| About Mary & Allen Goodearle Founders of New Paradigms Unlimited (2000) Mary is a trainer, consultant and author. It is her mission to help build supportive environments for parents and children. Mary is a former Child Protection Social Worker, Foster Care Coordinator, and State Adoption Social Worker. She taught classes in Foster Care and Adoption at a community college for twelve years and trained in partnership with the University of Wisconsin providing workshops and seminars for both foster parents and social workers. Mary holds a Bachelor's Degree from California State University in Sociology and Psychology, and a Master's Degree from the University of Wisconsin in Human Services Management and Public Administration. Mary is currently an adjunct instructor at ITT Technical College in Green Bay, Wisconsin and a Course Writer for Pearson Longman Publishing. She also writes training curriculum for the Foster Care and Adoption Community at fosterparents.com. Allen is a former foster child. He survived childhood with a mentally ill mother and lived in over twelve foster homes between the ages of five and fifteen. He suffered multiple forms of abuse both by his family and by the system that failed him. In spite of his early setbacks, and living with Post-traumatic stress, Allen has been a parent and role model to dozens of children. Allen is currently working on his own book about his experiences and hopes to provide encouragement and hope to people from all walks of life. His book will be available in the late summer of 2012. New Paradigms Unlimited was founded by Mary and Allen. Their agency provides outstanding leadership and training through workshops and keynotes based on their own actual experiences with children and agencies, and Mary's own inside expertise on how the system works. Mary is the author of a new book for foster parents entitled "A Guide to Foster Parenting Everything But the Kids! The Goodearles have fostered over 50 children of all ages. They have two biological adult children and seven adopted children. They live in Kaukauna, Wisconsin with their youngest son, Jamie, who is seventeen and a senior in high school. |
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| Mary Goodearle's Book |
"While most foster parents have altruistic motives in their hearts, they must put 'survival in the system' skills on their foster
parenting resumes"
"Working in the foster care and the social services systems is as equally challenging as parenting the foster children."
"Foster parents require more than good parenting skills to achieve longevity and success in today's foster care climate!"
"Most social workers and case workers don't understand the difficulty of your job as a foster parent."
"Foster parents felt under-valued and dispensable!"
"Foster parents, individually, must think of themselves as professionals, and as a larger group, they must work together to gain
professional credibility and recognition from their professional peers and administrators!"
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parenting resumes"
"Working in the foster care and the social services systems is as equally challenging as parenting the foster children."
"Foster parents require more than good parenting skills to achieve longevity and success in today's foster care climate!"
"Most social workers and case workers don't understand the difficulty of your job as a foster parent."
"Foster parents felt under-valued and dispensable!"
"Foster parents, individually, must think of themselves as professionals, and as a larger group, they must work together to gain
professional credibility and recognition from their professional peers and administrators!"
____________________________________________________________
Chapters:
