Training & Opportunities
To learn more about these training opportunities, please contact Edwin Gonzalez.
Family Bound Training©
Newcomers support and learn from one another while working to develop lifelong family connections. Training incorporates panel presentations and interactive sessions with senior Speak Out Team (SOT) members.
Parents as Tenders Healers (PATH)©
Adults learn how to prepare their hearts and homes for teenagers, including developing relationships and understanding adolescent needs. This five-week program runs concurrently with Family Bound.
Lifelong Family Connection Training (LFC)©
Achieving permanent family connections for teenagers is possible, powerful and a priority. Participants learn the "best practice" perspective on permanency for older youth and study the LFC model of youth-focused team-planning and decision-making strategies.
Youth Consultation Team (YCT)©
Intended for youth enrolled in the LFC program. Discussions initiate from the perspective of the youth, who identify family members and significant adults to be at the planning table. Social service providers work with the team to explore all potential permanency options and secure a lasting plan.
Youth Leadership Development Conference (YLDC)
Teens foster personal growth, build new skills and increase self-esteem. The weekend is a blend of team-building, leadership and advocacy workshops, activities and recreation. SOT members, other foster or adopted youth, and potential new members are all welcome.
Family Consultation Team (FCT ™)
The FCT is essential in care and protection cases where the child's goal is reunification. Together, the case worker, child and family participate in family group conferencing. FCT facilitates decision-making and promotes safety, permanence and well-being.
Cooperative Adoption Planning (CAP™)
Averts the requirement for "dispense with the need for parental consent" trials where the child's goal is adoption or guardianship. Training also recruits new mediators for these cases.
Permanency Mediation Services ©
An alternative to contested court proceedings. Neutral third-party mediators help families identify and resolve issues in the child’s best interest. The child-centered, family-focused format allows for non-abrasive decision-making. The mediator’s main concern is to ensure placement of foster and adoptive children in safe, loving and permanent homes. Permanency Mediation Services© use both the FCT and CAP approaches to permanency planning.
Massachusetts Approach to Partnerships in Parenting (MAPP) Training
State-required training course for families who want to foster or adopt a child under DSS custody. This eight-session, 24-hour course must be completed before home study begins. Covers the information necessary to make an informed decision about adopting a waiting child from DSS.
Staff Development Day — Norfolk and Plymouth
Judges and their staff gain a better understanding of foster care youth and the issues they face. Topics discussed are not typically mentioned in the courtroom. The staff learns what affects foster kids and why they react to others as they do.
“The Speak Out Team is the only group that our son joined and stuck with through high school. It gives him a means of expressing his feelings about his past in his own terms, without us, as parents, influencing him.” - G.H., father of SOT member