Training provided by The Alliance in partnership with FESS -Family Education and Support Services, DSHS/ALTSA – Department of Social and Health Services/Aging and Long-Term Support Administration, DCYF Department of Children, Youth and Families, and The University of WA School of Social Work.
Learn positive strategies to strengthen your family!
This six module training series developed by Dr. Joseph Crumbley, LCSW, takes a strength-based perspective, diving into topics that are unique to kinship families Module are 2 hours long and can be taken in any order.
Statewide virtual trainings and Thurston County is offering an in-person option.
Modules can be taken in any order
• Complete 3 modules to receive a $50 Amazon gift card
• Complete 5 modules to be entered in a drawing for a chance to win 1 of 10 – $200 Amazon gift cards
For help registering call:
Call: (360) 720-3930
Email: kinship@familyess.org
Scroll down for specific module descriptions.
Topic: ATTACHMENT
This module describes the unique characteristics and strengths of attachments between kinship caregivers and their children. Approaches to enhance these attachments are provided.
Learning Objectives:
• Define attachment, types, and the impact of attachment.
• Explain the strengths and advantages of attachments in kinship families.
• Recognize capacities, levels, and degrees of attachment.
• Develop approaches for mediating and strengthening attachments
Topic: LEGACY
This module discusses how the sharing of legacies is a strength between caregivers and their children. This module also identifies strategies for how caregivers can create new family traditions, rites of passage, and goals that interrupt family cycles.
Learning Objectives:
• Describe why legacies are a strength in kinship families.
• Explain how to use legacies to strengthen family connections
• Develop methods for creating new legacies and disrupting cycles
Topic: IDENTITY
This module explains the role caregivers have in the positive identity formation of children in kinship care. Caregivers are equipped with approaches to assist their children in making positive choices and decisions to avoid and disrupt family patterns based on their own values and identities.
Learning Objectives:
• Define and highlight the importance of identity formation/development
• Explain why kinship families have a significant impact on identity formation
• Describe how to impact the development of positive identity
• Identify how to help in the development of identities that disrupt family cycles
Topic: HEALING
This module focuses on how kinship caregivers can minimize the trauma of loss children experience when separated from their birth parents. The sharing of loss and grief between children and their caregivers is a strength of kinship families.
Learning Objectives:
• Identify the emotions and feelings from which children are recovering and healing
• Explain why relatives and kin can be more effective in the recovery and healing process
• Develop approaches in assisting children to heal and be resilient while in kinship care
Topic: ADAPTABILITY
This module focuses on the strength of the kinship family’s adaptability to keep children in the family when they are unable to remain with their parents. Caregivers are provided approaches in assisting the family in adjusting and adapting to changes in family dynamics, roles, and relationships.
Learning Objectives:
• Define and explain why adaptability is a strength in kinship families
• Describe how kin adapt as caregivers
• Identify tasks for caregivers in facilitating the family’s adjustment and adaptation of becoming a kinship family”
Topic: CO-PARENTING
This module focuses on how caregivers can facilitate co-parenting with the children’s birth parents. Caregivers are provided approaches that utilize the strengths of common goals and pre-existing relationships between the caregiver, birth parents, and children.
Learning Objectives:
• Define co-parenting specific to kinship families
• Identify the strengths of co-parenting in kinship families
• Provide approaches for caregivers to engage and involve birth parents in co-parenting