We are proud to work with the NC Division of Social Services and our partners at the UNC School of Social Work to support the engagement of families with lived child welfare experience in the development of training for North Carolina resource parents. Child Welfare Family Advisory Council (CWFAC) membership, supported by our Family Leadership Model program (https://go.ncsu.edu/familyleadership), provided guidance in the creation of “Preparing for and Responding to Disaster: A Course for North Carolina Resource Parents,” a new training developed by the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) for the NC Division of Social Services (DSS). The course teaches resource parents how to keep children safe before, during and after disasters. It is now available for Resource Parents and can be found in the On-Demand Courses page on https://fosteringnc.org, a learning site for North Carolina foster and adoptive parents and kinship caregivers.
According to Kara Allen-Eckard, CFACE’s Family Leadership Model’s Program Manager, “The lived experience input provided by CWFAC membership ensures that families’ needs and concerns are addressed in the resources DSS is developing to support their policy and program expectations for the caregivers of children in out-of-home care.”
John McMahon of UNC-CH’s School of Social Work shared, “We’re especially grateful for the guidance the Child Welfare Family Advisory Council gave as we were developing this course. Their input helped us create what I hope will be a useful tool that will help caregivers in NC keep their families safe before, during, and after disasters.”
