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PRIDE Model of Practice


The PRIDE Model of Practice was initially created by a partnership of Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) and Illinois Department Children Family Services (DCFS), numerous agencies, organizations and a university around the USA and OKS in the Netherlands. In Europe the Dutch foundation OKS has been instrumental in almost all implementations.

RESOURCES PRIDE MODEL OF PRACTICE

The PRIDE Model of Practice Handbook

The Handbook presents the 14-step model of practice. Each of the 14 steps has a chapter that includes: its purpose; the competencies staff need to implement the step; the objectives; the process for implementation; and the resource tools to implement the step.

FosterPRIDE/AdoptPRIDE Pre-Service Preparation and Assessment (integration of training and home study) Resources

  • Trainer’s Guide (2009 edition) provides content and process directions for facilitating the nine, three-hour pre-service sessions. (A 2003 edition is available in Spanish.)

Session One: Connecting with PRIDE

Session Two: Teamwork Towards Permanency

Session Three: Meeting Developmental Needs: Attachment

Session Four: Meeting Developmental Needs: Loss

Session Five: Strengthening Family Relationships

Session Six: Meeting Developmental Needs: Discipline

Session Seven: Continuing Family Relationships

Session Eight: Planning for Change

Session Nine: Making an Informed Decision: Taking PRIDE

  • The PRIDEBook (2009 edition) includes all the resource materials (handouts) for FosterPRIDE/AdoptPRIDE participants. (A 2003 edition is available in Spanish.) The materials include: worksheets for use during the sessions; a summary of session content; resource readings; and PRIDE Connections (worksheets) that link the training experience with family assessment and at-home consultations.
  • The 35-minute DVD Making a Difference (also available in Spanish), developed by the San Felipe Humanitarian Alliance, is designed for use in Session One to demonstrate the PRIDE  Model of Practice competencies, and help prospective resource parents differentiate between fostering and adopting so they can make a commitment to be meaningful to a child’s lifetime or make a lifetime commitment to a child.
  • The 35-minute DVD Developing Family Resources (also available in Spanish), developed by the San Felipe Humanitarian Alliance, is designed for use with staff to demonstrate how to integrate family assessment with pre-service training, and provides  mutual assessment strategies to help prospective resource parents make an informed decision to select in or select out.
  • The 35-minute DVD Foster PRIDE/Adopt PRIDE Program Vignettes (also available in Spanish) portrays 20 situations of children in foster families to demonstrate skills and promote discussion and learning in Sessions Two through Eight.
  • The 17-minute DVD Family Forever, developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, explains family foster care as a family-focused service to promote a better understanding of the foster care team and how birth parents experience their children’s placement (for use in Session Two). 

PRIDE Model of Practice Core (In-Service) Training 
Resources

PRIDE Model of Practice Core includes 11 competency-based in-service training modules, totaling 87 hours of training, and ranging in duration from 3 to 15 hours each. Each module includes a Trainer’s Guide and a PRIDEbook. The Trainer’s Guide  provides the content and process instructions for leading the sessions. The PRIDEbooks contain: the resource materials participants will use in the sessions; at home worksheets; a summary of session content; and resource readings.

Module 1: The Foundation for Meeting the Developmental Needs of Children at Risk (12 hours)

Module 2: Using Discipline to Protect, Nurture, and Meet Developmental Needs (9 hours)

Module 3: Addressing Developmental Issues Related to Sexuality (3 hours)

Module 4: Responding to the Signs and Symptoms of Sexual Abuse (6 hours)

Module 5: Supporting Relationships between Children and Their Families (9 hours)

Module 6: Working as a Professional Team Member (9 hours)

Module 7: Promoting Children’s Personal and Cultural Identity (6 hours)

Module 8: Promoting Permanency Outcomes (12 hours)

Module 9: Managing the Fostering Experience (6 hours)

Module 10 (Under revision): Understanding the Effects of Chemical Dependency on Children and Families (15 hours)

Module 11: Understanding and Promoting Child Development (3 hours)

Module 12: Understanding and Promoting Preteen and Teen Development (6 hours)

PRIDE Model of Practice Advanced and Specialized (In-service) Training
 Resources

The Advanced and Specialized Modules provide ongoing professional development for resource parents who have completed the Core training. They provide the resources and tools to respond effectively to complex situations or issues related to caring for children with particular conditions or life experiences. Adoptive parents may find the topics of value.

The Advanced and Specialized Modules include one or more three-hour sessions. Each Advanced and Specialized module includes a Trainer’s Guide that provides the content and process instructions for leading the sessions and PRIDEbook.  The PRIDEbooks contain: the resource materials participants will use in the sessions; at home worksheets; a summary of session content; and resource readings.

Teens in Care: Supporting Attachment (6 hours) 

Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Domestic Violence (9 hours)

Preparing Youth for Successful Adulthood (12 hours)

Working Together to Improve the Educational Outcomes for Youth in Care (9 hours)


The PRIDE 14-Step Model of Practice

The PRIDE Model of Practice to develop and support resource parents as team members in child protection has three major components: Planning; Development and Support, emphasis on development; and Development and Support, emphasis on support. Within these components are14 specific steps or “Points of Engagement,” illustrated in the diagram below.

