Kinship Education, Preparation, and Support (KEPS)
Curriculum Learning Objectives
OUTCOMES of Training for Relative Caregivers
Outcomes for relative caregivers are listed in the Table of Contents and in the initial section of the curriculum entitled Outcomes and Core and Enabling Abilities for the Educational/Group Support Program For Relative Caregivers.
Outcomes for Relative Caregivers and the Children in their care:
1 Children living with relative caregivers will have their safety, emotional, and developmental needs met.
2 Relative caregivers will help children who are placed in their care achieve legal permanency (reunification/adoption) in the shortest time frame possible.
3 Children’s educational growth will be supported and enhanced through the relative caregivers’ partnership with the school system.
4 Older adolescents will have the educational and vocational services they need in order to achieve successful emancipation.
5 Relative caregivers will have an ongoing, informal social support network made up of other relative caregivers.
Core and Enabling Activities:
In order to support achievement of the aforementioned outcomes, relative caregivers who participate in this educational/group support program will develop eight core abilities. For each of these eight core abilities, there are also enabling abilities which provide the skill and knowledge base essential for performance of the core abilities. The program’s core abilities and related enabling abilities follow with each meeting’s Learning Objectives.
Kinship Education, Preparation and Support (KEPS)
Curriculum Learning Objectives
Meeting I: This meeting will provide an opportunity for relative caregivers and leaders to get acquainted with each other, establish comfort and safety, and to provide the purpose, structure and desired outcome of the program.
Learning Objectives:
1. Contribute to the development of three Core Abilities:
a. Core Ability #1: Relative caregivers will be able to support the emotional, educational and physical development as well as the safety needs of children placed in out-of-home care as the result of maltreatment and drug exposure.
b. Core Ability #2: Relative caregivers will be able to identify the strengths and needs of their families to meet the ongoing needs of the children placed in their care.
c. Core Ability #3: Relative caregivers will be able to develop mutual trust, group cohesion and a safe, supportive environment through the group process.
2. Be able to define kinship care and relative caregiver.
3. Describe the DCFS Mission and four program initiatives relating to safety, adoption, emancipation and education.
4. Define the strengths-based approach
5. Identify the benefits of a support group.
6. Identify similarities and differences among caregivers.
7. Share personal information, emotions, hopes and fears.
8. Be able to define and describe family sharing, self-disclosure, and strengths and needs.
Kinship Education, Preparation and Support (KEPS)
Curriculum Learning Objectives
Meeting II: This meeting provides the participants with an opportunity to assess the immediate impact of having children live in their homes. This meeting will also assist caregivers in assessing their ability to meet the present needs of the children in their care.
Learning Objectives:
1. Contribute to the development of five core abilities:
a. Core Ability #1: Relative caregivers will be able to access formal and informal services on behalf of the children in their care.
b. Core Ability #2: Relative caregivers will be able to identify the strengths and needs their families to meet the ongoing needs of the children placed in their care.
c. Core Ability #3: Relative caregivers will be able to assess the current impact of a child’s placement on their own family’s functioning.
d. Core Ability #4: Relative caregivers will be able to relate to birth parents in ways that support the agency’s case planning goals.
e. Core Ability #5: Relative caregivers will be able to develop mutual trust, group cohesion and a safe, supportive environment through the group process.
2. Identify key learning points from Meeting I.
3. Support each other in the sharing of personal information, emotions, hopes and fears.
4. Describe the family assessment process.
5. Describe a Family Plan.
6. Understand the DCFS policies and standards for placement of children with relatives.
7. Describe changes in caregivers’ lives (relationships with family and friends, etc.) upon the children’s placement in their homes.
8. Identify housing resources and services available through state and local systems.
9. Identify their own family members’ housing needs.
Kinship Education, Preparation and Support (KEPS)
Curriculum Learning Objectives
Meeting III: This meeting provides participants with an overview of reunification and adoption and identifies ways in which caregivers can support permanency planning. It will also continue to provide participants with the opportunity to assess the strengths and needs of the members of their immediate household and of their extended family members.
Learning Objectives:
1. Contribute to the development of five core abilities:
a. Core Ability #1: Relative caregivers will be able to access formal and informal services on behalf of the children in their care.
b. Core Ability #2: Relative caregivers will be able to identify the strengths and needs their families to meet the ongoing needs of the children placed in their care.
c. Core Ability #3: Relative caregivers will be able to assess the current impact of a child’s placement on their own family’s functioning.
d. Core Ability #4: Relative caregivers will be able to relate to birth parents in ways that support the agency’s case planning goals.
e. Core Ability #5: Relative caregivers will be able to develop mutual trust, group cohesion and a safe, supportive environment through the group process.
2. Define reunification, adoption, and legal permanency.
3. Identify ways in which they can support permanency planning.
4. Learn the roles and responsibilities of the CSW in case planning and accessing financial assistance.
5. Learn about Youakim benefits.
6. Learn about the Adoption Assistance Program.
7. Understand the juvenile dependency court process.
8. Identify legal services and how to access them.
9. Define and develop an Eco-Map.
10. Describe the supports within and outside their own, immediate family system.
11. Identify sources of stress outside their immediate family.
12. Define transitional issues.
13. Identify transitional issues for relative caregivers.
14. Support each other in the sharing of personal information, emotions, hopes and fears.
Kinship Education, Preparation and Support (KEPS)
Curriculum Learning Objectives
Meeting IV: This meeting helps caregivers begin to focus on the needs of the children living in their homes and to identify the types of services they need to assess to ensure stability in the children’s overall growth and development.
