The training manual is now available! It is the twin to Understanding the Trauma of Institutionalised Children. To support the child you adopt, which I published in September last year. That was a book written for adoptive parents caring or planning to care for a child coming from an institution. The book gave information about how institutionalisation affects brain development and the stress response system, what the effects of that are and how parents can support the child to overcome challenging behaviour and developmental delays as much as possible. This information is not only applicable to children who are adopted from institutions. It applies to all children who are moved from institutions to families. That is why, even before the ‘adoption version’ came out, I had started work on adapting the same basic content to a different audience.
Families (no matter whether we are talking about the child’s birth family, their extended family, a foster family, a guardian, an adoptive family or a kafeel) taking in children from an institution are not always in a position to read a book like this themselves. To make sure that they can still have access to the necessary information, I have developed it into a training manual for caseworkers. Allowing those involved in moving children from institutions to families to understand the needs of children who have been institutionalised fully and to give them the tools to develop training to prepare the families taking them in.
The manual was written for anyone who works on the ground to move children from institutions into families. A social worker, case manager, counsellor, or person otherwise involved in this process needs to be aware of the issues addressed in this book to make sure that the placement of children in families becomes sustainable. Having this information will help to do an effective assessment of a child and to make decisions and put together a care plan and support structure that has the best chance of a successful, sustainable placement.
The aim of the training manual is to give an insight into the impact of living in an institution on children, the effects on their development and behaviour, and ways in which the families they will be placed with can handle the challenges ahead of them. This insight allows case workers to determine, through assessment, which of the issues described in the book are relevant for an individual child. It may also alert them to the need to look for specific issues when assessing the child. In turn, this helps in decisions about what kind of support the child and the family she goes to will most likely need. The manual can serve as a basis for the training – adapted to the needs of the individual child and family, and to the local context – that caseworkers will need to provide to the family to help them understand what they can expect and how they can cope with the challenges ahead.
The publication of this training manual has been much anticipated, so I am very excited to be able to finally let people know that Understanding the Trauma of Children from Institutions. A training manual for case workers is now available. At this moment, it can only be ordered in hard copy HERE.
Update: You can now order the PDF or the audio version of the training manual HERE.
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This manual is really important. Unfortunately l cannot access it.