Helping Foster Children In School explores the challenges that foster children face in schools and offers positive and practical guidance tailored to help the parents, teachers, and social workers supporting them. Children in care often perform poorly at school both in terms of their behaviour and their academic performance, with many failing to complete their education. They will have often experienced trauma or neglect which can result in a number of developmental delays. By looking at why children in foster care do not perform as well as their counterparts, John DeGarmo, who has fostered more than 40 children, provides easy-to-use strategies to target the problems commonly faced. In this accessible and authentic book, DeGarmo emphasizes the importance of an open dialogue between teacher, parent and social worker, to ensure that everyone is working jointly to achieve the best outcome for the child. An invaluable resource for foster parents, social workers and educators alike, this book encourages a unified response to ensure foster children are given the best chance to succeed at school.
Foreword. Introduction. 1. Foster Care: An Introduction. 2. Placement Disruptions. 3. School Performance, Academics, and Behavior. 4. Aging out of the System. 5. Why Teachers, Foster Parents, and Case Workers Struggle. 6. Expectations of a Foster Child While in School.7. How Teachers Can Help. 8. How Foster Parents Can Help. 9. How Social Workers Can Help. 10. Creating a Support Team. Appendix A.Appendix B. Appendix C. Resources.
The latest book for John DeGarmo, Helping Foster Children in School, is a guide for helping foster parents, social workers, teachers and others as they seek to understand the challenges children in foster care face. The book provides a basic understanding of foster care and why children live in the foster care system. With statistics provided, the book highlights the large number of children entering or live in foster care each year. It also makes clear the enormous number of school children who are not only trying to learn every day, but are dealing with the challenges of living away from their biological families in foster care.
Helping Foster Children in School presents a number of challenges these children face from inconsistent school attendance during their early school years to multiple moves creating fractures in learning. The book identifies areas where children struggle and need support and gives ideas how the people in their lives can help. Helping Foster Children in School is an important read for educators, social workers and foster parents alike since they all are responsible for helping a child heal and achieve educational success. Each chapter leads with stories shared by former foster youth, foster parents, educators and social workers. These personal pieces help drive home the important role each of these individuals play in a child's success. Because teachers often aren't familiar with foster care and its impact on children, it's difficult for them to understand what a child is going through and how to relate, let alone teach.
Helping Foster Children in School can fill in the learning gap for these teachers and provide them with a window into the world of a child. Educators need to understand the difficult experiences of children and how that impacts learning. Helping Foster Children in School is an educational tool that should be used by the people hoping to guide a child to achieve educational success.
