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TRAINING INSTITUTE

Permanency

Every young person deserves the stability and support that come from having loving, lifelong connections. Permanency is grounded in this belief, recognizing that strong, lasting relationships are essential to a child’s well-being and future success.

The Home for Little Wanderers steps in during some of the most difficult moments in a young person’s life, ensuring they receive the care and have the opportunity to grow up in a nurturing environment. The ultimate goal is always to help children reunite with their own families whenever possible. When reunification isn’t an option, we work to find loving families where kids can thrive.

Supporting permanency also means partnering with families to help them build on their existing network and connecting them with the resources they need to remain together. Keeping young people within their families, communities, schools and support systems helps minimize the need for out-of-home placement and, when placement is necessary, shortens the time they spend away from home.

By strengthening family connections and creating stable environments for our youth, we can help young people build the foundation they need to live healthy, successful lives.

TRAINING OFFERINGS

Supporting Youth Permanency in the Community

This nine-hour training focuses on supporting families through mental health crises in a way that embodies cultural humility, strengthens the family’s existing internal, and external resources and keeps young people in their communities, and/or minimizes the duration of out-of-home placement. Participants explore practical tools for family-focused safety planning, crisis prevention and response, and conflict resolution. This course is for participants from any role or discipline who are working to keep families together or to support a stable reunification process after a period of separation.

The Power of Partnership to Strengthen Family Support Networks: Using Motivational Interviewing Techniques to Understand Caregiver Perspectives

This five-hour interactive training focuses on Motivational Interviewing (MI) techniques to improve partnerships with caregivers. Increasing permanent connections requires change. Ambivalence is a natural, expected part of any change process. In order to effectively support caregivers in expanding their networks, workers need to be skilled at working with caregiver ambivalence. MI offers a practical approach to partnering with caregivers in a way that brings their ambivalence into the conversation and helps them strengthen their own reasons for increasing connections.