Foster Parents tell me about PRIDE classes

lilmufish

DH and I start our PRIDE classes tonight...while I'm super excited about moving forward, I'm still lost in the dark. 

PRIDE/STARS classes...tell me about them?? 

What should I expect?
Any advice?
Any stories to share?

 

 Thanks in advance!

ctbride08

The honest truth is that we were really dissapointed in our PRIDE training.  The information presented was B.A.S.I.C and repeated over and over again.  At first i thought it was just me (since I spent undergrad and grad school studying child development and psychology) - but DW also found it to be kinda pointless.  Main topics covered were:

1) Reunification

2) Maintaining/building relationship with bio family

3) Child abuse (99% focused on sexual abuse, very little on other types)

4) Reunification

5) Complexities related to parenting a child of a different race/ethnicity

6) Reunification

And thats pretty much it...I expected much more discussion on basic parenting topics, behavior management, legal complexities, ect but most of that was breezed over.

The general format of our class consisted of going over the written material in a group (we covered 2 units per class) and we watch a lot of videos. 

The most useful (imo) part of the class was when the two facilitators would share thier personal foster stories; it gave us a good idea of what was out there and when we might be able to expect - in contrast to the best-case-scenarios presented in the book and videos.

Not to discourage you though! We were still really excited for every class b/c it meant one step closer to our goal. Not to mention, i'm sure classed vary greatly between agencies.

Have a good time tonight!!   

come*on*baby

I'm the loner here - we enjoyed ours and learned alot, but we are also licensed as therapeutic. Tonight will probably be an overview of things, why you're there, introductions, etc. Ours had specific topics they discussed every night. It's been 2 years since we did them, but it was definitely a learning experience. I have since learned a lot more through experience with the children and more extensive training (we have to have 30 hours/year of training and I'm up to 60 for the year).

lilmufish

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your honesty.  I really had no idea what to expect, so at least I have an idea!!!!!! Hopefully DH will learn stuff, but I have a feeling that due to my dual counseling degrees, alot of it will be stuff I already know?

DH is worried that we're not doing it through "our" agency, since our agency canceled it's may, june and july pride classes due to low enrollment. I'm okay with it, due to the fact that our agency recommended it...  

 I'm just pumped up, because we don't have much left after these 9 classes!!!

jerseygirl-37

DH and I just finished our classes. Every Saturday for the whole of month of June - 9 AM - 3 PM!  We felt the first class was the intro to our adoption agency which we already knew, the 2nd class was all about fostering. The 3rd and 4th class, was very informative about different childrens situtations. ie., child abuse & neglected children.

I would like to recommend a book I read - which was very helpful it's called Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today's Parents by Deborah D. Gray.