August E-Newsletter

Volume 5 Edition 8

In This Issue

AdoptUsKids

CT Heart Gallery

Suggested Reading

Lending Library

Open House Schedule

Support Groups

News and Items of Interest

Back to School Links

Reclaiming the Love for Learning

Contact Us

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Adoptive Parents

Are you an adoptive parent?

Join the

CT Adoption Community Network on Facebook for news and information on trainings and adoption-related events.

Waiting Children
*Please click on the AdoptUSKids logo to view CT's children and youth waiting to be adopted who are registered with AdoptUSKids.*

CT Heart Gallery
*Please click on logo to view the write-ups and videos of CT's children and youth waiting to be adopted. (These children and youth may be different from the ones listed on the AdoptUSKids site.)*

Suggested Reading

Books on Foster Care And Adoption

Click here to download a PDF file containing an updated comprehensive list of books on foster care and adoption topics, including childrens' books.

Have we forgotten one of your favorite books? Please let us know and we will be happy to add it to the list.

**New**
Lending Library

Region 5 Lending Library

Please check out the titles available to families. Included in the list of 60 titles are a number of great books for young children as well as teens. If you would like any information regarding any of these books Amazon carries all of them and publishes synopses on them.
Families are welcome to borrow titles for up to one month.

Details are available by clicking here.

Open House Schedule

Want to learn more about foster/adoptive parenting?

Prospective foster and adoptive parents are welcome at any Open House listed on our website. Please call one of the regional coordinators listed at the bottom of this newsletter or

email us

for more information or to schedule an individual appointment.

Click here for the most current listing of open houses across the state.

Our Support Groups

Foster Care Alumni Support Group
211 Schraffts Dr #A5

Waterbury 1st Thursday, 6-8 pm

Building Block Club
211 Schraffts Dr #A5

Waterbury
3rd Thursday, 4-5:30pm

Post-Adoption Support Group

211 Schraffts Dr # A5

3rd Wednesday, 7pm

No childcare.

Relative Caregiver Support Group

211 Schraffts Dr # A5

4th Monday, 10 a.m.
No childcare.

Relative Caregiver Support Group

Torrington Headstart

1st Saturday

10 a.m.

Child care available with RSVP -

Contact Jennifer

Quick Links

Adoption Assistance Program

Adoption Community Network

-official kids' portal for the U.S. government

NAMI-CT

Help with mental illness resources and support

Represent Magazine

-national magazine written by youth in foster care

Spoonful

Wrightslaw -
CT page for resource relating todisability resources

August 29, 2014

This month we appropriately focus on school. Children and youth in foster care, as well as other children, are often anxious as the new school year unfolds. We hope the resources we have listed will provide you with some tools to help your children be successful.

In addition to a Back-to-School focus, I urge you to read the last article, poem by a former foster youth. Powerful, powerful words about the long-term effects of loss of family connections on someone who experienced foster care. His words will stay with you for a long time.

Lastly, we encourage families to check out our Facebook Page on Tuesday mornings. We regularly post an on-line training on topics useful to families caring for children who have experienced foster care. Let us know if there are topics you'd like us to cover in the future! Email your suggestions here.

Regards,

News and Items of Interest

Click on the calendar at right to see upcoming events.

Check out all the great information we've been posting on Facebook recently!

A new editorial by Commissioner Katz. Op-Ed: Those who 'opt out' of state care pose a particular challenge for DCF
Good strategies in this article, especially for kids who have trouble identifying feelings and calming down. Helping Kids Deal with Big Feelings
Sometimes parents get confused by adoption terminology. "Special Needs" adoption is one of those confusing phrases. "Special Needs" Adoption: What Does It Mean?
Love this simple idea for a more peaceful home! 1 Simple Tip to Help You StopYelling
Click on the individual links on this page to learn more about the parental controls available on social media apps our kids are using. A Platform for Good Resource Center
Epigenetics can explain why long after kids have experienced abuse they remain wired "to often misinterpret innocent behavior as threatening; they can be aggressive, and they struggle with change." Abuse Casts a Long Shadow by Changing Children's Genes

Back to School Links

CT Department of Education Parents Page: Useful links and information on everything from Special Education; Nutrition services; Positive School Climate; School Choice and more.
American Academy of Pediatrics: Back to school health and safety tips.
Adoption.com Back to School Tips: What I Hope Foster Parents Remember to Do this Year
Connecticut Commission on Children's Bullying Information: Updates and links to helpful information on legislation, rights and prevention strategies.
Back-to-school Stress: the warning signs and what to do.
Does Your Child Qualify for a Surrogate Parent? or Alternative Link: Link to DCF Regs and instructions for requesting a Surrogate Parent.

Reclaiming the Love for Learning

*Reprinted with permission from Heather Forbes' Beyond Consequences Newsletter

Children are vulnerable. In an optimal environment, they are not expected to experience this vulnerability until later in life when their minds and nervous systems are equipped to handle elevated levels of fear, stress, and overwhelm. Yet, the key phrase here is "optimal environment." Unfortunately, we live in the "real" world, so children will often find themselves in situations that are far from the optimal and the result can be childhood trauma.

