What is MAPP
Model Approach To Partnerships In Parenting (MAPP)
The job of public child-‐welfare agencies is to preserve, or help rebuild, families at risk of disintegration. The single most powerful relationship upon which to build is the connection between the child and the parents. Whether it is called a bond, an attachment or a connection, it is the single most powerful motivator for parents in crisis. For parents who are overwhelmed by physical or emotional problems, who have not developed skills important for parenting, or who have learned harmful and dangerous ways to parent, the connection to a child may be the road to health and new parenting skills.
MAPP is a comprehensive program designed to extend the idea of building positive relationships and alliances beyond birth parents. Within the MAPP practice framework, child welfare staff, foster parents and adoptive parents work as a team. The goal is to preserve or rebuild the family around the long-‐term welfare of the child. This requires that the team members form a partnership or positive alliance with the birth parents. A MAPP partnership seeks to keep the parents in their parental roles and status, focused on the welfare of the child.
There are 3 categories within the MAPP Programs:
- Comprehensive Preparation and Selection Programs
- Kinship Program
- Supplemental Programs
MAPP Acronyms
Programs:
- TIPS-‐MAPP or TIPS -‐ Trauma Informed Partnering For Safety and Permanence – Model Approach To Partnerships In Parenting
- TIPS-‐MAPP-(NA) – Trauma Informed Partnering For Safety and Permanence – Model Approach To Partnerships In Parenting – Native American
Individuals Certified in MAPP:
- MAPP Leader – Certified to lead prospective foster parents and adoptive parents through the ten meeting preparation process, to become approved for placement of children in their homes.
- MAPP Approved Trainer – Certified to conduct the eight-‐day MAPP Leader Training.
- MAPP Master Trainer – Certified to develop MAPP Approved Trainers
- Caring For Our Own Facilitator – Certified to conduct the Kinship Parent Support Groups
- Caring For Our Own Trainer – Certified to train Caring For Our Own Facilitators
Framework of Model Approach To Partnership in Parenting -‐ MAPP
Partnerships In Parenting represents an active alliance among the important people in the child’s life -‐ birth parent, foster parents and agency workers. Recognizing that the connection between parents and their children is the single most powerful relationship upon which to preserve or rebuild families, shared parenting emphasizes establishing an alliance with parents to protect their children rather than just an alliance with children to protect them from their parents.
Within this framework, child welfare staff and foster parents work as a team. As with any effective team, players have different roles, responsibilities and tasks, but each team member has the same goal, in this case, to preserve or rebuild the family around the long-‐term welfare of the child. This requires that the team members form a partnership or positive alliance with the birth parents, always seeking to keep parents focused on the welfare of the child.
Historically, child welfare agencies have primarily emphasized their mission of child protection; therefore, the agency’s primary helping alliance has been with the child. The purpose of this alliance is to ensure that the child’s needs of nurturance and safety are met. Since the main threat to child safety is generally parental behavior, the alliance seeks to shield the child from risk created by the parents. While the intended benefits of safety are real, both the child and the parents may tend to experience the intervention as reducing emotional and physical safety, rather than increasing it.
All MAPP Programs are based on the following concepts:
Alliance Model of Child Welfare Practice -‐ The Alliance Model is a concept developed for staff and resource parents in child welfare to promote partnerships in parenting. This model of practice is even more important today with the passage of legislation such as the Adoption and Safe Families Act, Public Law 105-‐89, also known as ASFA. ASFA was designed to focus child welfare agencies on the issues of safety, well-‐being and more timely permanence for children. With abbreviated timeframes, it is important that parents of children in foster care begin working together quickly, whenever possible.
Safety, Well-‐Being and Permanence -‐ All activities and content are directed to enable foster and adoptive parents to value the rights and needs of children to safety, well-‐being and continuity of care, with the legal status and social status that comes from having a nurturing family of one’s own. It is expected that a commitment to that value will increase the possibility of placement stability.
Role Theory -‐ All activities and content are directed to clarifying roles and expectations of foster parents, adoptive parents and agency staff. All activities and content are directed to enabling parents to make an informed decision about whether the foster parent role, the adoptive parent role -‐-‐ or neither role -‐-‐ is appropriate for them. It is expected that role clarity, role expectations and role congruence will increase the possibility of placement stability.
