Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC)
About This Program
Target Population: Foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers of children or adolescents of all ages (0-21 years)
For parents/caregivers of children ages: 0 – 21
Program Overview
The Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC) (officially titled Caring for Children Who Have Experienced Trauma: A Workshop for Resource Parents) is an eight-module workshop designed to educate resource parents on the effects of trauma on the children in their care. The workshop is led by a professional facilitator and a co-facilitator with lived experience as a resource parent. The RPC features activities in each module where caregivers apply the concepts learned to a child currently placed in their home. Each module also includes interactive group activities and discussions to promote shared learning.
The content of RPC is centered on nine Essential Elements of Trauma-Informed Parenting. The Essential Elements are centered around recognizing trauma's impact, understanding and providing physical and psychological safety, understanding and managing difficult behaviors and emotions, respecting and promoting relationships, developing a strengths-based life story, practicing advocacy, promoting trauma-informed services, and practicing parent self-care.
Program Goals
The goals of the Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC) are:
- Increase knowledge and beliefs related to trauma-informed parenting; i.e., viewing their children's behaviors through the lens of their difficult past experiences and responding to challenging behaviors and emotions in a way that promotes healing
- Increase ability to tolerate challenging behaviors, and as a result, maintain stable placements for children in foster, adoptive, and kinship care
- Increase feelings of efficacy about ability to parent a child who has experienced trauma
- Become more aware of the importance of self-care and connect with other resource parents as a support network
Logic Model
The program representative did not provide information about a Logic Model for Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC).
Essential Components
The essential components of the Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC) include:
- Delivered in group setting (recommended group size of 8-30) in various locations (usually office-based or in other training/community venues)
- Delivered to resource parents (foster, adoptive, kinship caregivers) with children currently placed in their home (i.e., in-service training rather than pre-service)
- Led equally by two facilitators:
- a mental health/child welfare provider with expertise in child traumatic stress, child development, and behavior management
- an individual with lived experience as a resource parent
- Contains eight modules to be conducted across multiple sessions. The topics of the eight modules are as follows:
- Module1: Welcome & Introductions
- Module 2: Trauma 101
- Module 3: Understanding Trauma's Effects
- Module 4: Building a Safe Place
- Module 5: Dealing with Feelings and Behaviors
- Module 6: Connections and Healing
- Module 7: Becoming an Advocate
- Module 8: Taking Care of Yourself
- Includes interactive activities and discussions to promote social learning/group support and enhance application of content to child in home (e.g., "My Child Worksheet" activity in each module)
- Specifically focuses on trauma-informed parenting
Program Delivery
Parent/Caregiver Services
Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC) directly provides services to parents/caregivers and addresses the following:
- Resource parents needing understanding of the impact of trauma on development, including symptoms of traumatic stress, difficulties in regulating emotions, challenging behaviors, difficulty in forming relationships, and other functional impairments (e.g., school problems); parents experiencing caregiver stress including secondary traumatic stress and compassion fatigue
Recommended Intensity:
The format of the curriculum allows for flexible administration; however, guidelines suggest it is best delivered over the course of multiple weeks in order to allow for application of content. The recommended total amount of instructional time is 12 to 16 hours. If administered weekly, sessions may last 1.5-2.5 hours.
Recommended Duration:
Recommended duration is 4-8 weeks, although duration is intended to be flexible based on program need.
Delivery Settings
This program is typically conducted in a(n):
- Community Daily Living Setting
- Outpatient Clinic
- Community-based Agency / Organization / Provider
Homework
Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC) includes a homework component:
Resource parents are encouraged to apply "Big Ideas" from each module with their children at home between each session. Individual facilitators may assign additional homework assignments.
Languages
Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC) has materials available in a language other than English:
Spanish
For information on which materials are available in this language, please check on the program's website or contact the program representative (contact information is listed at the bottom of this page).
Resources Needed to Run Program
The typical resources for implementing the program are:
A computer that can display a PowerPoint presentation, projector, a marker board or flipchart, supplies for specific activities as listed in the manual (e.g., index cards, sandwich bags), room space to comfortably accommodate participants, and possibly the ability to provide meals and childcare to promote parent engagement
Manuals and Training
Prerequisite/Minimum Provider Qualifications
Staff facilitators - a Master's degree or higher in Social Work, Psychology, or a related field is preferred. Facilitators may be mental health clinicians, child welfare workers (including, but not limited to, foster care licensing and child protection services), or therapeutic foster care workers. Facilitators should have sound knowledge base of child traumatic stress and will find it helpful to have experience either providing or participating in providing evidence-based trauma-informed treatment with children and families exposed to trauma, including trauma-informed psychoeducation to parents.
Family partner co-facilitators should have lived experience as a resource parent. There are no specific educational requirements, although they should be comfortable sharing their personal experiences with a group, and have a trauma-informed perspective.
Manual Information
There is a manual that describes how to deliver this program.
Program Manual(s)
Manual details:
- Grillo, C. A., Lott, D.A., Foster Care Subcommittee of the Child Welfare Committee, National Child Traumatic Stress Network. (2010). Caring for children who have experienced trauma: A workshop for resource parents—Facilitator’s guide. National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
- Grillo, C. A., Lott, D.A., Foster Care Subcommittee of the Child Welfare Committee, National Child Traumatic Stress Network. (2010). Caring for children who have experienced trauma: A workshop for resource parents—Participant handbook. National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
The facilitator's guide and participant handbook are available for free with registration at the NCTSN Learning Center website: https://learn.nctsn.org/index.php?
