Foster parents and foster children go through a unique set of challenges. This training covers distinct types of stressors and their effects on your physical body, relationships, and overall-mental health. Avoiding stress may feel impossible but there are several ways to effectively manage stress. Many people have heard of the term self-care, but not everyone prioritizes practicing it. This class will go into a variety of ways to make self-care part of your daily routine. During this class, you will identify self-care practices that are already working for you and create an action plan of new self-care strategies tailored towards your current needs. This will include ways to practice self-care individually (as a foster parent or teen) as well as practice self-care as a family. LEARNING OBJECTIVES ?Become informed about how to recognize you are under stress and the impact stress can have not only on your physical and mental health, but also those around you. ?Learn about new and simple ways to prioritize your self-care. ?Create an individualized action plan of new self-care strategies to apply to your daily life.

This course is a part of the "Foster Parent Training: An In-Depth Exploration of Advanced Topics. Trainings will provide in-depth discussion of topics relevant for providing developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed, and culturally responsive, care for children involved with the child welfare system. Learning objectives: 1. Participants will be able to understand the importance of self-awareness in providing care for children involved with child welfare. 2. Participants will be able to discuss and identify roadblocks to practices that encourage self-awareness and self-care. 3. Participants will be able to identify how they can best engage in self-care practices and encourage this for the children in their care.

The course provides information about current services offered to foster youth.

This course, centered around the children's book Smelly Melly, offers foster parents practical activities to teach children healthy hygiene habits, as well as the health and social consequences of poor hygiene. It is intended for foster parents of preschool and early elementary-aged children. Smelly Melly may not be suitable for use with children who have experienced sexual abuse. Course objectives ?Recognize healthy hygiene habits. ?Learn age-appropriate activities for teaching children the importance of good hygiene habits.

This course is based on the DCFS Code of ethics for Child Welfare Professionals. The course presents specifics ethical standards of the Code. Examples and explanations are provided to demonstrate the appropriate application of each standards.