Foster Parent Training
DHS provides training for foster parents at no expense. Training opportunities are offered throughout the year. Training enrollment is coordinated and arranged with your resource specialist.
Foster Parent Pre-Service Training
Completion of pre-service training is mandatory to become a foster parent.
For Traditional Foster Care, applicants and adult household members who will care for a child in Oklahoma Department of Human Services (DHS) custody are required to complete the twenty-seven (27) prescribed pre-service course of training, prior to resource approval. The training incorporates the reasonable and prudent parent standard and addresses the values and guiding principles essential for caring for a child, who is a victim of maltreatment.
Each class builds on information learned in previous classes. Due to space limitations and the nature of the material, class sizes are limited. If you are interested in this training, please contact your resource specialist to enroll and receive information about the dates, times and locations.
The training will cover the following:
- Protecting and nurturing the children who have been abused, emotionally maltreated, or neglected;
- Methods to promote healthy development;
- The importance of promoting safety for children who have experienced trauma;
- Supporting relationships between children and their parents, siblings, and kin, as specified by DHS; and
- Connecting children to safe, nurturing relationships and collaborating with DHS as a team member
For Therapeutic Foster Care and Intensive Treatment Family Care, applicants and adult household members who will care for a child in Oklahoma Department of Human Services (DHS) custody must complete the initial thirty-six(36) hours of pre-service training from the Pressley Ridge Treatment Foster Care curriculum prior to becoming a TFC or ITFC parent.
The training will cover the following:
- Introduction to Treatment Foster Care
- Professional Parenting I & II
- Understanding Childhood Development I & II
- Developing Healthy Relationships
- Therapeutic Communication
- Understanding Behavior
- Changing Behavior
- Skill Teaching
- Conflict Resolution
- Understanding and Managing Crisis
Foster Parent In-Service Training
Each adult in a Traditional foster or kinship home is required to have 12 hours of training each year.
Each adult in a Therapeutic Foster Care home is required to complete 18 hours of training each year.
Each adult in an Intensive Treatment Family Care home is required to complete 20 hours of training each year. Six (6) hours of the twenty (20) training hours must be clinical in nature.
Ways of obtaining these credits include, but are not limited to:
- Workshops/Conferences/Seminars
- Support Groups: (two training credits per meeting that includes training – fun activities will not be counted for in-service training credit).
- Peer Meetings/Gatherings (mentoring, advisory committees, associations). There is a six-hour maximum annual training credit allowed for Peer Meetings/Gatherings.
- Parent Skills Training: Sooner Start, Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)
- Independent Study (reading book/articles, DHS Monthly Resource Reminder). The maximum yearly Independent Study training credits allowed is six hours.
- Videos/webinars, computer-based training, listening to podcasts
- Medical/Developmental Care Skills (training)
Certificates and Training Verification Form
If you attend a training that issues a training completion certificate, submit the certificate to your worker, along with a training agenda or other information that documents your training content and time. For all other training, please submit a completed In-Service Training Verification Form.
Training Opportunities and Credit Hours
Training credits generally follow the table below. Several training methods have limits as to the number of training credits that can be earned in that category within a year and DHS Support Groups with training earn two credits per meeting.
In-Service Training Credit Hours
| Minutes | Credit Hours |
|---|---|
| 30 | .5 |
| 60 | 1 |
| 90 | 1.5 |
| 120 | 2 |
| 150 | 2.5 |
| 180 | 3 |
Books/Articles
| Number of Pages Read | Credit Hours |
|---|---|
| 50 | 1 |
| 51-100 | 2 |
| 101-150 | 3 |
| 151-200 | 4 |
| 201-250 | 5 |
| 251-300 | 6 |
If you have any questions about an activity counting as a training credit, please check with your worker for approval prior to completing the training and submitting documentation.
Additional Training Resources
TBRI® Training for Foster and Adoptive Caregivers
This is a two-day training designed to provide you with an overview of TBRI® principles and how can begin to apply them in your own home. The training provides information on how the brain is impacted by trauma as well as information on attachment. You will learn the power of connection as well as the strategies needed to establish connection. The training provides information on the TBRI® Empowering principles which are designed to address what is needed to set your child up for success on a daily basis. Finally, you will learn a set of TBRI® Correcting strategies that will enable you to help teach your child how to respond in a variety of situations.
Empowered to Connect
Empowered to Connect provides real time training resources in written and video form, featuring Dr. Karyn Purvis. These trainings are designed for parents and caregivers whose children have experienced adverse childhood experiences, stress, and maltreatment.
Foster Care & Adoption Learning Management System
Each foster parent must contact their CW Specialist to request enrollment into this LMS. Please note: this is the same LMS that new foster and adoptive parents take the initial 12 hours of RFT Training. This website has various other trainings, with a quiz attached. Each training is typically given 1 hour of credit. Print your certificate at the end of each training to give to your CW Specialist.
Foster Club Training *
Taking training for credit requires a subscription. Foster Club has 18 courses currently listed, ranging from 1.50 to 3.00 credit hours.
Bulk rate pricing is available to agencies:
| Price | |
|---|---|
| 1 to 10 | $24.95 |
| 11 to 50 | $21.21 |
| 51 to 200 | $19.96 |
| 201 to 500 | $18.71 |
| 501+ | $17.47 |
Foster Parent Training*
Taking training for credit requires a yearly subscription, charged by year, not by training credits. There are 250 hours of in service training materials that can be converted to a PDF, which allows access for downloading and printing by any computer. A training log is supplied.
