debor016

Order from www.nearipress.org . Choose bookstore and then put my name, Wilcox, in the search engine. I am so delighted to report that my book came out this week. It is entitled: Trauma-Informed Care: The Restorative Approach. This book is a practical guide to implementing trauma-informed care in all sorts of settings. The focus is on making our every day actions in treatment settings match what we know from brain science helps children heal. Chapter One introduces the trauma framework, a useful road map to understanding both the effects of trauma and how people can heal. Although we have considerable new information about what helps people heal from trauma, many programs serving the children who have experienced the most trauma have not yet incorporated this information into their treatment or their programs’ milieus. In the following chapters I provide a specific treatment design using this new brain science as the blueprint for treatment programs for children. Chapter Two is an o...

I am presenting at two national conferences next week. If you are attending either, please come up and introduce yourself. I would love to meet you! The first is the annual NASW conference, Restoring Hope. The conference is in Washington, DC at the Wardman Park Marriott Hotel. My workshop is: Using the New Brain Science to Create Hope and Healing for Child Survivors of Trauma Date: Tuesday, July 24 Time: 3:15 pm - 4:15 pm Room : Wilson B The second presentation is at the  Foster Family Treatment Association 26 th Annual Conference on Treatment Foster Care . The conference will be held July 22-25, in Atlanta, GA . at the Sheraton,Atlanta hotel. My workshop there is: Workshop D17 - Using a Trauma Framework to Strengthen Foster Placements. Wednesday, July 25th 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. Seriously I would love to meet you if you will be attending either of these conferences. Please say hello!

I have recently become interested in the process of supporting relative foster parents and helping the placements to endure. In the REPORT TO THE CONGRESS ON KINSHIP FOSTER CARE U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, completed by the Administration on Children, Youth and Families Children’s Bureau, it is stated   that “Because States' data are scarce, it is difficult to estimate how fast public kinship care has increased-but available evidence suggests that it increased substantially during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In the 25 States that do have data, the proportion of children in public kinship care increased from 18 to 31 percent between 1986 and 1990." I was struck when a foster care leader in our state system described relative foster parents as “the most under-resourced families in the system.” It seems as though there is an un-examined assumption that because relative foster parents are well, relatives, love will carry the day and they will not need help. Fo...