The Planning Component:

  • Step 1, Clarify agency’s mission, as staff and resource parents alike must know and be committed to the focus of the agency’s work.
  • Step 2, Identify how resource parents help achieve the agency’s mission through five major competencies that will form the foundation for assessment and preparation.
  • Step 3, Assess local needs, determine the nature and number of resource families to be recruited (sibling groups, ages, special needs)

The Development and Support, emphasis on development Component:

  • Step 4, Educate the public using recruitment strategies that focus on the unique value of resource parents to children, families, and communities.
  • Step 5, Respond to inquiries, with a positive, immediate message of appreciation and information.
  • Step 6, Provide program information, inform prospective resource families about the agency, the children, and the mutual selection process.
  • Step 7, Consult with families in their home environment, continue the mutual assessment process.
  • Steps 8A and 8B, Engage prospective resource families in the mutual assessment and preparation process, featuring the FosterPRIDE/AdoptPRIDE preservice group sessions integrated with individual at-home consultations with Family Development Specialists.
  • Step 9, Select in or out, prospective resource family and Family Development Specialist engage in mutual decision making regarding whether the family has the ability, willingness, and resources to use the five major competencies as team members in child protection. 

The Development and Support, emphasis on support Component: 

  • Step 10, Match needs of children with the strengths of resource families.
  • Step 11, Create and implement plan for ongoing development and support of resource families related to the needs of children in their families.
  • Step 12, Engage in ongoing teamwork, focusing on  protecting and nurturing  children, meeting  development needs, addressing delays, supporting children’s relationships with birth families, connecting children to safe and nurturing relationships intended to last a lifetime.
  • Step 13, Participate in in-service training, to achieve core, advanced and specialized levels of competency.
  • Step 14, Conclude relationship with agency and transition from role as resource parent.

The above 14 steps are also known as “Points of Engagement” between resource families and agencies. Most resource families, in the process of development and support, will interact with a variety of agency staff. The PRIDE Model of Practice helps ensure that interactions are consistent and strengths-based, leading to positive outcomes for children who have experienced trauma.

Agencies that choose to invest in the PRIDE Model of Practice are taught how to implement and integrate each of these steps in order to have a comprehensive, best practices approach to developing, assessing, selecting, training, and retaining resource families as team members in achieving child safety, well-being, and permanency. 

The PRIDE Model of Practice Competencies

Integral to the PRIDE Model of Practice is the understanding that protecting and nurturing children at risk and strengthening all their families (birth, foster, or adoptive) requires teamwork among individuals with diverse and culturally responsive knowledge and skills, but all working from a shared vision and toward a common goal. Resource parents are essential members of this team. They, like caseworkers, require preparation and training to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to be effective in their work. The aim of the competency-based approach is to assure that resource families are willing, able, and have the resources to meet the needs of traumatized children and their families to the fullest possible extent.

The PRIDE Model of Practice identifies five essential competency categories for resource parents:

• Protecting and nurturing children.

• Meeting children’s developmental needs, (which includes health, intellectual growth, self-esteem, appropriate discipline, cultural and sexual identity, social skills, academic progress, as well as ameliorating the effects of trauma and other developmental challenges or delays).

• Supporting children’s relationships with their birth families (because whether children have a little contact, a lot of contact, or no contact with their families they have feelings about them, and best practice dictates that child welfare services promote healing between children and their families).

• Connecting children to safe, nurturing relationships intended to last a lifetime (or permanency, because children need continuity, commitment, legal and social status that comes from having a family of one’s own).

• Working as a member of a professional team. 

The competencies were developed from a comprehensive analysis of the roles of foster and adoptive parents. They were grouped into the five categories that had been framed by the National Commission on Family Foster Care, convened in 1991 by CWLA and the National Foster Parent Association (NFPA) and published in the book, A Blueprint for Fostering Infants, Children, and Youths in 1990s. These competencies follow a progression of learning operationalized at the pre-service (prior to child placement) and core (within the first two years of service) levels, and continue through the development of advanced and specialized skills.

One of the most compelling features of the PRIDE Model of Practice is that these competencies clarify what resource parents are expected to know and be able to do for children in their care. A second compelling aspect of PRIDE is the relationship of the family assessment (home study) to these competencies. Disruptions occur when resource parents do not have the willingness, ability, or resources to fulfill one or more of these competencies.

An important feature of the PRIDE Model of Practice is the integration of preparation (preservice training) with the assessment of perspective resources parents to ensure that they have the willingness, ability, and resources to demonstrate these competencies. Prospective foster and adoptive parents sometimes have unrealistic ideas about what is expected of them, what the children will be like, and how the child welfare system works. But without the requisite strengths, skills, and supports, it is children who are treated like merchandise and returned to their agencies or worse, abused. Or, foster parents may be recruited, assessed, selected, and trained as full partners in child protection. But if that valuable role is not clear to all members of the agency then foster parents become frustrated when not treated with dignity and respect; they leave, the agency’s image in the community is tarnished, and the recruitment cycle begins again.

The PRIDE Model of Practice recognizes that foster and adoptive parents are a rare, valuable resource. Without them, children who must be separated from their families of origin would not have the benefits of family living. PRIDE also emphasizes that to be any kind of parent (birth, foster, adoptive) is a privilege, not a right; but for children to protected, that is a right, not a privilege.


For information or assistance with PRIDE Model of Practice, please contact Donna Petras, PhD, MSW, Director, Models of Practice and Training, DPetras@cwla.org or Rob van Pagée, Director OKS, oks@planet.nl