This podcast was created by Karla Johnston-Krase, M. Div., RYT-200, to support you as a trauma-informed parent. As a parent herself through birth and adoption, Karla knows how parenting children who’ve experienced early life transitions can present unique challenges to the whole family. She is an advocate for radical self-care and helps others find simple and practical tools to create more ease and joy in body, life, and parenting. In this podcast, Karla provides guided relaxation that includes a body scan similar to something called Yoga Nidra, a style of relaxation that has amazing benefits to clients with trauma and PTSD. More therapists and counselors are integrating similar practices into their work. You can find additional resources at www.DiscoverYourCenter.com.

In this podcast, Melissa Hoffman, PhD, from University of Tennessee Health Science Center, The Tennessee Network of Trauma-Informed and Evidence-Based System (TN-TIES) interviews George (Tripp) Ake, PhD, from the Center for Child and Family Health (CCFH). Dr. Ake shares his experiences using the RPC with military connected families, as well as, the development of additional vignettes to enhance the learning opportunity for this population.

In this podcast, Heather Ford, the Supervisor of the Trauma Specialization Team of the Arizona’s Children Association describes her agency’s use of the RPC in all of their seven sites. They always have a group going in each site (sometimes more than one). She describes how the practice was introduced, how she trains new group facilitators, and how she assures that all staff continue to present the material as intended.

Providers at the Center for Child and Family Health in Durham, North Carolina have found a unique way to make the RPC more inclusive for adopted children who have experienced trauma. In this 10-minute podcast, Felicia Gibson, PhD, who works in Post Adoption Support Services at CCFH, tells how her group created this nine-week psychoeducational parent/child program. The podcast host is Melissa Hoffman, PhD, from University of Tennessee Health Science Center, The Tennessee Network of Trauma-Informed and Evidence-Based System, or TN TIES. Each three-hour session of FACT, or Families and Adopted Children Together, includes a shared meal, fun activities for the kids, and Family Together Time to reinforce messages that map onto the RPC learning modules. The program grew from parents’ reports that their adopted kids who had experienced trauma felt isolated and still carried shame associated with their traumatic experiences. And, since parents and children attend sessions together, FACT also addresses child care issues that sometimes hamper parent participation in the RPC training. CCFH will soon hold a reunion for participants from the first seven sessions, and plans to eventually make their program available to the RPC Learning Center.

Resilience has become a popular concept, but what defines this quality in foster youth? According to Amnoni Myers, who grew up in the foster care system, and who now counsels foster youth as they transition out of the system, "resilience is knowing when you're falling and knowing how to catch yourself." So when her clients at Family Matters of Greater Washington in D.C. ask for her help, Myers understands they are demonstrating resilience. In this podcast with host J. Brian Houston, PhD, Director of the Disaster and Community Crisis Center at the University of Missouri, she discusses ways in which resource parents can help their foster youth build their own inner resilience. It's important to meet youth where they are, and to empower them to understand their own stories. Resource parents can function as listeners and learners and offer support and opportunities for growth. They can also remind their youth that "none of us makes it here alone," and that resource parents are part of the team to help them thrive and grow.

Irene Clements, Executive Director of the National Foster Parent Association, has seen many changes in how resource parents are viewed in her 27 years as a foster and adoptive parent and public policy advocate. During this 16-minute podcast, Clements tells podcast host Heather Biggar, LCSW, of the Maine Children’s Trauma Response Initiative, that resource parents are now seen as key players in the team effort to help children achieve permanency. She also points out that while resource parents are now “a voice at the table,” much remains to be done. Meaningful change will include acknowledging that entire resource families, and not just parents, are impacted by case planning decisions . Clements urges parents to not only advocate one-on-one for their child, but to join with associations

Beth Barto, LMHC, Director of Quality Assurance at LUK, Inc. recalls during this 20-minute podcast interview with NCTSN Affiliate Member Frank Bennett, PhD. Over a two-year period, Barto and colleagues became more comfortable with delivering the curriculum to clinicians as well as resource parents. Keeping in mind their own experience and wishing to assure sustainability of the training, they developed a Learning Community to introduce the training to selected applicants. Barto describes the process of using RPC Learning Center resources, assigning pre-work, and conducting practice sessions to increase facilitators’ comfort with curriculum delivery. She also shares recommendations for those who wish to ‘scale up’ the process and conduct a Learning Community of their own.

In this 13-minute podcast, Jared Martin, a Research Associate with the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego, describes the use of implementation science to accomplish the goal of sustainability in conversation with Lorena Avitea, LCSW, a Trauma Informed Systems Specialist with the Chadwick Trauma Informed Systems Project-Dissemination and Implementation, or CTISP-DI. Avitea also talks about using the four phases of the EPIS (Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainability) framework when Chadwick helped Volusia County, Florida Department of Children’s Services to create a county-wide “supercommunity” around the RPC.

Amy Bouldin, MSW, the Program Manager for Resource Parent Training at the Child Welfare Academy, University of Maryland in Baltimore, conducts 80 one-session resource parent trainings a year. Conducting the four-session RPC during an NCTSN research evaluation project had some unique features, as she tells NCTSN Affiliate Member Frank Bennett, PhD, in this 11-minute podcast. Amy shares the other positive outcomes her group reported and suggests some key elements for others considering conducting the RPC training.

In this podcast, Resource Parent Diane Lanni gives an example of how she remained calm and acted as an emotional container when her child grew agitated. Her story shows how it is possible to understand behavior through a trauma lens, react in a way that gives a child what s/he needs, and then later teach skills so the child can ultimately manage his/her own emotions rather than forever relying on caregivers to be that emotional container..