Stress Management

ATFCPA

2002 Annual

Therapeutic Foster Care

Conference

Building Partnerships: Working Hand-in-Hand

October 2-4, 2002

Embassy Suites, Montgomery, Alabama
The Alabama Therapeutic Foster Care Providers Association (ATFCPA) is dedicated to promoting more consistent and quality treatment services for therapeutic foster care children.

Stress Management: Parents, How Can You Lessen The Tension?

Presented by Corliss Massey, MS, NBA Christian Services for Children

Thursday, Oct. 3, 2002

10:30-12:00 p.m.

Foster Parent Session

Ms. Massey received her MS in Counseling and Human Development from Troy State University in Montgomery. She is a Therapist with NBX Christian Services for Children. She was previously employed as a child sexual abuse therapist in Tennessee. She has also worked as a Clinical Director and Social Worker.

The Workshop

Stress in the Foster Home

Emil Baldwin, LSW

There were several studies conducted in the early 1980s that indicated that child abuse occurred at a higher rate in foster homes than in the general population. Although those studies may not be valid today or give an accurate impression of foster care in general, it is a fact... child abuse does occur in foster homes.

Most foster parents are good people who become involved in the program because of a genuine desire to help children. Most have had homestudies done to see if they "have what it takes." This information has been reviewed at least by the person doing the study, but often several people have participated in that final approval decision. And lastly, most have received at least a basic level of training to help prepare them for what is to come. So, you have to wonder, how could this ever happen?

Evaluating Applicants

One obvious conclusion is that sometimes the process just doesn't do a good job of evaluating applicants and people who shouldn't become foster parents are licensed.

As one who evaluates those applicants, I know it can happen for different reasons and most of the time, there is no one to blame. I have often said to my colleagues that after the evaluation is done, I wish I could look the applicants in the eyes and know for sure that this is a potential abuser or molester. If I could do that, I would be outta' here in a minute and would be making millions of dollars a year... because everyone would want to hire me as a consultant. Unfortunately, for me and the children of the world, I don't have that skill.

Causes of Stress

Another major factor that causes this type of abuse to occur is the one and only, good old-fashioned maker of heart attacks, fist-fights, and food fights... stress. Foster families, like any other family, are subject to the wear and tear of everyday life that we call stress. Some of these components can include:

Financial status: loss of job, reduction of hours worked, reduction of benefits, your bills go up dramatically, problems with the house, you win the lottery, etc.

Structure changes in the family: birth, death, marriage, someone moves in with you, child becomes an adult and "leaves the nest," child becomes an adult and does not "leave the nest," etc.

Health: a family member has a serious health problem, emotional illness, always tired, sick often, etc.

Relationships: marriage problems, parent-child conflicts, fights with extended family or neighbors, someone important to you moves away, problems on the job, you find a new love, etc.

Add to the Mix

Foster families have to face all of the above, plus:

The characteristics of the children: neglected, abused, sexually abused, ADD, ADDHD, FAS, etc. It would be unusual to find one child in your "average ordinary family" that had any of these characteristics, but one foster family might have several children living with the results of these actions or conditions in the home at the same time.

Number and type of children: the family has more children than their "approved capacity"; has different population groups (mixed ages - teenagers with small children; different gender, race, etc.); concerns about accepting a child that really isn't what you wanted ("If I don't take this child, will they ever call me again?"); accepting a child for placement to prove that you can handle anything; wanting to take care of all the children of the world, you are talked into doing something that you don't feel comfortable with but feel pressured to do, etc.

The agency: (the agency causing stress? I know... this one's a shocker) the boarding care check is late... again, the medical card doesn't come, going through training, going through the homestudy process, nobody returns phone calls, no co-operation, little support, etc.

Lack of support: many of your friends think you're nuts for wanting to do this. Often there is no ongoing recognition for the job you do. Social workers expect you to have all of the answers when it comes to parenting. You are treated as a second-class citizen by professionals, not allowed to join in the decision-making for the child. You don't receive ongoing training, services or information that would make "the job" easier, etc.

There are many more factors that could be listed above and although many of those elements might be on your list, there are many more things that might not be. Each family, each person, has things in their life that cause stress.

Your first task in learning to make things better is to develop a personalized plan to minimize the negative effects of stress (yes, Virginia, there are positive effects).

Identify The Causes

Going somewhere you find relaxing and where you can concentrate on the task at hand can do this. Take a piece of paper (or a notebook) with you and try to identify the things (or people) that cause you to get upset. Write these down and add extra details if there are any. Some of these details might be: the times that you feel stress (certain days, at meal times, etc.), who is there at the time, and what is going on (doesn't mind me, arguing, ignoring me, etc.). This in itself can be harder than you think. Some things will come easily. Some will take more thought and insight to identify. Once you get started, you may wish that you had brought the notebook instead of a single piece of paper.

If sitting down and formally trying to come up with a list is too hard to do, you might start carrying a notebook (or diary) with you and write the incidents down when they occur. Many times we tend to forget or gloss over things that bother us, particularly if we have had an 'eventful' busy day.

One extra bonus you get with this technique is that writing the items down seems to be therapeutic in itself, particularly if you write down what happened and how you felt about it. It's almost as if the list-making activity gives you more control over your life and, in fact, it does.

Another variation of this technique is to write down the hundreds of things we do 'right' in our lives every day. This can be a very positive eye-opener for those who claim that they never do anything right or never have anything good happen to them.

Identify The Effects

Another good thing to include with either of the above activities is to try to monitor your physical condition: note your stomachaches, headaches, body aches, muscle tension, or whatever occurs when you are under stress. Many times these are brought on or highly influenced by our emotional state of being. These emotions can cause some other symptoms that might not be so obvious such as changes in blood sugar, blood pressure, lower resistance to infections, colds, etc. So, think about your body. If you get tired more easily when you have to be around someone or do certain tasks, your body may be trying to tell you something.

Finding Stress Busters That Work

There are many techniques to combat stress and they can be discovered at the library, by surfing the net, asking for advice from friends and family members, or interacting with that very large extended (but often dysfunctional) family: the talk shows. These resources should be added to your beginning inventory but eventually this list should also become very personal and only include the things that make you relax.

Gather the Clan

A final part of your personal stress prevention plan is to identify those people around you who can give you support.

This support can be in the form of talking, listening, hanging out with you, giving advice, etc. These people could be family members, co-workers, other foster parents, social workers, clergy, grocery clerks, the local court jester or village idiot, etc. Again, the key is to find those who help you relax or feel better.

This list can be a source of help to you with the day-to-day stress that occurs, but also will be helpful at those times when you are under heavy pressure. At those times, your thinking might get a little muddled and it would be helpful to have a resource list of people already available that you can turn to for help. And even though a lot of people don't want to get involved with the mental health profession, it may be necessary. So you may want to identify resources in the community by talking to others who have used counselors and have gotten good results.

Most of life's situations for us and our children are made better if we know what to expect and what our options are. However, somewhere along the way we have come to believe that stress is one of those things that just happens to us, that we have no control over it, that we have to suffer our fate, and so on. But I believe that it is possible to soften its negative effect when we are actively involved in shaping our future.

Review the above and try out parts of it, shape it to your needs and lifestyle, share it with your kids, ask them what they do to reduce stress (they probably can add a lot of good ideas), and see if it doesn't help both of you.

Last but not least, always remember two old sayings: "If they're not stressed, you're not stressed," (and vice versa) and that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." How true they are!

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