A Guide for Foster Parents on
Family Visits

THANK YOU for your passion and commitment to
provide a safe loving home to children.

THANK YOU for sharing your home and family with
children that come into care.

THANK YOU for learning all you can about these
children, so that you can make them feel as
comfortable as possible during this scary and
difficult time.

THANK YOU for allowing numerous people to enter
your home on a regular basis.

THANK YOU for being a positive role model in our
community.

THANK YOU for the time and extra expenses you
have put into helping these children have a happier,
more successful future.

THANK YOU for enduring and persevering through
the obstacles you encounter every day as a
foster parent.
Family visits help maintain strong family
connections, and foster parents play an
important role in facilitating these strong
connections. When children in foster care have
regular and frequent contact with their birth
families, they experience shorter placements,
less re-entry into foster care, more successful
reunification, and improved emotional wellbeing. A guide using information collected
through interviews with foster parents, social
workers, children, and birth parents aims to help
foster parents understand how to be a strong
resource for children and their birth families.
Family Connect: Putting the Pieces of Family
Visits Together: A Guide for Foster Parents
highlights typical reactions children and parents
may have before and after visits, how to relate
effectively with birth parents, and strategies in
preparing and transitioning children to and from
family visits. Foster parents identified children's
transition from family visits back to the foster
home as the most challenging aspect of
visitation. The guide offers a transition check list
to help foster parents understand their own
feelings about family visits as well as how the
children in their care may feel after a visit.
Other tips in the guide include establishing a
“goodbye” ritual before leaving a child with his
or her birth parent. The ritual can include
blowing a kiss, a high five, or another exchange
that serves as a signal to the child that the foster
parent is leaving but will be back when the
family time is over. To read more about
facilitating successful and smooth family visits,
CLICK HERE.
IFAPA I 6864 NE 14th St., Suite 5 - Ankeny, IA 50023 I 800.277.8145 I 515.289.4567 I www.ifapa.org I OFFICE HOURS 8AM - 4:30PM
UPCOMING CLASSES
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TO REGISTER
ANKENY
SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2017 (9am-4:30pm)
Integrative Parenting: Strategies for Raising Children
Affected by Attachment Trauma
Integrative Parenting will help parents identify the root of their
children’s misbehaviors, learn effective methods to calm
reactive and misbehaving children and identify the impact of
past trauma on your relationship with your child. You will also
learn how to help your child heal through attunement, nurturing
messages and comforting touch. WORTH SIX HOURS OF CREDIT
COUNCIL BLUFFS
THURSDAY, JUNE 8, 2017 (5pm-8pm)
Future Fest West - For Foster/Adoptive Youth Age 14+
This free event is for teens and their foster parents. Future Fest
West will help teens find the answers to questions like: Where will
I live? Where will I work? Where will I go to school?
This event will feature a keynote speaker, a youth panel
discussing their experience aging out of the foster care system,
an interactive resource fair, dinner and door prizes.
WORTH TWO HOURS OF CREDIT VIEW MORE INFO
Study Examines
Mental, Physical
Health of Children
in Foster Care
Either due to experiencing
maltreatment or other risk factors,
children in foster care often
experience more depression and
anxiety, attention-deficit/
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),
developmental delays, asthma,
and obesity than children who
have not been placed in foster
care. A recent article in the
journal Pediatrics, "Mental and
Physical Health of Children in Foster
Care," reports on a study that
examined and compared the
mental and physical health of
children placed in foster care with
the health of children in the general
population. CONTINUE READING
SIOUX CITY
SATURDAY, JUNE 10, 2017 (9am-12:15pm)
Human Trafficking - It Is Here and Thriving in Iowa!
National statistics show that 68% of youth coming out of “the
life” experienced the child welfare system at some point in their
lives so we need to protect the youth with foster, adopt or
accept guardianship of. This training is geared to both youth
and foster parents/caregivers, and will consist of a candid
discussion on how Human Trafficking operatives work, impact
on victims, and how people serving youth can identify and
respond. WORTH THREE HOURS OF CREDIT
BLOOMFIELD
SATURDAY, JUNE 24, 2017 (9am-4:30pm)
Equip...Launch...Success! Preparing Your Teen
for a Secure Journey to Adulthood
This free event is for teens and their foster parents. Participants
will learn about Human Trafficking and Helping Teens Transition
Successfully to Adulthood. This event will feature an interactive
resource fair, door prizes and a free breakfast and lunch.
WORTH SIX HOURS OF CREDIT VIEW MORE INFO
Sibling Issues
in Foster Care
and Adoption
Child welfare professionals can
make a critical contribution to the
well-being of children who enter
care by preserving their
connections with their brothers and
sisters. Approximately two-thirds of
children in foster care in the United
States have a sibling also in care.
For a variety of reasons, many of
these siblings are not placed
together initially or become
separated over time. Foster youth
describe this experience as “an
extra punishment, a separate loss,
and another pain that is not
needed”. CONTINUE READING
IFAPA I 6864 NE 14th St., Suite 5 - Ankeny, IA 50023 I 800.277.8145 I 515.289.4567 I www.ifapa.org I OFFICE HOURS 8AM - 4:30PM