Training Information
There is training available for this program.
Training Contact:
- National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN)
training@nctsn.org
Training Type/Location:
Training can be obtained in a variety of ways, depending on the needs and experience of the prospective facilitator. Some states and regions have formal training programs and state-wide requirements in place and some do not. For more information about this, contact the NCTSN at training@nctsn.org.
Number of days/hours:
There are no specific requirements regarding number of days or hours of training. Depending on the format of training, hours may vary widely. Training activities may include a combination of the following: observation of a workshop led by experienced facilitator/co-facilitator, didactic instruction, coaching during practice sessions or following live workshops, consultation, and independent study. The NCTSN hosts monthly free consultation calls with experienced facilitators see https://learn.nctsn.org/RPC for additional information about dates, times and selected topics. Please contact the NCTSN at training@nctsn.org with additional questions.
Relevant Published, Peer-Reviewed Research
Sullivan, K. M., Murray, K. J., & Ake, G. S. (2016). Trauma-informed care for children in the child welfare system: An initial evaluation of a trauma-informed parenting workshop. Child Maltreatment, 21(2), 147-155. doi:10.1177/1077559515615961
Type of Study:
One-group pretest-posttest
Number of Participants:
159
Population:
- Age — 24-77 years (Mean=48 years)
- Race/Ethnicity — 58.7% White/Caucasian, 37.4% African American, 1.3% Asian, 1.3% Latino, and 1.3% multiracial
- Gender — 69% Female and 31% Male
- Status — Participants were resource parents (adoptive, foster, and/or kinship).
Location/Institution: 19 counties in North Carolina
Summary:
(To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
This purpose of this study is to examine participant acceptance and satisfaction and changes in caregiver knowledge and beliefs related to trauma-informed parenting in Caring for Children who Have Experienced Trauma, also known as the Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC). Measures utilized include self-report on basic demographic information about themselves and the children in their care, the Resource Parent Knowledge and Beliefs survey, Trauma-Informed Parenting (TIP) scale, the Tolerance of Misbehavior (TOM), the Parenting Self-Agency Measure (PSAM), the Postworkshop satisfaction survey (PWSS), and the Module evaluations. Results demonstrate that kinship and nonkinship caregivers showed significant increases in their knowledge of trauma-informed parenting and their perceived self-efficacy parenting a child who experienced trauma. Nonkinship caregivers increased on their willingness to tolerate difficult child behaviors, whereas kinship caregivers did not show a significant change. Participants also demonstrated high levels of satisfaction with the workshop. Limitations include lack of a control group, lack of randomization of participants, and lack of follow-up.
Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: None.
Gigengack, M. R., Hein, I. M., Lindeboom, R., & Lindauer, R. J. L. (2017). Increasing resource parents' sensitivity towards child posttraumatic stress symptoms: A descriptive study on a trauma-informed resource parent training. Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma. Advance online publication. doi:10.1007/s40653-017-0162-z
Type of Study:
One-group pretest-posttest
Number of Participants:
108
Population:
- Age — Caregivers: Not specified; Children: Mean=9.8 years
- Race/Ethnicity — Not specified
- Gender — Caregivers: 76% Female and 32% Male, Children: 53% Male and 38% Female
- Status — Participants were resource parents (adoptive, foster, and/or kinship).
Location/Institution: Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Summary:
(To include basic study design, measures, results, and notable limitations)
This purpose of this study is to examine resource parents' perceived upbringing stress in caring for their foster child, and child posttraumatic stress syndrome (PTSS) before entering the Resource Parent Curriculum (RPC), after completing the RPC, and at six-month follow-up. Measures utilized include self-report on basic demographic information about themselves and the children in their care, the Burden of Upbringing
Questionnaire (Opvoedingsbelastingvragenlijst (OBVL), and the Children's Revised Impact of Event Scale (CRIES) parental version. Results show an increase in recognition of child PTSS and a decrease in resource parents' experienced upbringing stress and child PTSS over time. Limitations include lack of a control group, lack of randomization of participants, and small sample size.
Length of controlled postintervention follow-up: 6 months.
Additional References
Sullivan, K., Murray, K., Ake, G., Kane, N., & Priesler, J. (n.d.). Everything you need to know before implementing RPC. Retrieved from https://www.ccfhnc.org/programs_66_2274227261.pdf
UNC-CH School of Social Work, Family and Children's Resource Program. (2013). Trauma-informed parenting: What you should know. Fostering Perspectives, 18(1). Retrieved from http://fosteringperspectives.org/fpv18n1/know.htm
Contact Information
- Nicholas Tise
- Agency/Affiliation: National Center for Child Traumatic Stress
- Website: www.nctsn.org/resources/resource-parent-curriculum-rpc-online
- Email: info@nctsn.org
- Phone: (919) 682-1552
Date Research Evidence Last Reviewed by CEBC: May 2018
Date Program Content Last Reviewed by Program Staff: July 2023
Date Program Originally Loaded onto CEBC: May 2018
