Family and Children's Resource Program at the UNC School of Social Work

There is a new issue of Children's Services Practice Notes available!

This issue is titled "Partnering with Courts to Improve Timely Permanence" and provides a comprehensive look at a variety of topics related to court and child welfare including:

- An overview of North Carolina's Court Improvement Program
- An update on Safe Babies Court
- How Noth Carolina is making the court system more trauma-informed
- And much more!

You can read the full issue here: https://practicenotes.org/v29n2/v29n2.html

Children's Service Practice Notes is designed in partnership betwene FCRP and the NC Department of Health and Human Services.

Vol. 29, No. 2: Partnering with Courts to Improve Timely Permanence — Practice Notes In North Carolina's child welfare system, permanence is defined as a mutually committed, lasting, nurturing, and legally secure relationship between a child or youth and at least one adult. County child welfare agencies must make concerted efforts to achieve permanence for children and youth in a ti...

Wake County Families ...it's a beautiful day to join some free family fun at Roberts Park for this great event! Stop by and say hello while you're here!

Are you a kinship caregiver supporting a child or youth who has experienced prenatal substance exposure?

Creating a Family has teamed up with Healthy Blue NC to provide a free training series to kinship caregivers that will help them recognize the signs and symptoms of prenatal substance exposure and train them on helpful parenting techniques. You can register for the events here:

https://www.creatingafamilyed.org/courses/prenatal-substance-exposure-workshop-for-kinship-healthyblue-nc-june-2026

We were happy to join our partners at the NC Department of Health and Human Services for the first meeting in the new Partnerships for Permanency series!

These convenings are designed to bring public and private agencies together to discuss strategies to recruit and retain only the highest quality resource parents in NC.

We look forward to the next one!

To further celebrate Foster Care Month in North Carolina, we wanted to share a video of kinship caregiver, Alfreda Parker. In this video, Alfreda shares how by providing licensed kinship care through Children's Hope Alliance, she was able to keep her family together and her nieces happy and healthy.

You can find this video in the FosteringNC.org course titled "Supporting Kinship and Kin-Like Caregivers." Be sure to check out the "Kinship" tab on FosteringNC.org for even more resources!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-FtclbxYow

Kinship Care: Alfreda Parker Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Please join us in congratulating our intern, Mia Martin, on her graduation from UNC!

Throughout this past year Mia contributed to several projects while developing her macro social work skill set. We're so excited to see where Mia goes next and how she will contribute greatly to families and communities across North Carolina.

Congratulations on all of your achievements, Mia!

May has been declared Foster Care Month in North Carolina, and we have been hard at work developing new courses and learning materials for resource parents and professionals!

Here's a behind the scenes shot of a video we are working on with the Six family for an upcoming course about Shared Parenting. In it, Jonathan and Sally Six talk about how even after adoption from foster care shared parenting and maintaining connections with parents is of the utmost importance.

Look for more information about the course next month!

We had such a unique and special experience being able to present as part of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Tarheel Bus Tour stop in Salisbury!

The Tarheel Bus Tour is an annual event where university faculty and senior administrators traverse North Carolina learning about how the school's work benefits communites across the state.

We had the pleasure of sharing the stage with our partners from the UNC Collaboratory and Rowan County to share our work trying to identify and address issues related to foster home utilization and what can be done to ensure children and youth have suitable out-of-home placements that meet their needs in their home communities.

Do you know about the course "Stepping into Supervision?"

Stepping into Supervision is designed for new child welfare supervisors to attend in-person classes three days a month for three months! The course meets the 54 hours of legislatively mandated training for new supervisors in their first year of child welfare supervision.

This research-based course continues to evolve to support new supervisors in their transition journey from being a worker to becoming a supervisor. Over the years, the course has been revised based on feedback from the child welfare workforce in North Carolina, state representatives, trainers, and course graduates.

The course is co-facilitated by trainers from both NCDHHS and FCRP with a commitment to empower supervisors because they are the expert on themselves, their transition process, and their areas of focus for worker-centered and team-centered supervision.

Participants say that one of the most helpful experiences is when we highlight how the changes of life, like becoming a supervisor, create an internal transition process through an uncomfortable neutral zone. Using the insights of experts in the field like William Bridges, we explore empowering strategies to approach the neutral zone experience by leaning into the discomfort to create an experience of clarity, support, and direction.

Congratulations to all new child welfare supervisors across North Carolina! We appreciate the participation and the time commitment of completing this course.

If you're interested in taking the course, check NCSWlearn.org for future offerings!