Strengths Approach -‐ The strengths approach relies on these theories: all people and families have strengths and needs; leaders are facilitators in helping families know themselves better; leaders can help families develop strengths for fostering or adopting; and families are entitled to a development plan that enables them to get their needs met.
Adult Learning Theory -‐ All activities and content incorporate the principles of adult learning; specifically that adults are self-‐directed, need immediately useful information that is relevant to their life experiences and must take responsibility for their own learning. The role of the program leaders is to enable self-‐learning, rather than teaching. In a group learning setting adults learn effectively from each other.
Description of MAPP Programs
Comprehensive Preparation and Selection Programs:
TIPS-‐ MAPP AND DECIDING TOGETHER
Criteria for Mutual Selection of Foster and Adoptive Parents
The MAPP Group Preparation and Selection Program is designed to prepare individuals and families to make an informed decision about becoming foster, adoptive or foster/adoptive families. The decision is made with the child welfare agency and is based on the capability and willingness to take on the “role” and develop the skills needed to foster and/or adopt. Foster and adoptive families who make good decisions and grow in their new roles work best with the agency, birth families and others. These partnerships help children and youth have stability and permanency with a family.
Successful foster and adoptive parents must be able to:
- Know your own family.
Assess your individual and family strengths and needs; build on strengths and meet needs.
- Communicate effectively.
Use and develop communication skills needed to foster or adopt.
- Know the Children.
Identify the strengths and needs of children and youth who have experienced abuse and neglect and recognize how the past trauma impacts the way they experience the world around them.
- Build strengths; meet needs.
Build on strengths and meet needs of children and youth who are placed with you.
- Work in partnership.
Develop partnerships with children and youth, birth families, the agency, and the community to develop and carry out plans for permanency.
- Be loss and attachment experts.
Help children and youth develop skills to manage loss and attachment and minimize the risk of a child being traumatized again.
- Teach healthy behaviors.
Help children and youth identify the need and emotion behind their behaviors. Foster and adoptive parents will respond in ways that will teach the children healthy ways to stay safe with themselves and others.
- Build connections.
Help children and youth maintain and develop relationships that keep them connected to their pasts.
- Build self-‐esteem
Help children and youth build on positive self-‐concept and positive family, cultural and racial identity.
- Assure health and safety
Provide a healthy and safe environment for children and youth and keep them free from harm.
- Assess impact
Assess the ways fostering and/or adopting will affect your family.
- Make an informed decision
Make an informed decision to foster or adopt.
Trauma Informed Partnering For Safety and Permanence – Model Approach To Partnerships In Parenting (TIPS-‐MAPP)
TIPS-‐MAPP is often viewed as a pre-‐service training, when in actuality it is a model program that utilizes 15 tools designed to help perspective adoptive/foster parents understand the difference between the desire to help and making the commitment to bring children into their home. Leader’s use the tools to help inform participants about the child welfare system and the role of foster parents, develop the necessary skills to become a successful foster/adoptive parent and assess families to determine if they are a positive fit for the role of a foster parent and for their agency.
PS-‐MAPP leaders will be involved with families through group meetings and individual family consultations. Using both approaches allow leaders to combine the mutual selection process and the preparation process for prospective foster families and prospective adoptive families to achieve the following objectives to:
- Ensure the family assessment is objective and described in specific, behavioral terms.
- Increase the amount of responsibility prospective foster parents and adoptive parents take in the decision-‐making process, as a foundation for the responsibility they will take after a child is placed in their home.
- Set the foundation for partnership between parents and social service agency staff.
- Provide an opportunity for prospective foster parents and adoptive parents to make an informed decision about their ability to foster or adopt, based on an assessment of their ability to respond to simulated foster care and adoption experiences.
- Prepare prospective adoptive parents and foster parents for the initial and long-‐term impacts of a new child in their family system.
- Give new foster parents and adoptive parents some guidelines and practice to deal with issues that most often cause placement disruptions (e.g., children’s behavior during the grieving process; children’s feelings toward birth or other families; working with the agency).
- Prepare adoptive parents for the life-‐long issues they will confront as their child matures to and through adulthood.