Learning Objectives:
1. Contribute to the development of four core abilities:
a. Core Ability #1: Relative caregivers will be able to access formal and informal services on behalf of the children in their care.
b. Core Ability #2: Relative caregivers will be able to identify the strengths and needs their families to meet the ongoing needs of the children placed in their care.
c. Core Ability #3: Relative caregivers will be able to support the emotional, educational and physical and safety needs of the children placed in their care as a result of maltreatment and drug exposure.
d. Core Ability #4: Relative caregivers will be able to develop mutual trust, group cohesion and a safe, supportive environment through the group process.
2. List the reasons children come into out-of-come care.
3. Describe how children are affected emotionally when they experience abuse, neglect and drug exposure.
4. Establish linkages between children’s feelings and their behaviors.
5. Describe the DCFS requirements on safety.
6. Identify their roles as relative caregivers in ensuring safety.
7. Identify developmental milestones for children from birth to school-age.
8. Identify developmental milestones for youth from pre-adolescence to young adulthood.
9. Develop strategies for managing behavior and its underlying causes in children in out-of-home care.
10. Be able to provide and receive feedback to and from each other on the strategies they identify.
11. Identify their own family’s medical and dental needs.
12. Support each other in the sharing of personal information, emotions, hopes and fears.
Kinship Education, Preparation and Support (KEPS)
Curriculum Learning Objectives
Meeting V: This meeting continues to help caregivers examine the behaviors of the children living in their homes and to identify methods of managing those behaviors.
Learning Objectives:
1. Contribute to four Core Abilities:
a. Core Ability #1: Relative caregivers will be able to support the emotional, educational and physical development and safety needs of children placed in their care as a result of maltreatment and/or drug exposure.
b. Core Ability #2: Relative caregivers will be able to access formal and informal services on behalf of the children in their care.
c. Core Ability #3: Relative caregivers will be able to assess the current impact of a child’s placement in their home on their own family’s functioning.
d. Core Ability #4: Relative caregivers will be able to develop mutual trust, group cohesion and a safe, supportive environment through the group process.
2. Define transitional issues.
3. Describe transitional issues for children living in relative homes.
4. Develop strategies for managing children’s transitional issues.
5. Identify ways to help children better understand their current living situation.
6. Develop ways to build on children’s strengths to manage children’s behaviors and/or transitional issues.
7. Offer support to each other and receive feedback on the strategies the group identified.
8. Identify mental health resources and services available through DCFS and other community systems.
9. Identify their own family members’ mental health needs.
Kinship Education, Preparation and Support (KEPS)
Curriculum Learning Objectives
Meeting VI: This unit reinforces the learning points from Meeting V. for participants and provides an overview of Meeting VI., “Preparing Children and Youth for the Future”
Learning Objectives:
1. Contribute to the development of five core abilities:
a. Core Ability #1: Relative caregivers will be able to support the emotional, educational and physical development and safety needs of children placed in their care as a result of maltreatment and/or drug exposure.
b. Core Ability #2: Relative caregivers will be able to access formal and informal services on behalf of the children in their care.
c. Core Ability #3: Relative caregivers will be able to influence parental behavioral change in order to achieve permanency for children in their care.
d. Core Ability #4: Relative caregivers will be able to help older adolescents access educational and vocational services in order to achieve successful emancipation.
e. Core Ability #4: Relative caregivers will be able to develop mutual trust, group cohesion and a safe, supportive environment through the group process.
2. Describe the DCFS Educational Initiative
3. Identify the goals of the Enrichment Plus Program.
4. Understand their roles and responsibilities in the education of the children placed in their care.
5. Understand the roles of the CSW in supporting the education of the children placed in out-of-home care.
6. Understand the roles and responsibilities of the school system in supporting the education of the children in out-of-home care.
7. Develop plans for working with the school system.
8. Describe emancipation planning.
9. Identify the goals of emancipation planning.
10. Learn about the Independent Living Program.
11. Identify their roles and responsibilities in supporting the involvement of youth in emancipation planning.
12. Identify the roles and responsibilities of the CSW’s and emancipation assistants in supporting the youth’s participation in emancipation planning.
13. Identify the stresses and systems of support for the birth parents.
14. Discover recreation resources and services available through DCFS and other community programs.
Kinship Education, Preparation and Support (KEPS)
Curriculum Learning Objectives
Meeting VII: This meeting provides an opportunity for relative caregivers to examine the challenges birth parents face. The meeting will give caregivers a better understanding of transitional issues for birth parents and how those issues interplay with caregivers’ own transitional issues. The meeting will also give caregivers an understanding of the nature of chemical dependency in birth parents and how this affects birth parents’ ability to assuming the parenting role with their children. This unit prepares caregivers to explore in Meeting VIII how they can work together with birth parents to meet children’s needs and provide them with permanency.
Learning Objectives:
1. Identify transitional issues for birth parents.
2. Describe strategies for managing the transitional issues and resultant behaviors of birth parents.
3. Define chemical dependence
4. Define the disease concept of chemical dependence.
5. Define recovery and identify its components.
6. Define relapse.
7. Describe typical roles assumed by family members of individuals who are chemically dependent.
8. Describe the feelings associated with dealing with someone who is chemically dependent.
Kinship Education, Preparation and Support
Curriculum Learning Objectives
Meeting VIII: This unit provides information about shared parenting, common sources of conflict in shared parenting and the impact of these conflicts on the whole family. Participants learn a conflict resolution technique. The unit also clarifies the importance of visits and contacts between children and their birth parents. Participants generate strategies for making visits and contacts more successful. As a whole, this unit helps relative caregivers see how they can work with birth parents to ensure children’s physical safety and emotional well-being and provide them with permanency.
Learning Objectives:
1. This meeting contributes to the development of two core abilities: