The CWLA Annual Conference: A Great Place to Present the New PMA Foster Parent Curriculum

PMA members recently presented at the annual conference of the Child Welfare League of America in Washington, DC. We were told to expect about 20 people for our 90-minute workshop and instead had a full house of over 40 participants. We began by asking attendees if they had received any training on PM and only one person raised her hand, saying "Sort of." None were aware of training on the topic being offered to foster parents although they all expressed a strong need for such a training, recognizing that some parents may engage in PM unaware of the potential harm to the child. Over the 90-minute workshop we walked the participants through the core content areas including psychological maltreatment and positive parenting as well as explained the structure of the curriculum including the didactic and interactive components. We ended by inviting them to contact us to access the curriculum for their own agencies. It is available both as a complete slide deck and set of notes as well as a video of the full presentation with guidance on how to incorporate interactive components to help participants deepen their understanding of the core concepts. PMA is committed to making this curriculum available to any foster care agency that wants it. Please contact Brittany.Morris@NYFoundling.org to learn more.