Handling Social Media
Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care
07/14/21
•67m
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What issues do you need to think about when using social media as an adoptive or foster parent? What issues do you need to consider for your teens and tweens as they engage in social media? We talk with Katie Biron, Director Fostering Connections for Families and Program Manager of the Family Connections Program; Laura Jean Beauvais, licensed professional counselor with New Wind Counseling; and Dawn Friedman, a licensed professional clinical counselor with supervisory designation at Building Family Counseling about handling social media with adopted, foster, and kinship children.
In this episode, we include:
Some of the most popular social media platforms include:
- YouTube
- TikTok
- Snapchat
Social Media pre-adoption
- Keep in mind that states have varying laws on matching online and advertising for an expectant parent. You need to know what is allowed.
- How much information can you or should you post after you have been matched with an expectant mom during her pregnancy?
- How much info can you share post birth and after the baby comes home, but before the adoption is finalized?
- Is it OK to “snoop” on expectant family and birth family online pre-adoption? You should know that the expectant family will also be checking you out online.
- Should you friend the expectant mom and family pre-adoption?
- How, when, and if to announce a child coming into your family through adoption.
Social Media as an Adoptive Parent
- How much of your child’s adoption story should you share online?
- How much should you share of your child’s birth parent’s online presence with a school aged child or younger?
- Sharing photos online. How to handle differing opinions between adoptive and bio family on sharing pics. Common scenario is adoptive parent doesn’t share online pics and bio family does.
- Friending biological or first family or accepting friend requests from biological family.
- How to seek help online without divulging your child’s personal information or oversharing.
- Post anonymously either on your own or ask group admin.
- Ask general questions without personal details.
- How to juggle the ups and downs of adoption groups on social media.
Social Media as a Foster Parent
- Differing rules and expectations on social media use between foster child and foster parent will be discussed later in the interview.
- Can a foster parent post a foster child’s picture online?
- Ask you caseworker
- Confidentiality is essential
- Use the Reasonable Prudent Parent Standard
- Discussion in online forums. How open can you be?
Social Media with Adopted/Fostered Teens
- What age do adolescents start having access to social media without adult supervision?
- How to handle and navigate social media with the teens in foster care?
- Benefits of social media for adopted and fostered adolescents.
- Maintaining social ties. Social media is how many youth connect with friends, both old and new. May be especially important for young people who have been moved from their communities and families.
- Support. Through either organized online groups for youth in similar situations or informally.
- Family connections. Youth may be able to with biological family members between family visits, where appropriate and approved by the caseworker.
- Self-expression. Social media is where many budding poets, artists, videographers hone their skills. It is also a place where young people shape their identity and can contribute to healing from childhood trauma.
- Risks: While all youth may be at some risk for unsafe online s
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Previous Episode
Preparing Kids Already in the Home for an Adoption
July 7, 2021
•59m
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How can we prepare kids already in our home for the adoption of a sibling whether that new sibling is an infant or an older child. We will talk with Michelle Hoevker, a board-certified Clinical Social Work Supervisor and Program Director of Adoption and Foster Care at Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services with more than 20 years experience in child welfare; and Adam Crawford, a Licensed Master Social Worker and the Program Director of Adoption and Foster Care at Presbyterian Children’s Homes and Services with more than 15 years of experience in child welfare.
In this episode, we cover:
Adopting an Infant
- How to prepare children for the adoption of an infant?
- How to answer question from others.
- How to explain open adoption to kids already in the home?
- What if the child already in the home is adopted but with a different degree of openness with their birth family?
Transracial Adoption
- How to prepare children for the adoption of an infant when it is a transracial adoption where the child being adopted is not the same race or ethnicity as the children already in the family?
Adopting an Older Child Who is Not Your Foster Child (adopting from foster care or adopting internationally)
- How much of your new child’s history should you share with the kids already in the family?
- How to prepare kids in the family for potential behavioral challenges.
- Prepare your kids in advance for changes to the family routine to accommodate the new child’s needs?
- Creating a support network in advance.
- Handling the transition period.
- Different expectations and rules.
- How much voice should children in the family have on whether to adopt?
- Advice on parenting if you are disrupting birth order.
- Advice on parenting if kids are in the same grade at school.
Adopting an Older Child Who is Your Foster Child
- Role change from foster sibling to adoptive sibling (and foster parent to adoptive parent).
- Expectations of transition period.
Resources:
- Creating a Family has a great list of books for Preparing Kids for the Adoption of a Sibling
- Suddenly Siblings website answers the question on every parent's mind: how will fostering or adoption affect my kids already in the home?
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Next Episode
What’s It Like to Be In Foster Care: Former Foster Youth Speak Out
July 21, 2021
•66m
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In this episode we talk with a panel of four former foster youth to find out what it is like to be raised in foster care and what they wish foster parents knew about the experience.
In this episode, we cover:
- What was the experience of being removed from your home and taken from your parents?
- Was there something that your foster parents could have done when you were first placed in the home to help alleviate some of the trauma?
- Did you feel fully included in your foster family? What can foster parents do to help the child feel included?
- This wasn’t relevant when you were in foster care, but what are your thoughts on blurring out the foster child or putting stickers over their face when posting pics on social media?
- Relationships with the children of the foster family.
- Who did you feel like was on your side? Who could you go to if you needed help?
- Do you think enough was done to help your biological parents before you were removed?
- Do you think enough was done to help your biological parents with reunification? Or do you think they were given too many chances?
- Do you have pictures or keepsakes from the time you were in foster care? Would these have been or are they important to you now? What can the system do to make sure these are preserved?
- While I’m sure you carry the scars of your early life trauma, you have all become successful and--at least from the outside looking in—emotionally healthy adults. What factors contributed to this?
- Tips for foster parents.
This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them. Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
Please leave us a rating or review RateThisPodcast.com/creatingafamily
Please leave us a rating or review. This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.
Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:
- Weekly podcasts
- Weekly articles/blog posts
- Resource pages on all aspects of family building
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