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Shared Parenting provides ways for the child to openly seek and maintain all connections necessary for his or her needs and assure there is some consistency in their life during a tumultuous time. The possibility for this depends on the teamwork of the DSS and foster parents and the strength of their partnership with the child’s birth parents. Partnership is a process that requires time and team building to establish trust.
When children see the adults in their lives working together, they are able to relax and focus on just being a child. Birth parents and foster parents can ease their own anxiety and frustration through communication that prevents many misunderstandings over daily issues. When birth parents feel supported by the foster parents, birth parents may even support the foster parents when they are enforcing consequences of any inappropriate behavior by the child.
When the family recovers and the child returns home, lines of communication sometimes remain open. The foster parents and child can remain connected. The birth parents and child may enjoy continued support or mentoring.
Creating supportive relationships and sharing information with birth parents may:
• Enhance child development, learning and well-being by encouraging the child to return to the child role
• Decrease children’s defiant behavior by reducing the children’s desire/need to demonstrate loyalty to birth family
• Decrease feelings of grief and loss from the separation
• Provide information and insights that enable foster parents to meet children’s needs earlier and in a more effective way, thus helping children adjust more easily and reducing foster parent frustration
• Reduce conflict with birth parents over various issues (e.g., grooming)
• Increase birth parent support for foster parents by reassuring them that their children are being well cared for and that foster parents do not seek to replace them
• Create a positive connection between the foster parents, the child, and the child’s family that will not have to end, even if the placement does1
1 Russell, Janine, and McMahon, John. “Shared Parenting Benefits Everyone: Especially Foster Parents.” Fostering Perspectives Vol. 10, No. 1 (2005)
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For questions or clarification on any of the policy contained in these manuals, please contact your local county office. |
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