During the Leader Certification training, participants will develop skills to implement the program in their agencies. They will practice using the Leader’s Guide which contains process notes and information on how to facilitate the 10 parent group meetings. Participants will also learn best practice standards for preparing families to foster or adopt are identified in the Implementation Guidebook. This resource helps leaders learn how to use the other tools in their work with families. These include the Family Profile; family consultation; strengths/needs assessment; criteria for mutual selection; partnership and professional development plans; meeting notes; references; Profile notes; Eco-‐Maps; Family Maps; Fertility Loss Expert Worksheets; and Summary and Recommendations.
When agencies implement the TIPS-‐MAPP Program, they often find a need to bring the philosophy of partnership to the rest of the child welfare team. Effective implementation requires that more than the parents are ready to be partners. Parents prepared to work in a model of practice will expect the system to operate on the principles they have learned. Retention of prepared foster and adoptive parents will increase if there is a commitment to the partnership in all child welfare practice.
Goals and Objectives of the Program
The TIPS-‐MAPP Program is designed to help prospective foster and adoptive families develop five abilities that are essential for foster parents to promote children’s safety, permanence and well-‐being. Foster and adoptive parents will be able to:
- Meet the developmental and well-‐being needs of children and youth
- Meet the safety needs of children and youth
- Share parenting with a child’s family
- Support concurrent planning for permanency
- Meet their family’s needs in ways that assure a child’s safety and well-‐being
Program goals are supported through a mutual selection process which emphasizes open communication and trust between prospective foster families, adoptive families and child welfare workers, using common criteria for assessment and a problem-‐solving approach to areas of concern.
Below provides a brief description of the 10 meetings:
Meeting 1: Introduction
Acquaints leaders and participants with each other and provides an explanation of the TIPS-‐ MAPP program to the participants. The meeting explains the process of becoming a foster or adoptive parent and the legal foundation for child welfare services. With the focus on safety, well-‐being and permanence, participants will meet several children and parents (in a video) who have been involved with foster care and adoption. Additionally, the participants are introduced to the strengths based approach that is built upon throughout the program.
During Meeting 1, every family receives a copy of a Profile. The Profile gives prospective foster and adoptive families an opportunity to describe themselves in their own words. The Profile becomes part of the information used to help in the decision about fostering or adopting. The self-‐assessment tool provides leaders information on how to guide, support and develop the family to be successful foster parents. It also becomes part of the information kept by the agency to help children, birth families and child welfare workers get to know the foster and adoptive family better.
Handouts include:
- Meeting 1 Agenda
- Criteria for Mutual Section of Foster and Adoptive Parents
- Description of the TIPS-‐MAPP Preparation and Selection Program Meetings and Steps
- Strengths / Needs Assessment
- Partnership Development Plan
- A Brief Summary of Child Welfare Laws Important to Foster and Adoptive Parents
- Important Definitions for Foster Parents and Adoptive Parents
- Safety, Well-‐Being and Permanence – Video Worksheet
- How Changing Laws and Practices Affect Children in Foster Care – Case Example and Worksheet
- Bill of Rights for Children in Foster Care
- Rights of Parents of Children in Foster Care
- Indian Child Welfare Act (ICQA)
- Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 and Amendment of 1996 (MEPA/IEP)
- Fostering Connections for Success and Increasing Adoptions Act
- Resource Guide for Foster and Adoptive Parents (Handout created by the agency)
Meeting 2: Where MAPP Leads: A Foster Care and Adoption Experience
Meeting 2 provides an overview of a foster care and adoption experience from the perspectives of clients (children and parents), foster parents, adoptive parents, and child welfare workers. Case examples of eight children will be used to help participants consider the safety, well-‐being and permanence needs of children who have been abused, neglected or maltreated.
Family Consultations are scheduled after Meeting 2. The consultations are meetings in the homes of prospective foster and adoptive families. They are designed to help the families and the leaders jointly assess strengths and needs in a family setting. All family members participate during the decision-‐making and learning process.
During the family consultation, the family and the leader will agree upon a Partnership Development Plan which states who will do specific tasks and when the tasks will be done, in order to meet on or more needs in the preparation and decision making mutual selection process.
