Washoe County Meeting 1:  This meeting serves as a welcome and introduction to the concepts found in kinship care. It also increases caregiver understanding of the child welfare system.  The meeting introduces the reason children come into care. In section one, we provide an introduction to Foster Kinship, get to know the class members and facilitators, connect families to community resources, and provide an overview providing normalcy to children in care. Caregivers will learn the role of the child welfare agency and workers, learn about the goals of the child welfare system, discuss how to respectfully advocate for children in their care, and explore confidentiality policy, and learn more about LGBTQ and the importance of advocating for youth . In section three, we use family systems theory to gain understanding of how household systems are affected by change, learn more about the six characteristics of a family, and have a class discussion about how caregivers have adapted to the change of becoming kinship caregivers, This meeting provides the participants with an overview of reunification and adoption and identifies ways in which kinship caregivers can support permanency planning.

Meeting One focuses on establishing a trusting relationship with the children. The meeting will be filled with icebreakers and getting to know the rules of the classroom: Stick Together, No Hurts, Have Fun. Stick together means to respect each other, No hurts means no hurting emotionally or physically, and if we can stick together and have no hurts we can have fun! During snack time, we will watch “Wreck it Ralph” to identify Ralph’s challenges in accepting who is. We will then create our own “Heart Shaped Metal" and decorate it with all things we love about ourselves.