How Does Trauma Affect Kids in Wisconsin Foster Care

Children in Wisconsin foster care have experienced at least one traumatic event. Significant loss, abandonment, neglect, and abuse are a few. Our goal is to help Wisconsin foster children heal from childhood trauma while in the care of loving foster parents in a stable home environment. Our foster parents are trained to use trauma-informed care principles to help children on a path to healing.

How does trauma affect kids in foster care?

Trauma is an emotional response to an extreme event or exposure to multiple events. Young and older foster children display various emotions and behaviors not easily understood. Caring for kids with trauma histories requires foster parents to meet additional qualifications to become foster parents. Parenting kids with trauma histories can be challenging, but kids can heal with dependable support services. Traumatic events may include:

Emotional, sexual, and physical abuse
Witnessing family or community violence
Witnessing harm to a loved one or pet
Effects of poverty, including not having enough food to eat
Unpredictable parental behaviors
Witnessing drug use
Exposure to pornography

In addition to the above, entering foster care means being removed from family, friends, and school. Living with strangers and moving from home to home can be very traumatic. CCR provides opportunities for kids to heal while in a CCR foster home beyond what other foster agencies can offer.

Wisconsin foster parents witness a variety of behaviors and emotions.

Trauma can affect children’s behavior in ways that may be confusing or distressing for foster parents. It often impacts the long-term health and well-being of a child. However, foster children can heal and thrive with understanding, care, and proper treatment (when necessary).

School-age children may exhibit:

• Difficulty paying attention
• Attention-seeking or acting out
• Frequent tears or sadness
• Talking often about scary feelings and ideas
• Difficulty transitioning from one activity to the next
• Fighting with peers or adults
• Changes in school performance
• Sexual awareness
• Eating much more or less than peers
• Getting into trouble at home or school
• Frequent headaches or stomachaches with no apparent cause
• Behaviors common to younger children (thumb sucking, bed-wetting, fear of the dark)

Teens in Wisconsin foster care are at high risk of mental health diagnoses.

Our greatest need is foster families wishing to help sibling groups, kids over age eight, and teens. Helping a teen in foster care prepare for adulthood can be very rewarding. Many teens in foster care experience growth and healing simply by living in a loving, family environment. In addition, structure, accountability, and healthy relationships contribute significantly to the healing process.

Teens placed in CCR foster homes may exhibit:

Talking about the trauma constantly or denying that it happened
Refusal to follow the rules or to talk back frequently
Nightmares. Being tired all the time, sleeping much more (or less) than peers
Risky behaviors, fighting
Not wanting to spend time with friends
Using drugs or alcohol
Sexual awareness/activity
Dangerous use of social media/internet
Running away, getting into trouble with the law

CCR kids all have a treatment plan to address trauma histories. Timely, effective cognitive and behavioral health interventions help in the following ways:

Increase a child’s feelings of safety
Teach a child how to manage emotions, particularly when faced with trauma triggers
Help a child develop a positive view of him- or herself
Give a child a greater sense of control over their own life

How to help foster kids with trauma histories.

Identify trauma triggers. It is essential to watch for patterns of behavior and reactions that do not “fit” the situation. What distracts the child, makes them anxious, or results in a tantrum or outburst? Help the child avoid situations that trigger traumatic memories until more healing has occurred.

Be emotionally and physically available. Some traumatized children act in ways that keep adults at a distance (whether they mean to or not). Provide attention, comfort, and encouragement in ways a
a foster child will accept.

Respond, don’t react. Your reactions may trigger a child or youth who is already feeling overwhelmed. When a child is upset, do what you can to keep calm: Lower your voice, acknowledge the child’s feelings, and be reassuring and honest.

Listen well. Don’t avoid complex topics or uncomfortable conversations. (But don’t force children to talk before they are ready.) Taking their reactions seriously reassures them that what happened was not their fault.

Be consistent and predictable. Develop a routine for meals, playtime, schoolwork, and bedtime. Prepare your child in advance for changes or new experiences.

Be patient. Everyone heals differently from trauma, and trust does not develop overnight. Respecting each child’s course of recovery is essential.

Encourage self-esteem. Positive experiences can help foster children recover from trauma and increase resilience.

*Some of the information in this blog was taken from the Child Welfare Information Gateway.

Can Foster Parents Have Pets?

If you are exploring how to become a foster parent and have fur babies or farm animals, this blog is for you. Perhaps you worry about your four-legged friends sharing the home with foster kids. Pets provide acceptance without judgment and offer kids in foster care dependable relationships with little risk. Not just indoor pets. Many of our foster parents have outdoor animals and see many benefits for both kids and their animals.

Foster care is synonymous with stress.

It's no secret that pets provide unconditional support and acceptance, which many foster children have not received from family or social relationships in the past. Having a pet in the home can have a calming effect on children and often forces them to connect and engage with their foster parents and siblings more quickly than in a home without animals.

Communication and interaction may be more natural when animals are used as a buffer or a shared common interest. Pets can be a positive distraction from symptoms and upsetting experiences a child may have had before being placed in foster care. Many foster children experience stress, particularly early on in a placement. Kids can feel comfort and acceptance from a pet long before developing those feelings with their new foster family.

Foster children experience order and continuity.

Caring for a pet can give foster children a feeling of control, security, and routine. Providing kids with some responsibility in the care of animals generates a sense of order and continuity in their day-to-day activities. Caring for pet animals provides children with the experience of taking responsibility for another living being, may support the development of empathy, and has been shown to relate to more humane attitudes later in life.

Simple chores such as feeding a cat before school, cleaning a cage or stall on a weekend morning, and even brushing the family dog gives kids a feeling of responsibility. These activities can foster an attachment to pets and animals and generates feelings of respect for their new family. Foster parents tell us that caring for animals is a quick way for kids to feel they belong to a new foster family placement.

"When I first got to the Smiths, I was nervous and cried a lot. I used to bury my face into Bennie's neck and cry. He let me and never jumped off the bed."

Pets can provide emotional support.

Research from the University of Missouri-Columbia suggests that the hormonal changes that occur when humans and dogs interact could help people cope with depression and certain stress-related illnesses. In one Missouri study, scientists tested dog owners' and non-owners hormone levels. They found that people received the most benefit (through increased serotonin levels) when petting their dogs. Also, simply stroking the dog for 15-30 minutes lowered the participants’ blood pressure by 10 percent.

It is reported that dogs may help children to regulate their emotions because they can trigger and respond to a child’s attachment-related behavior. How children best benefit from being with pet animals and how often they need to interact with them to get results is something, our foster parents can speak about confidently.

"When the girls arrived, they were afraid of the goats. Little by little, I would take them out to say hello. After about three weeks, they began petting them on the head. Now feeding the goats and helping with chores is part of their routine."

Relationships with pets have an essential role.

While having pets in the home cannot cure mental illness or be a "quick fix" for children with significant trauma, there are enough evidence and testimony to suggest that it does help. Studies have found that people with pets generally reported a greater sense of control and a feeling of security and routine. More importantly, studies have found that adults and older youth with greater attachment and relationships to animals during childhood demonstrate greater empathy, confidence, and independence in adulthood.

Children in foster care often experience sleep difficulty, headaches, anxiety, social stress, lack of confidence, and attachment disorders, all of which may be helped by caring for or attaching to a family pet. Most CCR foster homes have pets or farm animals and have witnessed the healing benefits for children in their care.