Learning  & Community Source

Foster Source’s continuing education and support  programming for foster and kinship parents.

Learning & Community Source

When we are able to meet in person, our classes are held on Saturday mornings from 9:30-11:30am throughout Colorado. The classes are always free for Colorado foster and kinship parents and always include free childcare, giving parents personal time of respite and kids time to spend with other children who have experienced similar displacement issues.

Our classes and groups are taught from a trauma-informed approach – helping parents learn new skills in order to meet children where they are and begin the healing process.  These opportunities help make the foster and kinship parenting experience a community effort. We help children in care and their caregivers create positive family dynamics by building trusting relationships and offering essential tools to navigate difficulties. Training topics include: trauma, navigating the special education system, attachment, the Indian Child Welfare Act, unconscious bias, various therapy options, disorders, behaviors, LGBTQ support and expert panels. Our expert panels have included  child welfare alumni panels, judicial panels, appellate courts panels and elected officials panels.

Part of the Learning Source, the Community Source hosts our new virtual support groups that meet once a month on zoom for four months. Caregivers have the opportunity when registering to choose what breakout room they would like to be assigned. They can choose from options like “single caregiver”, “kinship caregiver,” “LGBTQI+,” etc. Parents meet with the same cohort each month and continue to support one another after the initial 4 months.

Fostering outside of Colorado and interested in our classes? We are thrilled to be seeing so many out of state foster parents in the classroom. We partner with New Mexico Child First Network to provide our Learning Source services to New Mexico parents free of charge. Beyond that, our expenses are stretched beyond our funding as our classroom continues to grow. Foster and kinship parents outside of Colorado pay $10 per training in the Learning Source. This helps us offset the additional cost of hosting larger groups.  If your local county or agency is interested in partnering with us from out of state, we welcome their inquiry at info@fostersource.org

Not a foster parent, but interested in our classes? Foster Source provides support services for foster and kinship families in Colorado. We charge a fee of $25 per class for non foster parents which supports our trauma-informed speakers and ongoing security/hosting of the Learning Source platform. If you are a case manager, teacher, social worker, CASA and/or adoptive parent(s), we welcome you in the classroom. You will receive two hours of continuing education units per class.