Making Transracial Placements Work
(Overview of workshop)
The relentless pressures to find a home and create a family for a looked-after child make it increasingly difficult for many professionals to take a fresh, creative look at their work. This course is designed to offer not just a fresh, but a unique perspective.
The challenges of working with children and families when a disruption has occurred or is looming, or when everybody is at their wits end can increase stress for everybody involved.
The dysfunctional demands and behaviours of looked-after children can trigger fear and frustration in their carers, often with distressing and sometimes disastrous effects.
Many workers are struggling with old paradigms and new pressures to help children mend or heal the wounds of biological, foster or adoptive families. Multiple residential and respite placements will exacerbate problems for children and adults.
There is growing awareness that something different needs to happen - not just for more efficiency pre-placement but for greater effectiveness post-placement.
By influencing the adult child relationship in new ways, parents, carers and professionals can reduce the financial and human costs, with their potentially devastating long-term effects of family disruptions.
The models and approaches in these workshops will help in assessing applicants and supporting placements by offering new ways of understanding behaviour patterns and family dynamics.
Participants will partake in exercises, discussions and presentations that will offer new perspectives on Placement Decisions, Group Dynamics, Key-worker Systems, Concurrent Planning, Parenting Tasks, Parenting Techniques, Listening Skills, and techniques for understanding the models and theories outlined below.
GATHERING HIGH VALUE INFORMATION
Speakers delete, generalise and distort information in twelve specific ways, which we intuitively recognise as we listen to people. A tendency to fill in the gaps from our own maps and models of the world often results in poor listening, false assumptions, inadequate questions and placements that are less well planned! Knowing the 10 key questions and listening between the lines, helps the process of gathering ‘High Value Information’ as a better basis for decision making.
THE FAMILY’S DRAMATIC TRIANGLE
Although the Rescuer / Victim / Rescuer 'Drama Triangle' will be familiar to many people, not so many are familiar with its antidote.
The drama triangle is a set of survival strategies - determined in childhood - which keep us on the frustrating misery-go-round of habit that is held in place by playing psychological Games.
IDENTIFYING PARENTING TASKS AND SKILLS
Having had the privilege and pleasure of spending time with - and had some training from - the excellent Dr Joseph Crumbley (whose book Transracial Adoption and Foster Care I highly recommend), I give far more emphasis to the following parenting tasks. As Dr Crumbley says, "Practitioners can support parents with the challenge [of the subtle and not so subtle impact of transracial placement] by encouraging the multidimensional bonding and attachments that will need to occur on an emotional as well as a cultural level."
These tasks include:
Acknowledging the existence of prejudice, racism and discrimination.
Helping the child to understand why their racial or cultural group is mistreated
Providing the child with a repertoire of responses to racial discrimination
Providing the child with positive contact within the community
Teaching the difference between responsibility to and for the racial cultural group
Preparing the child for discrimination
Advocating on the child's behalf
CREATING LISTENING ENVIRONMENTS
Nancy Kline's Excellent book 'Time To Think' offers an elegant approach for encouraging and empowering people to speak openly and to express themselves with clarity and courage.
This approach will significantly increase the listening and information gathering skills of all participants, be they adoptive parents, foster carers, residential workers, supervisors, key-workers or any one else concerned about the child's welfare.
This framework will also be particularly beneficial for and add greatly to the skills of anyone who wants to improve their group-work skills.
Elements of a Thinking Environment include: Attention, Incisive Questions, Equality and Diversity.
Attention involves listening with Respect, Interest and Fascination.
'Time To Think' - Listening to Ignite The Human Mind Nancy Kline:
ISBN 0-7063-7745-1 Cassell Illustrated reviewFEEDBACK from previous attendees
In what ways did the course meet your expectations?
"It enabled me to explore different methods of understanding where exactly the people I assess are in their life cycles and 'scripts'"
"The Drivers and Emotional Freedom Techniques"
"Gave me information I can use in practice"
"Found it very enjoyable and challenging"
"Exceeded expectations - an exciting course"
"Gave me tools to use when working with families"
"I admire and value the work Michael does and how he presents it"
"Focus"
What aspects did you find most relevant?
"I realised that feelings need to be understood through feelings"
"The presentation was refreshing, taking me away from traditional training programmes"
"I learned not to project my own assumptions and solutions"
"Case studies "
"Provided good material"
"Different thoughts and ways of developing a more holistic approach to assessments "
"Thoroughly enjoyable course."
"Inspiration to be daring in my work."
"Value of Transactional Analysis when working with families"
"I got a lot out of the course and will use it in my work"
"Inclusion of Self"
"Ego States from Transactional Analysis"
"Assessment analysis"
"Lots of useful information to be explored"
What aspects did you find least helpful?
"There was nothing that I found unhelpful but I would have liked more time"
"Perhaps more structure would have helped - but I realise this is personal "