Leaping into 2025: Embracing Change with Confidence and Trust

Leaping into 2025: Embracing Change with Confidence and Trust

Key Takeaways Trust in Support: We can lean on those around us (friends, family, community members, or Chosen) for support when facing challenges or unknowns.  Perseverance Through Fear: Fear is natural, but it doesn’t have to stop us. We can move forward with excitement and anticipation, knowing it’s part of growth. Generational Life’s Journey is […]

Creating Felt Safety During Spooky Season

Creating Felt Safety During “Spooky Season”

Key Takeaways Felt safety is essential: Children who have experienced trauma need to feel safe, especially during disrupted routines like Halloween, so intentional planning is key. Preparation reduces fear: Understanding potential triggers, setting clear expectations, and trying on costumes ahead of time can help children feel more in control and prevent overwhelming situations. Prioritize choice […]

Piñatas and Felt Safety

Finding the Function in Dysfunction My daughter has an irrational fear of piñatas—the fear that makes your heart race, palms sweaty and stomach turn. Complicating this fear is the fact that she spent most of the first 5 years of her life living in Mexico, land of the piñata. Where we lived, piñatas are just […]

Dr. Bruce Perry’s Concept of Regulate, Relate, and Reason

The Three R’s Think about a time you felt upset. Was it over something big or small? Did someone help you feel better? While you were still upset, did you listen to reason? Did hearing, “Calm down!” help? A popular phrase sums it up well, “Never in the history of calming down has anyone calmed […]

Handle Sibling Fights and Nurture a Positive Attachment Every Day

BY BETHANY HALL If you are a foster, adoptive, or kinship family, then you know caring for multiple children isn’t easy. Squabbles, sharing, and getting under each other’s skin is bound to happen any time of the year. However, sibling fights and other behaviors tend to get worse during long breaks like summertime or holidays. Our […]

Trauma Informed to Trauma Responsive Care

Loss hurts. Neglect and abuse cut deep. Early childhood trauma leaves lasting scars. Whether the baby in the womb adopted at birth, the 3-year-old being raised by grandparents, or the teenager in foster care, all children who have been separated from birth parents have experienced some level of trauma. As a result, these kids often face […]

Saving Reasons Until the End

Devon* is an 11-year-old living with his grandmother. His mom left the family years ago and his dad recently went to prison. Devon misses his dad and doesn’t understand why his grandma acts more like his school principal than the fun lady who used to spoil him. He becomes emotional easily and sometimes has a […]

The Power of Choices

When you are caring for a child from foster care, unexpected challenges can arise. Step into a day in the life of a foster family with Chosen Care Manager Bethany Hall to learn about their challenges and how to support them. This is not the story of one foster parent, but rather a combination of […]

Haunted House Feelings

By Staci Thomas, TBRI® Practitioner   It’s the scary season. Haunted houses and spooky events are everywhere. People pay money to be frightened. If you are one of those people, you enter a creepy house knowing that you are going to scream, jump, and be scared out of your wits. Even though you know some sort of […]