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February 2018Vol. 19, No. 1Trauma Systems Therapy for Foster Care Curriculum

The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently released a new training curriculum designed to enhance foster parents' and other caregivers' understanding of how trauma affects children's behavior. Trauma Systems Therapy for Foster Care (TST-FC) includes the primer Implementing Trauma Systems Therapy for Foster Care, which is for child welfare agencies planning to implement the TST-FC curriculum within their existing inservice foster care trainings, and Facilitator Preparation and Planning for TST-FC, which contains tips for facilitators on scheduling, preparing, and presenting the TST-FC curriculum.

The curriculum comprises the following four training modules that include facilitator guides and accompanying PowerPoint slides:

  • The Impact of Trauma module discusses the impact of trauma on children and caregivers as well as describes caregivers' role in assessing a child for trauma and working with the child's team to develop interventions.
  • Strategies to Assess Trauma focuses on interventions to address the specific needs of a particular child as well as strategies that work for children who have faced trauma.
  • Coping With Difficult Behavior addresses specific strategies to help children manage emotions and behavioral responses.
  • Generating Signals of Safety aims to help caregivers understand the importance of creating as many signals of safety as possible to help the child feel cared for and heal from past signals of harm.

The curriculum also includes additional resources for trainers and caregivers, including The Foster Parent Resource Guide and Managing Emotions Guide as well as surveys and feedback for the TST-FC.

The TST-FC curriculum is available at http://www.aecf.org/blog/introducing-tst-fc-a-trauma-focused-curriculum-for-caregivers/.