1. Professionalism
2. Teamwork
3. Foster Couple Relationships
4. Family, Friends, & Everyone Else!
5. Abuse Allegations: Prevention to Survival
6. Hindsight
1. Professionalism
2. Teamwork
3. Foster Couple Relationships
4. Family, Friends, & Everyone Else!
5. Abuse Allegations: Prevention to Survival
6. Hindsight
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CALL US FOR YOUR NEXT TRAINING EVENT: NOW BOOKING FOR SPRING 2012! EXCELLENT TRAINERS WITH REAL-LIFE EXPERIENCES! HERE ARE JUST A FEW OF OUR TOPICS: |
(Workshop or Keynote) *PARENTING ON THE SAME CHANNEL! (Workshop for Parents/FosterParents/Step-parents)
*PREVENTING AND SURVIVING ABUSE ALLEGATIONS *RESILIENT CHILDREN; BUILD ON THEIR STRENGTHS! *WHEN CHILDREN LIE" *DIFFICULT CHILDREN 101 *AFTER THE SPECIAL NEEDS ADOPTION *PARENTING CHILDREN WITH POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS" FOSTERING LIFE"S RELATIONSHIPS SERIES (Marriage, Parenting, Life at Work) "BUILDING SELF-ESTEEM" "WHEN LIFE IS NOT FAIR!" |
NEW PARADIGMS UNLIMITED Allen & Mary Goodearle 2901 Haas Rd. Kaukauna WI 54130 PH: 920-462-4661 email at: newparadigms2000@yahoo.com |
| To obtain more on-line training go to: Foster Care & Adoptive Community at www.fosterparents.com. There you can view several of Allen & Mary's training articles along with many other excellent trainings by well known authors on a huge variety of topics! A certificate of training hours is awarded upon completion. Allen and Mary are both regular training contributors to this excellent website. They both have an interactive courses available where you can ask questions and get answers from them! |
| NEW PARADIGMS UNLIMITED "Fostering Life's Relationships" |
Excerpt From Mary's Book A Guide to Foster Parenting Everything But the Kids! (From Chapter Five) ABUSE ALLEGATIONS: PREVENTION TO SURVIVAL You need to be prepared in advance for the possibility that a foster child might make a false allegation against you. Please read and carefully consider the following preventative measures: 1. Before you accept any new foster child placement into your home, get as much information as possible about the child. Learn about the child’s previous behaviors including lying, destructiveness, combativeness, ability to get along with others, eating patterns, sleeping patterns, social skills, school performance, and other behaviors. Ask if the child was ever a victim of sexual abuse. If the child was a victim, there is a greater chance that he or she will victimize someone else. You have to protect other vulnerable children in your home. This applies to boys as well as girls. In addition to protecting other children in your home, you have to think about protecting yourself as well. When children with sexual abuse histories make allegations, they have very graphic memories to draw upon in the event they make false allegations against you. Have your social worker give you the information in writing. Find out if the child had previous foster care or relative placements. If so, why did the placements fail? Ask to speak with the former caretakers or foster parents to find out exactly what went wrong. Has the child ever made false allegations against anyone? If so, how was it investigated and resolved? Get the details in writing. If the same type of false allegations are made against you, you will have something that establishes a pattern of behavior. You will also know how believable the story was and what measures were taken during the previous investigation. Has the child been sexually active or promiscuous? If so, you will have to have a plan to not let the child be alone in your home with a member of the opposite sex. You will also encounter a higher chance of each parent ‘seeing a different child.’ Inquire about the child’s biological family. What will be the degree of difficulty working with them? Does the child have visits with them? If so, are they supervised? By whom? What is your own role? Has the birth family made false accusations in the past? What medications is the child on? For what reason? What are the possible side affects? Get the complete medical history. Will the child be in special education classes? Will riding the school bus be a problem? Has the child had suspensions or expulsion from school in the past? Does the child have a history of abusing animals? Has the child ever started a fire? Will the child need supervision beyond the normal level appropriate for his or her age level? (I do not leave my 18 year-old and my 17 year-old home alone. Most parents could trust a child that age home alone.) 2. Decide if the child being offered for placement is within your capabilities to parent. (Remember, that is where we went wrong with Ben!) Can you give everyone in your home, including the new foster child, enough time and attention? Can you meet everyone’s individual needs? How will the new kid fit in with your own biological children and other foster children? Are you putting anyone (including yourself) at risk of being harmed emotionally or physically? 3. Say “no” to accepting a placement if you feel the child will not work out in your home. Lots of foster parents are afraid to say no, thinking that if they don’t help out the agency that they will not get offered future placements. That is not true. Agencies get overwhelmed with kids needing placements. They need you. If you are unable to accept a placement for whatever reason you have, another offer from the agency will soon follow. You will make a worse impression on the agency if you accept a child you can’t handle and request to have the child moved again early on. You also have to think about the amount of added stress and disruption to you and the rest of your family that getting in over your head will certainly create. 