New subscription for couples includes 2 Foster Parent Memberships for $29.99/year, renewal is $24.00/year. New single membership is $14.99/year, with renewal at $12.00/year. Training Certificate is printable after participant lists four things he/she has learned about a particular training topic, with the answers placed on the certificate.
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension *
Various online courses for child care and behavioral health. To receive official credit for the courses, participants must pass a course exam and pay a processing fee to obtain a printable certificate (most certificate course costs are between $7.00 and $12.00 per course, but some of them are free of charge). Courses are offered in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
FosterParentCollege.com **
This website offers +70 online trainings in English and +20 in Spanish. This is a national site and these research-based, self-paced courses are available 24/7, providing parents with convenient access to trauma-informed parenting strategies and information on specific behavior problems.
Course enrollments are free of charge when you have a training account registered through the National Resource Center for Youth Services. Email or print your certificate to give to your worker at the end of each training.
Click this link and complete the registration form to request a FosterParentCollege.com Training Account: https://nrcys.ou.edu/rft/training/registration.
Foster Care & Adoptive Community **
Foster Care and Adoptive Community (FCAC) Training offers 154 courses, with new topics added continuously. This is a national site and there is a fee for each training on this website. Certificates are immediately generated with the passing of a course test. Certificates may be emailed or downloaded directly to your computer and printed out.
* Foster Club Training, Foster Parent training, and Texas A&M Extension are paid for by the resource parent.
** DHS provides 12 pre-paid online in-service training hours through Foster Care & Adoptive Community (FCAC) or Foster Parent College (FPC) each year for DHS and Tribal foster, kinship, and adoptive parents. To access your 12 hours of training, please go to the National Resource Center website. Then click on the link for Foster Parent College or Foster Care and Adoptive Community. You will need your foster care contract number that you will need to obtain from your worker.
You cannot be reimbursed if you enroll directly on the FCAC or Foster Parent College websites and pay for your training hours. These paid training hours are not available to resource parents providing Therapeutic Foster Care or care through a contracted agency. Families should discuss in-service training options with their contractor agency.
Community Trainings, Events, & Conferences
If there are any trainings offered in the community, a church, place of employment, etc., please check with your worker to see if these can be approved for training credit.
Support Groups
It is the goal of DHS Child Welfare Services to provide kinship, foster, and adoptive parents with the training and support needed to provide children and youth in their homes with care that meets their needs for safety, permanency, and well-being. DHS has initiated, through its contract with the OU Outreach National Resource Center for Youth Services, the Oklahoma Kinship, Foster, and Adoptive Family Support Network. This Network of support groups provides in service training for resource parents, the development of communication channels with other resource families or DHS, and the organization of resources, including group sharing, printed materials, website information, and other available means.
Composition of each Network group is determined by the number and type of resource families in the community.
Currently there are virtual support groups that are held once a month. This information will be sent monthly to your email that is in your resource file.
The only requirement for membership in a Network Support group is that the person is an approved resource parent/family either by DHS, or by an agency or Tribe having a contract with DHS. Although most contracted agencies sponsor support group meetings with their contracted families, all resources parents from those contracted agencies are invited to attend a DHS Network support group in their area.
Network support groups are led by a resource parent facilitator who is trained and supported by the National Resource Center for Youth Services (NRCYS). Parents in attendance at a meeting earn two hours of in service training credits towards their required 12 hours per year. The in-service training is tailored to meet the unique needs of families in each specific Family Support Network group.
Books, Magazines, & Articles
The following are suggestions, and this list is not an all-Inclusive. If you have a book, Magazine, or Article that you would like to read for training credit, please check with your Resource specialist.
No Drama Discipline by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D.
Highlighting the fascinating link between a child’s neurological development and the way a parent reacts to misbehavior, No-Drama Discipline provides an effective, compassionate road map for dealing with tantrums, tensions, and tears—without causing a scene.
The Whole Brain Child by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D.
In this practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the bestselling book Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson, demystify the meltdowns and aggravations, explaining the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures.
The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family by Karen B. Purvis, Ph.D., David R. Cross, Ph.D., Wendy Lyons Sunshine
The Connected Child is a resource for adoptive parents of children who have experienced early deprivation or trauma. It teaches parents to become healers for their children.
The Kinship Parenting Toolbox Edited by Kim Phagan-Hansel
The Kinship Parenting Toolbox contains articles from more than 70 contributors touched in a variety of ways by kinship care. This book is a resource for those working with and parenting their relative’s or family friend’s children, and includes topics such as getting organized, your financial toolbox, and finding support.
The Foster Parenting Toolbox Edited by Kim Phagan-Hansel
A practical, hands-on approach to parenting children in foster care, including topics such as transitions, loss, grief, and anger, and family impact.
The Power to Connect by Teresa and Chuck Easter
The Power to Connect is a no-nonsense, insightful study of human communication that will arm the reader with keys to powerful communication skills. Learn how to get your message across in a clear, potent and effective way and see the dramatic improvement it can make in your life.
Completing the Circle by Thomas Poplawski
Completing the Circle describes how the school and the home can complete a cooperative circle in providing a mantle of warmth in support of children. Poplawski describes developmentally appropriate pictures of the growing child and explains the concepts behind many Waldorf pedagogical practices
Fostering Families Today Magazine
Fostering Families Today is published bimonthly and contains information to help guide parents on their fostering journey.
Adoption Today Magazine
Adoption Today is an 18-year-old award winning publication for the adoption community with a focus on the physical, psychological and emotional well-being of the adoptee and family.
