- The Power of Hands-on Activity
- Hyperactivity in Children
- Reading to Children
- Child Abuse
- Shaken Baby Syndrome
- How to Interact with Children
- Child Neglect
Senior-related Topics:
- Alzheimer's disease
- Dealing with Grief and Loss
- Hints for Living Thriftily (presented by a Foster Grandparent)
- Crime Prevention
- Con Games and Identity Theft
- Getting Your G.E.D.
- Senior Clubs at Local Hospitals
- Depression
- Staying Healthy as You Get Older
- Self Defense
- Understanding Social Security Regulations
- Understanding Medicare Regulations
- Domestic Violence and Older Women
- Staying Fit as You Get Older
- Prescription Drugs
- Supplemental Health Insurance
- Home Health Care
- Osteoporosis
- Fire Safety
- Cholesterol and Heart Health
- Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
- How to Talk to Your Doctor
- Cooking for One Person
- Elder Abuse
- Communicating with Your Supervisor and Co-workers
- Accepting Change
Interacting with People with Disabilities
Homelessness
Developmental Disabilities
Teenagers
Cultural Diversity
Disaster Education (Red Cross)

[Ideas submitted by Jeanette DeVore, Foster Grandparent Program, Fort Wayne, Indiana, fgp@infionline.net]

Other:

Encourage speakers from the local community agencies as well as foster grandparent sites to be the presenters. This gives the program good public relations as well as promoting community services.
Don't forget your agency/sponsor as a good source of information and speakers in-house.
Foster grandparent volunteers are so proud when one of their supervisors gives the presentation, and there seems to be more interaction with the audience.
Lots of handouts and "freebees" always go a long way. Make sure information is also covered in your newsletter on the same topics to re enforce the information and to educate the foster grandparents who were unable to attend the in-service.

[Ideas submitted by Christine Voss, Foster Grandparent Program, New Bedford, Massachusetts, cvoss@coastlineelderly. org]

Context

The Foster Grandparent Program provides a way for those sixty and over whose incomes are limited to serve as extended family members to children and youth with exceptional needs. Foster Grandparents serve twenty hours a week in schools, hospitals, correctional institutions, daycare facilities, and Head Start centers. They help children who have been abused or neglected, mentor troubled teenagers and young mothers, and care for premature infants or children with physical disabilities. In fiscal year 2001, more than 30,000 Foster Grandparents tended to the needs of 275,000 young children and teenagers.

Outcome

Thorough and effective training provides greater assurance that foster grandparents will provide better service to beneficiaries.

Posted On

September 12, 2003

Resources

NSSCTalk is an e-mail discussion group, created primarily for the participants in the National Senior Service Corps, a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service. Anyone with related concerns, however, is invited to join in. To subscribe by e-mail, send a blank message to join-nssctalk@lists.etr.org. Subscribe via the Lyris Listmanager web page at http://lists.etr.org/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=nssctalk/.

Videos on child development that can be borrowed from The Resource Center's library (free to Corporation-funded programs) include the following:

Elders as Mentors: A Training Program for Older Adults
Item number: V3369

How Adults Support Children at Work Time
Item number: V3442

Supporting Children's Active Learning: Teaching Strategies for DiverseSettings
Item number: V3443

Initiative and Social Relations
Item number: V3444

It's Mine! Responding to Problems and Conflicts
Item number: V3446

Supporting Children in Resolving Conflict
Item number: V3445

Whole Child: A Caregiver's Guide to the First Five Years: Vol. 7:Everybody's Special
Item number: V2971

The Best of You... The Best of Me
Item number: V1140

Ten Things Every Child Needs
Item number: V2964

Foster Grandparents: Sharing a Lifetime of Wisdom
Item number: V1861