Handouts include:
- Meeting 2 Agenda
- The Cycle of Need
- The Alliance Model of Child Welfare Practice
- The Role of Foster and Adopt Parents in Building Alliance with Parents of Children in Foster Care
- Steps in Foster Care Case
- Erickson’s Stages of Development
- Understanding Child Traumatic Stress (NCTSN)
- Lily’s Stages of Development
- Components of Well-‐being of Children and Youth in Foster Care
- Assessing the Well-‐Being Needs of Children and Youth – Worksheet
- Helping the Premature Infant or Prenatally Drug-‐exposed Baby Attach and Develop
- Important Information about Parenting Children Who Have Been Exposed to the HIV Virus
- Important Information about Parenting Children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or Fetal Alcohol Effect (FAS/FAE)
- Important Definitions for Foster/Adopt Parents of Children Who Learn and Grow Differently
- Important Information for Foster/Adopt Parents about Parenting Youth Who are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual or Transgendered
- Strengths/Needs Worksheet
Meeting 3: Losses and Gains: The Need to Be a Loss Expert
Meeting 3 explores the impact of separation and trauma on the growth and development of children as well as the impact of foster care and adoptive placement on the emotions and behaviors of children and parents. Examines personal losses (death, divorce, infertility, children leaving home) and how difficult experiences affect success as adoptive parents or foster parents. The meeting emphasizes the partnership roles of foster parents, adoptive parents, and social workers in turning separation losses into gains.
Handouts include:
- Meeting 3 Agenda
- Loss and Grieving in Foster Care and Adoption
- The Life Book
- Helping Children with Healthy Grieving – Worksheet
- Helping Children with Healthy Grieving – Family Assessment Questions
- A Strengths/Needs Worksheet for Fertility Loss Experts
- Bonding and Attachment
Meeting 4: Helping Children With Attachments
Meeting 4 explores the subject of attachment and child development. Focuses on how attachments are formed, the impact of abuse and the special needs of children in foster care and adoption (especially in the areas of building self-‐concept and appropriate behavior). The meeting discusses the partnership roles of foster parents, adoptive parents and child welfare workers in helping children form new attachments.
Handouts include:
- Meeting 4 Agenda
- The Basic Needs of Humans
- Definition of Attachment
- The Cycle of Need: Attachment
- The Positive interaction Cycle
- Four Healing Emotions
- Promoting, Building, Rebuilding and Supporting Attachments: Four Case Examples
- Strengths/Needs Worksheet
Meeting 5: Helping Children Learn Healthy Behaviors
Meeting 5 discusses techniques for teaching children healthy behaviors, with an emphasis on alternatives to physical punishment. Topics include special issue related to discipline for children who have been physically or sexually abused or neglected. Techniques to be discussed include being a “Behavior detective,” reinforcement, time out, mutual problem solving, structuring and setting limits, negotiating, and contracting. The meeting emphasizes the partnership among foster parents and child welfare workers.
Handouts include:
- Meeting 5 Agenda
- Patterns of Response
- Definitions: Discipline and Punishment
- Discipline Techniques To Help Children and Youth Learn Healthy Behaviors
- Discipline Methods Worksheet
- Case Examples – Discipline
- Choosing Discipline Strategies to Keep a Child Safe
- Strengths/Needs Worksheet
- Side Effects of Physical Punishment
- Physical Punishment: What Every Parent Should Know
- Agency Policy on Use of Physical Punishment for Foster/Adoptive Parents
- Shared Parenting and Alliance Building: Benefits to the Children, Foster/Adoptive Parents and Parents of Children in Foster Care
- The Importance of Birth Parents to Children in Foster Care
Meeting 6: Helping Children With Birth Family Connections
Examines the importance of helping children in care maintain and build upon their identity, self-‐concept, and connections. Considers issues such as how children’s cultures and ethnic backgrounds help shape their identity; the connections children risk losing when they enter care; and why visits and contacts with birth families and previous foster families are important.
Handouts include:
- Meeting 6 Agenda
- Identity and Culture – Important Definitions
- Asking Questions to Understand Cultural Needs – Worksheet
- Scenarios – Managing Problems with Visits
- Foster and Adoptive Parents’ Guide for Successful Visits or Contacts
- Letter to the Birth Parents
Meeting 7: Gains and Losses: Helping Children Leave Foster Care
Meeting 7 discusses family reunification as the primary case planning goal as well as alternatives like foster care, adoption and independent living. The meeting examines disruption and its impact on children, families and agency staff. The meeting also focuses on the partnership role of child welfare workers, foster parents, and adoptive parents in helping children move home, into an adoptive home or into independent living. The meeting features a video of a mother, foster mother and worker planning the return of the mother’s children to her home.