4. From the first day of the placement until the day your foster child leaves your home, keep your own case records. The rest of the other professionals on your child’s treatment team all document the case. You must too! Documentation could clear up or explain something that initiated a false allegation. You may need to provide an investigative worker with specifics. By documenting events the day they actually occur, you won’t have to rely on your memory. Use a bound notebook, the kind that shows if pages have been torn out, to keep a record for each foster child in your home. (If you use a spiral notebook or the computer, pages could be torn out or records changed. For legal purposes, a bound book is more permanent.) Have a separate notebook for each foster child. Write down anything out of the ordinary that happens. If your child falls down and skins his knee, write that down. How did it occur? What did you do about it? How did the child react? Make sure to include the date and time of the incident. So many things happen with kids that we can tend to forget incidents or blur them together in our memories. If we don’t write things down, they become lost or distorted. If your child tells lies, write that down. Leave out your feelings about it and include only the facts and circumstances. Write down how you handled the situation. Write down how your child behaves both before and after parental home visits. Include comments that seem out of the ordinary made by the child and the biological parents. Document the time the child left your home and the time he returned. Keep track of absences from school, contacts with school personnel, school performance and behaviors. Include the reasons for absences and other contacts. Document all contacts you have with your case worker and counselors. Include the topics of the conversation, where your meeting took place, time of day, date, suggestions made by the worker, and any important information you provided. Write down things that ‘trigger’ behaviors with your foster child. Triggers are memories, sounds, voices, songs, pictures, and other events that ignite undesirable behaviors in foster children. Remember the song on the car radio that Roger heard. He went into a sullen and withdrawn state upon hearing a country western song on the car radio. We later found out that it reminded him of the way his birth dad sang. In general, write down anything that you want to share with the social worker or other team members. You have the most contact with, and knowledge about your foster child. You are the one who spends 24 hours a day with him. You cannot possibly remember everything that is important for the other team members to know. Write it down and date it as soon as it occurs! 5. Make sure you know and understand all of your agency’s licensing rules and regulations. Sometimes foster parents get into trouble with their agencies by breaking foster care licensing rules. For instance, if your state’s rules say that you must keep all medications, cleaning supplies, and insecticides locked up, and a foster child becomes seriously ill from ingesting one of them, you would be in serious trouble. Know and review the rules. Never bend them or slack off from them! 6. Develop family rules and post them for all family members to see. An example of some rules from our house: Only one person is allowed in the bathroom at one time. The bathroom door must remain closed while in use. No one is allowed to barge in on anyone else. Bedroom doors must be closed while getting dressed. At all other times, the doors should be open. Boys and girls are not allowed in each other’s bedrooms. Mom will not be alone with a boy in his room, and dad will not be alone with a girl in her room. It is important not to have too many rules, but the rules you have should be designed with everyone’s safety in mind, including your own! 7. Maintain clear communication with your child’s treatment team. Ask for help when behaviors arise that you don’t know how to handle. If you have concerns that your child’s needs are not being met, insist that the team gets together to remedy the situation. 8. Maintain a cordial and professional working relationship with all of the treatment team members. Extend that to include the child’s birth parents. 9. Prepare in advance in case you are ever falsely accused of child abuse. Have a plan that includes selecting an attorney who has defended similar cases in the past. When and if you are accused of abusing a foster child, you will be in a state of turmoil. It will be hard to think clearly. By having an attorney and support people in mind, you will not have to make those difficult choices while in the primary shock and fear stages of your case. |
| Kristine Bruehl Public Relations Manager M.S.,. Concordia College Business and Criminal Justice Former Foster Parent Instructor/Trainer/Keynote Speaker Contact Kris PH: 920-358-3979 newparadigms2000PRM@yahoo. com |
| Floyd Hill Marketing Consultant B.S., ITT Technical Institute Business Administration Onieda Tribal Member Trainer/Consultant Contact Floyd PH: 920-530-5890 newparadigms2000mc@yahoo,.com |
