PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education) - Detailed Report

OVERVIEW

• PRIDE is a model for the delivery of foster care services, that includes training for foster parents and other child welfare professionals who help implement and support the model.
• The PRIDE Model is a 14-step process to develop and support resource families. Each step identifies a phase in building and maintaining a well-qualified group of foster and adoptive families prepared to achieve the five program goals (see below). The process begins by identifying needs, conducting effective recruitment, assessing and preparing applicants, and providing on-going support and training opportunities. The process for completing each step and related tools are contained in the manual: The PRIDE Practice Handbook. The Handbook is designed to help agencies manage systems issues that can impact negatively on foster care services.
• The PRIDE curricula meets the Child Welfare League of America's (CWLA's) Foster Care Practice Standards developed by a national advisory board of child welfare experts.

FIVE PROGRAM GOALS

It addresses 5 competency categories or goals that support Federal Standards concerned with promoting the health, safety, and well-being of children in foster care:

• Protecting and nurturing children
• Meeting children's developmental needs and addressing developmental delays
• Supporting relationships between children and their families
• Connecting children to safe, nurturing relationships intended to last a lifetime
• Working as a member of a professional team.

TRAINING FOR CHILD WELFARE PROFESSIONALS

• It places the training within the context of the agency where it will be implemented, so that administrators can prepare the system to support the model.
• The program is competency-based. The training objectives were written based on an analysis of the knowledge and skills foster parents must have in order to fulfill their roles.
• The PRIDE Model integrates training with assessment. In most other models, this is not the case. In PRIDE, the assessment focuses on the five competencies. The subject matter of the assessment coincides with the content of the training sessions. From the sessions, families are encouraged to apply the information learned about their strengths and needs to their current and past actions. This approach promotes mutuality in the decision process; families are active participants in assessing their readiness to foster and what training or support they need to succeed.
• The program includes a Family Development Plan, which is both a process and a tool to assess the learning needs of foster parents on an ongoing basis, and match identified needs with competency-based training resources.
• Training for child welfare managers on how to change their systems to support changed practice.
• Training for child welfare workers who assess and prepare foster parents and adoptive parents using PRIDE processes and tools.
• Training in teamwork for child welfare workers so they can develop collaborative relationships with foster parents.

FOSTER PARENT TRAININGS

Finally there is training offered directly to foster parents and adoptive parents. That training is organized into four programs. These four programs for foster parent and adoptive parent training are based on a set of competencies and training objectives derived through multiple focus groups with foster parents and workers in several states.

• Pre-service training for applicant families, to provide knowledge and skills needed before one begins fostering or adopting. The pre-service component includes three videos designed to support learning: "Making A Difference" provides an overview of the foster care system and the foster parents' role, "PRIDE Vignettes" shows common behavioral problems of youth in care, which participants then discuss in the group training, and "Family Forever" shows birth parents, foster parents, and workers collaborating to reunite children with their families.
• Core training for new families, which addresses the basic competencies that all foster parents need to know; Nine Modules of the PRIDE Core, a total of 69 training hours, are now available in CD-ROM. The interactive program is intended to support "anytime, anywhere" learning. Foster parents can use the self-instructional discs at their home computers. Evaluation exercises are included throughout each module. Each module of Core includes evaluation tools for participants. Each participant completes an Action Plan detailing how he or she plans to use what he or she has learned in the next six months. Agencies are provided with a follow-up assessment form to send to participants to determine how well they did in completing their action plan.
• Specialized training for families caring for certain populations (ex. medically fragile infants).
• Advanced training for experienced families who care for children with very challenging needs.

Christiansen, B., & McMurty, J. (2007). A comparative evaluation of preservice training of kinship and nonkinship foster/adoptive families. Child Welfare, 86(2), 125-140.

This study employed a pre-test/posttest design. PRIDE participants (n = 228) completed a pre and posttest survey based on the PRIDE training competencies in 2004-2005. The post survey was administered at the ninth PRIDE training sessions. The first question focused on the primary goal of foster care, defined as strengthen birth families with the goal of reunification. Significantly more kinship and non-kinship participants answered the posttest question in accordance with this priority. The remaining survey questions focused on five competency categories of the PRIDE curriculum. Participants showed significantly increased understanding on most survey items from the pretest to the posttest. There were some differences seen between kinship and non-kinship foster parents on several items. Kinship participants reported more difficulty with parenting special needs children, withholding food as punishment, being able to support birth-family relationships, allowing birth-family visitations, and feeling like a member of professional child welfare team.

Christiansen, B., & McMurty, J. (2007). A comparative evaluation of preservice training of kinship and nonkinship foster/adoptive families. Child Welfare, 86(2), 125-140.