Initiative

NCTSN Resource Parent Curriculum

This Initiative, focused on the training of facilitators in National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC), is part of a larger collaborative project between the Center for Child and Family Health (CCFH) and the NC Division of Social Services (NCDSS). Funds from NCDSS are used to train and support child welfare and mental health professionals to deliver these workshops across the state to foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers. The goal of RPC is to educate resource parents about the impact of trauma on development for children with experience in foster care or out-of-home placement. In addition, RPC provides resource parents with the knowledge on responding in a trauma-informed way to children in their care, information on assessment and treatment options, and how to advocate for needed services. RPC is part of the state child welfare’s strategy to address the needs of the child welfare foster and adoptive parent workforce as well as the children in their care.

Home Pathways Action Map NCTSN Resource Parent Curriculum

Fast Facts

Relevant Actions Action 1.1, Action 4.1, Action 4.8
State or Local?

State
Counties

All Counties
Lead Agency

Center for Child and Family Health
Type of Agency

Non-profit
Racial Equity Lens

The NCTSN developed RPC with the intent of elevating lived experience of resource parents as co-facilitators of the workshops and appreciating the need to promote racial equity in the delivery of the workshops. Given this:

  • CCFH has promoted the need for diversity and equity in standard delivery of RPC including parent facilitators of the curriculum.
  • CCFH has been more purposeful in the identification of trained BIPOC facilitators to partner and work towards being trainers of facilitators in NC.
  • We are collecting and analyzing the demographic data of our professional trainees in hopes of supporting a workforce that reflects the demographics of our community.
Impact
  • RPC is being delivered across a significant number of counties to adoptive, foster, and kinship families leading to initial findings of stronger understanding of trauma-informed parenting concepts, higher levels of tolerance of child behaviors, and strong collaboration with child welfare.
  • RPC is believed to contribute to a reduction in child welfare placement disruption, but more data analyses are needed to determine the extent to which this is true.
  • RPC facilitators are being trained in a significant number of NC counties and are listed on a public facing roster in partnership with the NC Child Treatment Program.
Next Steps
  • NCDSS has developed a strategic plan for RPC including a goal for RPC to be delivered statewide by 2023.
  • NCDSS and private funders are considering potential opportunities to support train-the-trainer training to help RPC efforts sustain in communities.
Primary Partners
  • NC Division of Social Services
Primary Funders
  • NC Division of Social Services
Contact

Tripp Ake

Active Counties