Essential Skills for Foster Family Caregivers
Foster caregivers open their homes and hearts to provide a nurturing environment for youth in need. This is an incredibly rewarding thing to do but it presents unique challenges. There are certain skills that will prepare you to overcome these challenges, enabling you to give youth the best possible chance of succeeding.
It’s important to be prepared to address issues that may come up, and we are here to help you do so. When you become a youth caregiver with PLEA, you will have the opportunity to receive training and certification on several topics. Becoming familiar with these topics will help you not only as a foster family caregiver but also equip you to be a helpful member of any community.
What Kind of Training Do Youth Foster Family Caregivers Receive?
The PLEA Youth Foster Family Caregiving program is very different from the traditional foster care model. We strive to provide youth with a much higher level of support and supervision in the home. That means empowering our youth caregivers with the skills and knowledge they need to help our youth thrive. When you come on board as a foster caregiver, here are some of the training you will have access to:
Trauma-Informed Practice Training
Many of the youth in our program have complex mental health, trauma, and addiction issues. They are with us because, for whatever reason, they are not able to live with their families nor have they had success in other foster placements.
All our youth caregivers receive an orientation that includes how to approach youth in a way that is most likely to avoid re-traumatization and promote healing. This includes learning how to create an environment in which youth feel both physically and emotionally safe, how to build trust and how to support youth to have a say in their own care.
Verbal De-escalation Training
Another essential topic introduced during the youth caregiver orientation is verbal de-escalation, which teaches you how to calm potentially volatile situations using communication strategies rather than physical intervention. Youth may experience heightened emotional states, especially if using substances or they’ve been triggered by something that reminds them of a past trauma.
You will learn how to recognize signs of escalation by paying attention to body language, pacing, tone of voice, and threatening language. An important part of de-escalation is regulating your own emotions to remain calm so you can work toward a solution.
You will practice active listening, which includes showing empathy and validating their feelings by repeating back what they are saying to show you understand their concerns. You will also learn non-defensive communication and how to offer youth choices to give them a sense of control. These skills can help prevent physical confrontations and build trust with youth by helping them improve their communication during stressful situations.
First Aid Training
You never know when someone may need medical attention. Whether due to a chronic illness or an accident, medical issues may arise at any time. Basic first aid skills, including CPR, help to ensure you can confidently provide immediate care in an emergency to prevent minor injuries from becoming serious, and perhaps even save a life.
First aid skills are not only for emergencies. Any parent knows how common minor scrapes, cuts, sprains, and insect stings are. Knowing how best to care for these and other issues will allow you to be the best foster caregiver you can be.
Privacy Training
As a guardian of youth, it is important to respect the boundaries and privacy of individuals in your care. You need to be aware of best practices for protecting personal and sensitive information. You will learn about privacy laws, how to handle information related to anyone in your care, and individual privacy rights.
Naloxone and Medical Administration Training
If you become a foster family caregiver for a youth who has a history of substance use, you will receive training on how to recognize the signs of an opioid overdose and how to administer naloxone. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist, which means it can be used to prevent overdoses from opioids such as fentanyl, heroin, or prescription painkillers. In the event of an overdose, the timely administration of naloxone can help restore normal breathing while waiting for emergency services, and has proven to be a life-saving intervention.
Depending on the unique medical needs of the youth in your care, you may need to learn how to administer other medications. For example, you may learn how to treat a severe allergic reaction using epinephrine, how to handle a diabetic emergency, or how to respond in the event of a seizure. The more you know, the more confidence you will have in responding to medical emergencies. PLEA will make sure to provide you with that knowledge.
Cultural Training
Every culture comes with its own customs, beliefs, traditions, and values. When you become a youth caregiver, you may be matched with a young person of a different cultural background than yourself. Whether that is a person of a different race, ethnicity, language group, or ability, it is important to be aware of your cultural biases and assumptions to ensure empathetic and effective communication in your household.
You will learn strategies to improve how you interact with youth from different cultural backgrounds, including practicing active listening, understanding verbal and non-verbal clues, and more.
Suicide Prevention Training
This training equips youth caregivers to recognize suicide warning signs, including verbal cues, behavioural changes, and situational triggers that may place unusually high stress on youth. You will learn what resources to draw on to intervene and provide support to youth who may be having suicidal thoughts.
24/7 Support for Caregivers
In addition to benefiting from the training described above, our youth caregivers are never alone. Every caregiver has direct and regular contact with a case manager who will support them along the way. There is also a staff member on call 24/7 to help in the event of a crisis or emergency. Our caregivers are also encouraged to join the caregiver group that meets regularly (both in-person and virtually) so they can share stories, tips, and ideas and get peer support.
How to Become a Youth Foster Family Caregiver
After reading this, perhaps you’d like to learn more about becoming a foster caregiver. Contact us to learn more about the requirements and discuss the next steps with one of our helpful team members.
