Our first winner is here! Congratulations to Jessica Nuckoles for finding the penny and receiving a prize! Thank you to everyone who participated. If you find the hidden penny, email audrey@fosterchangecc.org, with a screenshot of the penny or a detailed description of its location to be entered into a raffle to win a gift card. This month there are two pennies, and finding both will get your name put in the raffle twice!
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Valentine's Day - A History |
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Valentine's Day had pretty gruesome beginnings. The annual celebration of Saint Valentine, the name sake of this holiday of love, only started after his execution. The first established recording of this holiday being celebrated is noted to be in AD 496, over 200 years after his death, and established by Pope Gelasius I. |
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The date of the holiday was decided because Saint Valentine of Rome was executed on February 14. However, the timing was such that the holiday also lined up with "lovebird" season. These birds would appear in early spring and became associated with the love being celebrated on the holiday. |
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The traditional signature of Valentine's Day cards is "Your Valentine", but where did that come from? The most popular story reasoning the use of this signature, comes from Saint Valentine's time spent imprisoned. As it is told, before his execution, Valentine wrote a letter to his love as a farewell, and signed it, "Your Valentine". |
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Today, the celebration of Valentine's day is interpreted a few different ways. The most true to tradition celebration, is that of couples. People in love, taking time on February 14, to appreciate each other, and their special connections. This is often accompanied by flowers, chocolates, teddy bears, and heart shaped paraphernalia. However, many people all over also take this time to celebrate other kinds of love as well, like that found between friends and family. Children in elementary schools often have class parties as a way to acknowledge the tradition of Valentine's day, just without the story of Saint Valentine's execution I'm sure. |
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Support for Kinship Caregivers |
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Fun Opportunities for Eligible Caregivers |
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Let's Talk About Body Autonomy |
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Body autonomy is the right for a person to decide what happens to their body, without force or coercion. It is the right to give or withhold consent to actions being performed on your body. Every child needs to know that they have a right to say no. |
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As stated before, every child has the right to body autonomy, and therefore needs to be taught how to enforce that right. Our children in care especially. The kiddos that are in our homes have come from very complicated and traumatizing homes, and in some cases, those complicated situations included sexual abuse. |
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What happens if we don't teach it? |
Even children who have not been subjected to sexual abuse can fall victim to the effects of never learning their own body autonomy. Studies have shown that children who have never been taught that an adult is allowed to dictate their body is more likely to sexual abuse, sexual assault, and domestic violence. And our kiddos in care need to be taught that their past abuses do not dictate their future experiences. |
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How do you teach body autonomy? |
Teaching body autonomy is as simple as having honest communication and building trust. Honest communication includes teaching young children the correct terms for their private places, that it is okay to say no to an adult when they are uncomfortable, and the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touches. |
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What about building trust? |
Trust is vital to having a healthy understanding of body autonomy. A child knowing that they can trust you with information that is confusing or uncomfortable to them means that they are more likely to come to you when they need help. When a child comes into your home, building trust is the first step to them processing their trauma and beginning to heal. |
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Want to know more? Click HERE to look at where I got my information from and do your own research.
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I would love to hear from you! Click HERE to let me know what topics you would like to read about.
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Training from Raise the Future |
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Raise the Future is pleased to offer a FREE upcoming webinar (online training) on Thursday, February 18th from 10am–12pm Pacific: "Adoption Commitment through the Eyes of Adolescents: Follow the Love Approach!" Learn more and register below.
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This two-hour web-based training offers child welfare professionals, caregivers, and parents of foster/adoptive children, youth, and adolescents an interactive training and discussion. The webinar will include current data regarding teens in the U.S. foster care system, plus a discussion of how emancipation data improves when just one adult commits to a child’s well-being and permanent future. We will consider the importance of how child welfare is shifting perceived outcomes and how we can best benefit adolescents through more efficient and specific permanency recruitment - using connection strategies that work. |
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This webinar training will cover the following topics:
- Tips on how we can help youth move past resistance for an adoption plan.
- “Impermanence Has Implications” - Why being more efficient in recruitment is more practical. Effective collaboration of youth and agency relationship is part of the plan.
- “Follow the Love Approach” - How to find the adult relationships needed to change a youth's trajectory. Identifying the skills and competencies needed from adults who are permanency options. The “Follow The Love” theme that Pat O’Brien teaches will be detailed.
- Birth family outcomes. Working with birth parents. Honoring the need for knowledge and identity formation.
- Improving outcomes for our LGBTQ youth and teens of diverse culture, race, and/or ethnicity.
- The importance of becoming a teen behavioral detective. Reviewing the general developmental and mental health of this population.
- Teaching our adolescent youth to practice self-care in a digital world, and why it is more important now than ever.
- The specific strains that the current COVID-19 pandemic has caused.
- Interactive questions and answers throughout.
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Click the link to find a video detailing how to make several Valentine's Day cards with the little ones. Turtles, strawberries, ladybugs, and bears await your Valentines day, with the supplies listed below.
- Multicolored Construction Paper
- Stick Glue
- Scissors
- Markers
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Fun family activities are a great way to break up stressful days of virtual school, working from home, and worrying about the ten thousands tasks that need to be completed everyday.
This month, we encourage our families to take an indoor activity, outside! Play a board game in the back yard. Have a pillow fight in a field of grass. Read a story together while finding pictures in the clouds. Try to exist outside, enjoy the fresh air and cool breeze.
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Have you told us about your family yet? |
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By becoming a member of Foster Change, you have joined a community of support, and we would love to learn more about you and your family. Please click here, and answer the questions so that we know how we can support you.
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Suspect Child Abuse or Neglect? |
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