Maintaining Connections
IFAPA Trainings
IFAPA offers trainings on maintaining connections. View the IFAPA Training Schedule to find upcoming dates and locations for these free training classes.
Completing the Circle - Uncovering, Discovering & Creating Connections for Your Foster & Adoptive Children
This IFAPA publication was created to help foster & adoptive parents identify, locate, and engage as many caring individuals as possible - biological and other -- to support the child in your care over his or her lifetime. VIEW BOOKLET
My Happy Pack
Children enter foster care for many reasons. Frequently a child can not safely return home for several months. A lot can happen in the life of a 2-year-old, a 7-year-old or even an 11-year-old in a few days’ time. A two-year-old may begin putting a few words together to form sentences. A seven-year-old may get a good-behavior note from his or her teacher. An eleven-year-old could write a poem or journal entry he or she is especially proud of. Imagine being the biological parents and missing out on so many of these things.
At the same time, you as the foster parent may be busy and won’t necessarily remember, between visits, what special little everyday kinds of things have happened with the child. My Happy Pack is a plan to help the child share with their biological parents those special things that have happened since their last family interaction.
To help make family interactions more meaningful, a foster parent can provide My Happy Pack to the child to transport the things they want to show their biological parents. My Happy Pack would be a backpack or bag for a child to use only for family interactions with their biological parents. Between family interactions the child can be encouraged to put things into My Happy Pack that he or she is excited to share with their biological parents. Here are some examples of items that might be included:
- A favorite book
- Something cute or funny that the child said that you have wrote on a piece of paper
- New words the child is saying, if it’s a younger child
- A picture the child drew or colored
- A note from the child’s teacher or an assignment the child is proud of
- A snapshot of the child doing a favorite activity
- A letter the child has written to their biological parents
Whenever something comes up that the child may want to share with his or her biological parents, encourage him/her to put it into their My Happy Pack. This gives biological parents a place to start their interactions; it lets them know what their child has been doing since the last family interaction, and allows the biological parent an opportunity to feel more involved in their child’s life. And the child will be very proud and excited to share their My Happy Pack!
A key in partnering with biological parents is communication. You as the foster parent can also include notes to the biological parents, share stories, or provide information about how the child is doing in your home. A Happy Pack is a gift you can give a child that will have a lasting impact on their lives!
IFAPA encourages foster parents to purchase backpacks or bags and begin the My Happy Pack with the children in their home.
