Appreciate everybody being here. I'm...

file:///centervideo.forest.usf.edu/...subtitles_Coparenting%20What%20Foster%20Parents%20Need%20to%20Know%20Part%201_default.txt[12/1/2020 8:14:07 AM]

Appreciate everybody being here.

I'm Bill.

Not only with Heartland for children.

I know some of you some of you I'm just seeing and meeting

for the first time.

I want to do a little bit in the way of getting to know one

another before we get started.

This is a class on co-parenting.

The one thing I do want you to know is that I'm not here

to ask anybody to co-parent.

I will ask the foster parents and it looks like I've got

two sets of potential foster parents in here.

I will be Sing something from you towards the end of the

class, but it's not co-parenting that's a decision.

You'll need to make for yourself.

And the other thing you'll probably want to know is that

as we're not going to start off with co-parenting we're going

to go through some stages to get there.

We're going to have a little refresher course on trauma because

I know everybody here is really well versed in trauma.

Right?

Right, right.

She doesn't look.

Like she's agreeing with me, but we'll find out in a second

and then we're going to talk about family-centered practice

and family engagement and why we think and why we think philosophically

that it's important to work with families and in Partnership


as much as we can.

And then finally we are going to get to co-parenting and

talk about what that is and how that can help us work with

birth birth parents better both for foster parents and for

case managers so when it gets Know each other a little bit.

I am with Heartland for children.

I'm on the executive team there.

This is really like a third career for me.

I was prior to this.

I had a perfectly nice middle management career going on

in the IT industry was doing well and the argument in my

family goes back and forth between either I had some moment

of epiphany or I had a psychotic episode, but either way

I absolutely just turned around and walked away from that

career and went back to college at the ripe old age of 48

to get a degree in social work so that I could come and do

this work.

I'll tell you a little bit more about me in a minute that

will kind of help connect the dots for you on that.

So I've got four folks in here that are looking to be foster

parents and I got some case management folks.

So here's a question for you.

when you were 4 and someone came up to you and said, what

do you want to be when you grow up?

How many of you said either foster parent or case manager?

Right, so it was like fairy princess or baseball player or

NFL player whatever but it wasn't any of that so somehow


your path.

Got moved toward this I believe rightly or wrongly that folks

who are in this business and who are successful particularly

in this business are somehow called to it.

I don't think that it is accidental work.

I don't think this is a sort of thing that you strive to

do. Whether that's as a professional case manager or as foster

parents or anybody that steps into this to help these families.

Ways I think that there's a calling there and there's some

way that your path got moved in that direction.

So we're going to talk about stories and how paths get moved

to that direction starting with me.

So anybody know can y'all see that kind of buildings white

buildings? Anybody know what it is?

mmm, well sorta Well, there was a church on the property.

This is the Arthur G Dozier school for boys.

Does anybody know what that is?

Andre you know what it is.

You've seen the news stories, right?

These are some kids and the 50s 60s whenever that were also

lived in the Arthur G Dozier school for boys.

And these are some boys that didn't make it out.

So if you seen the new stories.

And you've seen where USF actually is up there in Marianna

exhuming bodies and connecting these kids with families.

Well Hindi cember a 1971 I left there.

So I'm one of the lucky ones I got through it.


I survived it.

There was no Independent Living program at the time.

There was just your 17.

Bye.

Again, they did give me five dollars in a bus ticket to a

nearby town where there was a homeless shelter.

I have a reason for telling you this.

I want to tell you a story about Alex who's my granddaughter.

So that's my son-in-law John.

This is my granddaughter Alex right after she got out of

the plastic box.

So if you guys know anything about preemie babies, you know,

they live in a plastic box for a while and Alex did for the

first few weeks of her life.

We couldn't hold her we couldn't do anything.

All we could do is like reach through a hole with gloves

on and like touch her belly.

This was after she got healthy enough and I don't know how

well you can see here.

This is kind of a small picture.

But if you can notice she's got kind of a sloping head her

head wasn't formed.

Well, her lungs were underdeveloped all Stuff that goes with

preemies so we had already had one healthy grandchild.

She was the second grandchild Born Into the family first

child of my daughter Katie and John and of course all the

adults, we're doing our hand-wringing.


How are we going to take care of this kid?

You know, how are we going to manage?

What if she's this way?

What if she's that way?

What are we going to do?

So we just didn't know.

This is Alex.

It's 6:00.

