Format
Individual Presentation
First Presenter's Institution
Bibb County School System
Second Presenter's Institution
N/A
Third Presenter's Institution
N/A
Fourth Presenter's Institution
N/A
Fifth Presenter's Institution
N/A
Location
Session 9 (Scarbrough 5)
Strand #1
Social & Emotional Skills
Strand #2
Family & Community
Relevance
“HEART”: Social & Emotional Skills
Fostering social and emotional skills and the social climate for all children and youth. This proposal relates to social and emotional skills of children who are impacted by trauma and foster care by giving the workshop participant real life stories of the trauma that youth go through and the practical dos and don’ts in working with children in their development and helping them build capacity for resiliency.
“HOME”: Family & Community
This presentation will explain how supportive adults can provide and support a caring and nurturing environment without being an enabler and will explore the experiences of success and non-success in school and how it impacts or mitigates perceptions of self-esteem, helplessness and ongoing victimization
Brief Program Description
Children who are impacted by abuse and situations that result in foster care have the ability to overcome trauma with the support of stable and nurturing adults. This presentation will take participants on a journey of the life of a foster child from the early years to adulthood from the point of view of a foster child, social worker, and teacher.
Summary
As practitioners, we are often in search of successful programs, anecdotes, cures, and solutions for everyday problems and challenges. This presentation will begin in the form of a story—a story of a real, in the human flesh person who came into the foster care system as a victim of abuse and neglect and left as a college graduate and continued her success as a social worker, child advocate, Statewide Youth Advisory Board Coordinator, and educator. Sara will share her strategies with supporting research for her personal success and
resilience and how she models this success to young people. During this presentation, the following questions will be addressed: How do children who have faced abuse or neglect find their resiliency? 2. How do supportive adults provide and support a caring and nurturing environment with the establishment of boundaries and without being an enabler? 3. How does the experience of success or non-success in school impact or mitigate perceptions of self-esteem, helplessness and ongoing victimization? 4. How can youth empowerment impact a growth mindset?
Evidence
- Often times research and evidence are presented in a vacuum without the application of the research into practice. This presentation will use research that supports resiliency and growth mindset. “A keystone to development and resiliency are the internal beliefs about "self' that are formed in childhood.' When children experience success in affecting and influencing their environment, their brain wiring can be altered and they grow to believe that they can achieve goals."' They are willing to take risks, fail, and struggle that goals are achievable and that they can overcome despite failures that occur along the way. This mindset is empowering and serves to mitigate perceptions of helpless and ongoing victimization.”p187
Sometimes referred to as "relational security," connectedness means that children's efforts to cope with and overcome their experiences of trauma are enhanced when they have strong, long-lasting connections to stable, nurturing adults.” The inability to regulate affect is the most consistent primary impact of ongoing exposure to trauma and complex traumatization. p196
https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2504&context=articles
http://centerforchildwelfare.fmhi.usf.edu/kb/educrsrc/EBTCaregiverGuide.pdf
Biographical Sketch
Dr. Sara Bennett Wood is a Reading Specialist at Rutland Middle School within the Bibb County School System. Sara’s experiences range across several systems of care including the Florida Child Welfare system as a case manager, child abuse investigator, policy analyst, and Statewide Youth Advisory Board Coordinator and within the public education field as a middle and high school teacher in Title I schools, college professor and reading specialist. She has been featured as a speaker on several stages and conferences including but not limited to: The National Council on Juvenile and Family Court Judges, the Florida Bar Commission on the Legal Needs of Children, the Child Welfare League of America, Georgetown Children’s Mental Health Institutes, and the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Sara spent her entire childhood in the child welfare system: from toddler to aging out-from adoption to unadoption-- from foster home to group home to college. Sara found her forever family to call her own and they include Max (her husband), Annie and Susie, Brandon and Olivia. Despite the challenges she faced, she not only overcame them, but she is a survival guide in the making to any girl or young woman who has faced the challenges of the foster care system and all that comes with it.
Keyword Descriptors
foster care, education, resiliency, trauma, adoption, unadoption, growth mindset, abuse, neglect, youth empowerment
Presentation Year
2020
Start Date
3-11-2020 11:15 AM
End Date
3-11-2020 12:30 PM
Recommended Citation
Wood, Sara B., "The Journey of Life Before, During and After Foster Care and the Path to Resilience" (2020). National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference. 113.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/nyar_savannah/2020/2020/113
Included in
Disability and Equity in Education Commons, Educational Psychology Commons, Social Work Commons, Student Counseling and Personnel Services Commons
The Journey of Life Before, During and After Foster Care and the Path to Resilience
Session 9 (Scarbrough 5)
Children who are impacted by abuse and situations that result in foster care have the ability to overcome trauma with the support of stable and nurturing adults. This presentation will take participants on a journey of the life of a foster child from the early years to adulthood from the point of view of a foster child, social worker, and teacher.
