Parenting Bridges

Parenting Bridges is a training and consulting consortium of highly experienced facilitators who believe in fully integrating strength-based practice throughout all of our products and services. Believing strongly in motivational, and experiential training techniques, parenting bridges creates a holding environment in which individuals can feel safe enough to allow their strengths and challenges become more evident. Parenting Bridges has a deep commitment not only to the learning process, but also to deepening and enriching the relationship among all team members. Training sessions are enjoyable and draw from active participant contributions that are designed to awaken the potential within each person and the team. We provide a compassionate and intelligent approach whose aim is to understand fully the wishes and intentions of each participant as they embark on their journey to Foster Parenting. We are known for effective training that produces long-remembered and much talked-about experiences that dramatically contribute to positive change in programs and organizations.

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Parenting Bridges has combined experience of nearly 50 years in creating, developing and operating programs for children who have serious emotional challenges. The Strong Families, Strong Children training suite helps the participants understand their role in the foster parenting experience from the inside out. All of our training and consulting is designed to help teams build strong, healthy relationships- the critical ingredient in the healing process of our children and families.

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Strong Families, Strong Children (suite)

Parenting Bridges has created the suite of products and training Strong Families, Strong Children. Developed as an inter-related, absorbing blend of experiential curriculum, expert presentations, reflective discussions, and creative activities the Strong Families, Strong Children suite will strengthen your foster care team and result in healthy, productive relationships. Our facilitation style emerges from the following foundations:

• Functional. The instructors of Strong Families, Strong Children use the techniques that we teach. Just by watching them in action, you pick up several effective strategies.

• Authoritative. The instructors know what they are talking about. Our workshops are based on sound theory, validated principles, and solid experience.

• Practical. The instructors have spent decades on the floor in the trenches. We help you with realistic tools and techniques for immediate use in today's social service field.

• Fun. The instructor's contagious enthusiasm, inclusive humor, and empathic flexibility will help you enjoy every moment of the workshops.

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healing bridge (foster parent pre-service)

This curriculum and training is designed as a ten session, pre-service training for foster parents. healing bridge is founded on five simple yet profound premises:

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• We all have strengths.

• We all have a need to belong.

• We all have ways that we would prefer to be viewed by others.

• A personal challenge is no more or no less than the overdoing or misapplying of a personal strength.

• Change is difficult even in the best of circumstances.

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The training was created as a way for programs to understand the strengths and challenges of each foster parent and to begin the process of healthy relationship building among all team members. The experiential design requires that the facilitators are able to recognize and utilize the nuances of the process in creating the learning the n action learning device is a tool for physical activity. An interactive lecture is a presentation that encourages (and sometimes requires) the learners to interact with the content, with each other, and with the presenter. Some interactive lectures feature teamwork and sharing of ideas. Other interactive lectures incorporate game activities at different intervals. A simulation game is a game in which the procedures and play materials reflect real-world processes and products. A metaphorical simulation game reflects a few selected real-world elements in an abstract, simplified fashion.

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Bridge Building (train-the-trainer)

The bridge building experience is a 4-day train-the-trainer workshop designed to instruct the participants in the philosophy and use of the healing bridge curriculum. During this workshop each participant receives a copy of the healing bridge curriculum, parent workbook and family life book. By the end of the workshop participants will have learned the training methodology that will enable them to be effective in the delivery of the material to their Foster Parents.

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The Therapeutic Bridge (staff)

The Strong Families, Strong Children training system takes a proactive approach to assessing individual strengths and challenges. We are, in effect, continuously asking questions, measuring and collecting responses both overtly and covertly. Unlike traditional training, proof of learning is not the end but the beginning of strong relationships with co-workers, supervisors, parents and foster parents. It is within this matrix of individuals that the real work gets done.

The therapeutic bridge is a 5-day experience that seeks to develop, establish and maintain healthy relationships as part of a strategy of building success of individuals and, ultimately, programs and organizations. This staff training moves away from the modality of the training session and focuses on continuous improvement, concentrating on strategic alliance, relevance, and reinforcement.

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The Parent-to-Parent Bridge (foster family and family)

The fundamental premise of all Parenting Bridges training is that by creating positive, healthy relationships within the foster care system, we can build highly effective learning relationships that deliver substantial added value to each individual and, by extension, to their program/organization.

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The parent-to-parent bridge brings together parents and foster parents in a multi-day retreat environment. The sessions are highly interactive and focus on bridging the gaps that often plague these relationships. Some of the outcomes of this time together include more effective communication, honoring differences and partnership.

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