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Kinship Care Practice Curriculum Materials

Kinship Care Practice Curriculum Materials are intended to prepare child welfare caseworkers to engage family members of children in the custody of the child welfare system in development of a permanent plan for the child. The materials may also be useful tools for child welfare practice and policy, generalist practice, family intervention, and human behavior courses.

The Training Curriculum is comprised of an introduction and six learning units. Each unit contains learning goals, a discussion section that can be used as a lecture guide or distributed as a reading assignment, a reference list, learning activities and resources, and full-page handouts that can also be duplicated as overhead transparencies.

The Training Videos that accompany the manual include four segments, all involving the same family. The segments range in length from 25 to 40 minutes.

  • In segment one, the caseworker interviews the biological mother of a child who has been taken into the custody of the child welfare system and placed in kinship foster care with the maternal grandmother. The caseworker demonstrates the use of the geno gram and eco map as assessment and engagement tools.
  • In segment two, the caseworker discusses with the maternal grandmother the likelihood that the child will not return to live with the mother and the possibility of adoption or transfer of legal guardianship to the grandmother.
  • In segments three and four, the caseworker meets with the maternal grandmother, biological mother, a maternal aunt and uncle, and a paternal aunt to determine the permanent living arrangement for the child.

The training materials reflect the reality of pressures placed on child welfare practitioners and families to shorten the length of time children remain in state custody and to facilitate exit of children from the child welfare system through adoption or transfer of legal guardianship when children cannot swiftly and safely be reunified with their parents.