Handouts include:
- Meeting 7 Agenda
- Merrilee’s Case
- The Role of Foster and Adoptive Parents in Transitioning Children and Youth from Foster Care
- Viewing Worksheet – Partnering for Safety and Permanence: Planning the Return Home
- Risks and Safety in Foster Care
- Roles and Responsibilities for Assuring Safety in Foster Care
- Planning a Move: Helping Children Transition from Foster Care – Worksheet
- Definitions – Disruption and Dissolution In Foster Care And Adoption
- Stages of Disruption or Dissolution
- Disruptions: Preventions and Interventions
- Giving Permission: The Steps of Integration
- Openness in Adoption
- Strengths/Needs Worksheet
- Resources Guide for Post-‐Adoption Finalization Services
- A Youngster’s Story
- Disruption: A Foster Mother’s Point of View
- Disruption: Another Foster Mother’s Point of View
- A Letter to Some Friends
- Questions for Family Discussion
Meeting 8: Understanding the Impact of Fostering and Adopting
Previous meetings included discussions and experiential activities to find out what foster care and adoption are all about. Participants learned about separation and attachment, how to build and maintain relationships with children and how to support them in working out the emotions they have for the important people in their lives. In Meeting 8 prospective parents explore the impact of fostering and adopting can affect prospective parents’ marriages, their own children and relationships with extended family.
Handouts include:
- Meeting 8 Agenda
- Characteristics of the Family System
- Skills Practice: Conflicting Needs for Privacy
- Skills Practice: Conflicting Needs for Safety, Well-‐being and Confidentiality
- Confidentiality Policy
- Effects of Foster Care Skit: Donny
- Effects of Adoption Skit: The Thomas Family
- Effects of Adoption on Marriage
- Creating a Family Systems Snapshot
- Family Systems Snapshot – Worksheet
- Creating an EcoMap
- Alana’s Family Map
- The Family Map of a Child Coming Into Your Home
- First Day
- Teamwork Roles of Foster and Adoptive Parents Worksheet
Meeting 9: Perspectives in Adoptive Parenting and Foster Parenting Teamwork and Partnership
Continues the examination of the impact of foster and adopting on families and builds skills for shared parenting. The meeting features a video of a parent talking about her experiences where her daughters were in foster care. A special Children’s Group will be part of this meeting, designed especially for children and youth from families who are thinking about becoming foster or adoptive families.
Handouts include:
- Welcome Game
- Meeting 9 Agenda
- Partnership Building and Teamwork in Foster Care
- Effective Communication Techniques for Teamwork, Shared Parenting and Alliance Building
- Effective Communication for Shared Parenting – Observation Worksheet
- Role of Foster and Adoptive Parents in Concurrent Planning
- Permanency Planning – A Family Conference Simulation
- Final Strengths/Needs Worksheet
- History of Foster Parent Adoptions in the United States
Meeting 10: Endings and Beginnings
Assesses group members’ strengths and needs as foster parents or adoptive parents while. Participants will have the opportunity to voice questions regarding the next step toward the licensing process. The group has an opportunity to say goodbye … the ending. Participants As the preparation/mutual selection process is coming to an end, so begins the transition into becoming a foster family or adoptive family … the beginning.
After the last meeting there is a final Family Consultation during which the leader and the parents agree about the family’s future role as a foster family, as an adoptive family, or as another kind of child welfare advocate. A Professional Development Plan, developed by the leader and the parents, provides direction for support of the family during the next six months of partnership in the child welfare program.
Handouts include:
- Meeting 10 Agenda
- Reporting Abuse of Children in Our Community
- Allegations of Abuse – Preventative Practices
- Partner in Permanency Planning Worksheet
- A strengths/Needs Worksheet for Foster Families Considering Adoption
- Professional Development Plan
- Final Evaluation of the PS-‐MAPP Group Preparation and Selection Program
In Summary
Agencies that incorporate the MAPP standard of model into their services will prepare families to use a partnership approach when parenting children who have experienced abuse, neglect, maltreatment or traumatic events. Foster, adoptive and kinship caregivers will be able to identify supports and develop networks to assist them in meeting the needs of the child and assisting the team in reaching the goal of permanency.
