Building a Trauma-Informed Foster Care System

Problem Statement

The opioid crisis is causing an increase in foster care placements in Maine. In 2016, there were more than 1,800 children in foster care, a 45% increase since 2011. Due to a state law that requires infants to be tested for drugs at birth if their mother is suspected of using them while pregnant, many child welfare cases now involve infants.

Adoptive and Foster Families of Maine, Inc. (AFFM) must ensure that the training and support services that it provides to Maine’s foster parents prepare them for the emotional challenges tied to cases in which infants have been removed from the homes of opioid-addicted parents. Your current training and support services need to be improved for three distinct reasons:

1. You lack training on trauma-informed care.
   You must provide training options that teach foster parents that when children who were born addicted to opioids act out, they are reacting to the trauma of opiate exposure before birth. You must show foster parents how to help children deal with their trauma in more productive ways than acting out.
2. Your current training options do not prepare foster parents for the potential emotional challenge of having to watch the reunification of infants with their biological parents.
   There are lots of problematic complexities of building relationships with biological parents that you must teach foster parents of opioid-addicted infants to navigate.
3. You lack support groups specifically for foster parents of opioid-addicted infants.
   Because opioid-addicted infant cases are more challenging for foster parents than other cases involving abuse and neglect, foster parents of opioid-addicted infants would benefit from meeting other people who are facing the same types of challenges.