Abstract
There were over 600,000 victims of child maltreatment in the United States in 2011 (USDHHS, 2012b). Maltreated children may experience a confluence of risk factors occurring at multiple systemic levels.Not only the children, but frequently their caregivers, such as birth and foster parents, have lives characterized by risk and adversity. This chapter describes the application of a curriculum designed to offset the negative effects of risk factors on families in the child welfare system. A child welfare professional uses relationship-based coaching to guide caregivers through the curriculum, which builds the resilience of both children and their caregivers, with the ultimate goal to promote reunification and permanency. Your Journey Together can be flexibly delivered to groups or individuals in office or home settings and uses evidence-based assessments and research-informed, resilience-enhancing strategies. This chapter will describe the model, present a case illustration, and discuss preliminary outcome data, implementation challenges, limitations, and future directions.
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Notes
- 1.
The case study is based on an actual YJT family who gave permission for its use. Identifying information has been changed.
- 2.
A research study demonstrating the reliability and construct validity of the DARS was completed in 2009 and is available at the DCRC website, http://www.CenterForResilientChildren.org.
- 3.
A similar instrument, The Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA; LeBuffe, Shapiro, & Naglieri, 2013) exists for the school-age population (5 through 14 years), and will be incorporated into Your Journey Together as elements of the program are developed for caregivers of school-age children and youth.
- 4.
The authors would like to acknowledge our colleague, Rachel Tobin-Smith, M.S.W., who first used these terms to describe the paradigm shift for staff.
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Smith, G.T., LeBuffe, P.A., Alleyne, D., Mackrain, M., Likins, L. (2014). Bringing a Resilience Perspective to Children in the Child Welfare System: A Curriculum for Caregivers. In: Prince-Embury, S., Saklofske, D. (eds) Resilience Interventions for Youth in Diverse Populations. The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0542-3_8
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