Childhood trauma happens at both the emotional and psychological level and it can have a negative impact on the child's developmental process. During a traumatic event (abuse, neglect, adoption, accidents, birth trauma, etc.), the lifelong impact is even greater if the child believes he powerless, helpless, and hopeless. When a child experiences one or all of these feelings, he begins to believe the world is dangerous. Repeated experiences of these feelings will create a lasting imprint from which he operates and behaves. A framework based in fear and survival becomes the child's viewpoint of the world around him.

These early life experiences then influence the child's ability to "behave," or more correctly expressed, the child's ability to stay "regulated." Trauma impacts a child's ability to stay calm, balanced, and oriented. Instead, children with traumatic histories often find themselves in a "dysregulated" state, which manifests into a child who does not behave, cannot focus, and/or lacks motivation. It is not a matter of choice or a matter of "good" child verses "bad" child; it is simply an imprint from the child's past history. It's the child's new normal.

When working with children like this in the classroom, the most effective way to work with them is to work at the level of regulation, relationship, and emotional safety instead of at the level of behavior. These children's issues are not behavioral; they are regulatory. Working at the level of regulation, relationship, and emotional safety addresses more deeply critical forces within these children that go far beyond the exchanges of language, choices, stars, and sticker charts.

Traditional disciplinary techniques focus on altering the left hemisphere through language, logic, and cognitive thinking. These approaches are ineffective because the regulatory system is altered more effectively through a different part of the brain known as the limbic system. The limbic system operates at the emotional level, not at the logical level. Therefore, we must work to regulate these children at the level of the limbic system, which happens most easily through the context of human connection.

When the teacher says to a non-traumatized child, "Andy, can you please settle down and quietly have a seat?" Andy has the internal regulatory ability to respond appropriately to his teacher because trauma has not interrupted his developmental maturation of developing self-regulation tools and feeling like he is safe in the world. However, when Billy (the traumatized child) is asked the same question, his response is much different. He takes the long way around the classroom to his seat, he continues to not only talk but projects his voice across the room as if he is still out in the playground, and once seated continues to squirm and wiggle.

Traditionally, we have interpreted Billy as a disruptive child, pasted the label ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) onto him, and reprimanded him for his "naughty" behavior. What we have failed to see is that Billy cannot settle down on his own. His internal system has not experienced the appropriate patterning to know how to be well behaved like his classmate Andy and Billy does not know he is safe in this world, even if he is now in a safe environment.

The brain-body system is a pattern-matching machine. A child with little internal self-control will pattern himself according to his past external experiences. If his past experiences have been chaotic, disruptive, and overwhelming (trauma), he will continue acting this way until new patterns are established. Thus, a child coming into a calm and safe classroom is still likely to be acting as if he is in his previous chaotic and unsafe environment. A child can be taken out of trauma but not so easily can the trauma be taken out of the child. Past patterns of chaos are now the current framework for navigating his world; he knows no different.

The most effective way to change these patterns comes through safe, nurturing, attuned, and strong human connection. For the student in the classroom, it comes through the teacher-student relationship. The reality is, for our traumatized children to learn and achieve academically, science is showing that they must be engaged at the relational level prior to any academic learning.

Press on,

Heather T. Forbes, LCSW
Parent and Author of Beyond Consequences, Logic & Control: Volume 1 & Volume 2,
Dare to Love, and Help for Billy

Children's Behaviors

"Like an iceberg, the bulk of behavior's "mass" is found below the surface; it is what gives rise to the part that is visible. Behavior is triggered from feelings, which stem from the more deeply rooted needs of a person. These are not needs like, "I need candy/ I need a new toy/ I need to play video games." Basic human needs consist of things like autonomy, safety, security, trust, empathy, understanding, adequate sleep and nutrition, a sense of belonging and inclusion, competency, respect, and love."

~ Kelly Bartlett

What's It Like?

Below are some thoughts that I received from a former foster youth from Arizona, Lawrence Adams, published with his permission.

WHAT'S IT LIKE?

Questions of a former foster child: I waited 36 years to just say HELLO to my birth mother and 40 years to do the same with my birth father. Despite this most of these questions have remained unanswered and will forever remain so as both are deceased.

What's It Like:

To know there were shouts of joy by all when you were born?

To have a mother or father hug and kiss you because they love you?

To feel proud as you run "home" from school with your first A and share it with your

parents?

To play catch, fish and other things a son does with your dad?

To be able to say "my family"?

To say "my house"?

To say "mom and dad" and know they truely are?

To hear "C'mon Son!"?

To show your dad you can ride without training wheels?

To feel it "neat" to introduce your teacher to your parents?

To share your joy of high school and college graduation with your family?

To hear your life stories from your family?

To answer, "what does your dad do"?

To share pictures of you and your family with others?

To get a family heirloom?

To say you have lived here for X number of years?

To know a "family friend"?

To hear and say "I love you" and know it is meant?

To have Thanksgiving and Christmas with family?

To not feel "attention seeking" when telling your life story?

To answer the doctor's question..."What is your family medical history?

To answer the question..."So... where is your family from"?

To say to anyone that..."This is my family?"

Please...What's It Like?...tell me for it is the only way I will know...What's it Like!

Contact Information
Northwestern CT Regional Coordinator: Deb Kelleher 203.706.0101 Email Greater New Haven Area Regional Coordinator: Laura Rainey Email Central/Southeastern CT Coordinator: Alana Jones 860.710.1593 Email