Helping hands: How Bethany Christian Services trains families to be child-focused in foster care

At Bethany Christian Services of Central PA, we believe that family changes everything and everyone deserves a family. We are often asked: If the state requirements for being licensed as a foster parent are six hours, why do we require so much more time? Our rigorous and intentional preservice training program for foster and adoptive parents — consisting of over 25 hours of interactive instruction and self-reflection — is built on a singular, foundational principle: “It’s not about you.”

While we provide unwavering support to our foster and adoptive parents, this mantra serves as a vital reminder that the child’s needs must always remain the priority. Foster care is a journey of sacrifice. It means choosing the child’s well-being over personal comfort when faced with sleepless nights, social isolation, or the complex emotional weight of a child’s grief. As one family shared, “we learned a lot from the training and when I have moments of feeling like something is hard, I often think about that statement. It’s not about me.”

Ultimately, being “child-focused” means embracing the heartbreak that comes with successful reunification. We teach our families that while the challenges are great and the personal cost is real, providing a healing home for a child in need is always worth it. Our training team consists of one dedicated trainer, licensing workers, parent coaches and therapists. All our foster care/adoption staff are trained in the same modalities parents are trained in so that the support is cohesive and same language centered.

Another family told us this: “In foster care, there are too many unknowns to make assumptions about success. The only reliable strategy is an unwavering focus on the child.”

In addition to the core principle of child-centered care, this 25+ hour training program typically covers the following key components designed to equip foster and adoptive parents for their roles: Attachment and Trauma, Developmental v. Chronological Age, Separation, Grief and Loss, Discipline and the meaning behind Behavior, Cultural Humility, Identity and a Sense of Belonging. Bethany utilizes the evidenced based curriculum from the different modalities including the National Development Training Curriculum, Core Teen, Together Facing the Challenge, and Trust Based Relational Instruction. We have developed our staff and program to be child and family relational focused, meeting everyone where they are at.

We hold ourselves to high standards at Bethany Christian Services of Central PA, and our hands-on training for foster and adoptive parents reflects that, instilling the ‘it’s not about you’ principle to ensure children’s needs always come first.

Bethany envisions a world where every child has a loving family. Bethany supports nearly 50,000 people in the U.S. and around the world focusing on vulnerable children and families. We are a family-centered nonprofit in 28 U.S. states, dedicated to helping families thrive. For more information, explore our website at: www.Bethany.org/Pennsylvania.

Kate Kirkpatrick is Bethany Christian Services of Central PA’s training and recruitment specialist.