This two-day training shares the principles of visit coaching, a model that focuses on the strengths of the family and the needs of the children.
Family time with children in out-of-home care is an underutilized service that can be the most significant assistance the child welfare agency provides for safe reunification. Visit coaching is fundamentally different from supervised visits. The coach is actively involved in guiding parents in meeting their children’s needs and making each visit fun for the children.
Visit coaching includes:
- Supporting parents to articulate their children's needs to be met in each visit
- Helping parents plan how to give their children their full attention at each visit
- Preparing parents for their children's behavior
- Appreciating parents’ strengths in attuning to their children and coaching them to enhance their responsiveness
- Supporting parents in coping with their feelings in order to visit consistently and keep their anger and depression from getting in the way of paying full attention to their children during their family time
When staff are trained to coach visits, children achieve permanency more quickly. Although coaching makes visits more time-consuming, it is so effective that staff will want to use visit coaching for most of the families with whom they work.