My apologies to the little girl whom Alex is kicking in the

face. I don't know her but I always apologize to her and

this picture Alex is winning the state a you karate championships

for her age group.

She went on to win Nationals three years in a row and then

she got tired of that and now she's riding dressage.

Does anybody know?

What dressage is that's where they put on the little hat

and the jack.

Good and they sit on the horse and they just ride around

this Arena thing and people judge them.

This was fun.

Going to karate tournaments was a hoot because they fought

all age groups and I had a blast dressage is boring.

But as the grandpa, I still got to go watch that to the point

of those two stories is this That all the while the adults

were wringing their hands and saying what are we going to

do about Alex?

What's Alex going to be how she going to develop little Alex


in our own way was saying just let me grow up a little bit.

Just let me get big enough and I'll do some things that will

Amaze you it's really true for me too because it's 17 you

can well imagine because you know, these kids especially

case managers you got I'm on your caseload that you're already

going. Too bad for him too bad for her.

They're not going to make it trust me.

I was a kid and they said about me being prison within a

year. They said about me when I was 13 never going to make

it. I had some fortunate things happen to me after I got

out. I met some good people people helped me long story short

is one of the biggest mistakes that we can make is to underestimate

the human spirit.

People will fool you.

If you didn't already know that about me you would have never

guessed it.

So you just don't know the other lesson from this that I

want to talk a little bit about is the trauma.

And to say that the trauma that Alex had because we know

trauma occurs as early as 6 months in utero, maybe sooner

but we definitely know by six months that baby is experience,

whatever experiencing whatever trauma mom is experiencing.

and of course the post birth experience living in a plastic

box, no binding with mama not being held all that stuff is

very traumatic for a baby Alex's brain processes that and

again processed it in exactly the way my brain processed

being abused neglected and abandoned child and I was all


three car wreck survivors soldiers on the battlefield victims

of sexual assault everybody that experiences trauma the brain

processes the trauma in the exact same way.

There's no difference.

There's a system in there that processes trauma now there

is a marked difference between pervasive childhood trauma

and Trauma that occurs later on in life.

And the reason for that is that in our childhood.

These resiliency systems are under development.

All those parts of the brain are developing.

So if they are enter feared with during development, they

tend to freeze in place the other and the other side of that

is that if you've grown up with a healthy resistance and

a healthy resilience, and you've are fairly emotionally healthy

and you have a big trauma in your life as we all invariably

do you can manage that a lot better and get to the other

side of it because you have a well-developed system.

now So we understand trauma.

Right right not in the heads.

Cute explain to me how the brain processes it.

How does the brain process trauma swirl trauma-informed,

right? That's the output.

Yeah, that's the yeah, that's that's that's what comes out

of the machine.

But how does the machine work?

Yeah, but what what what physically happens in the brain?

And I understand your question.


I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

You can go down that road.

What causes that but what parts of the brain do you do know?

Andre can you wiggle has in their absolutely amygdalas part

of it?

So you've heard these terms right?

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to teach you trauma.

You can look at it all you want but I'm going to teach you

trauma in a way that you won't forget.

Take you on a quick ride through trauma here starting with

this question.

What is the primary role of your brain?

You answer that one.

To process Andre.

What do you think control your body?

What's the main job of your brain?

Hmm?

Thank you.

The main job of your brain is exactly that to keep you alive.

That's his main job now.

It is really really important to understand that in the context

of trauma because the first thing we need to know that the

if the brain perceives threat the brain will do whatever

it has to do to get away from that threat and get safe again.

That's important to remember now.

How many brains do we have?


You want to take a shot at that one?

You have one who says one?

There's afraid to raise their hands.

You think you guys have one.

So essentially you have three braids now.

It's all one big system, but you really do have three independently

operating brains, and this is also very important to understand

how trauma impacts the brain so you got a primitive Center

and we're going to talk about what ancient these does.

We've got an emotional Center, and we've got a rational Center.

Don't read ahead.

So let me ask you this question is gonna be a lot of questions

in this class.

So if you're in a crisis and you need to figure out how to

get out of that crisis, which one of those three centers,

would you rather use primitive emotional or rational?

Rational everybody says rational.

Okay well moving on.

And we're going to talk a little bit about the thalamus.

The thalamus and you can see where it's it's right smack

in the middle of your head.

That's your switchboard.

Your brain is constantly receiving data through your five

senses its data.

It's about temperature and environment and all that stuff

everywhere you go.

You're constantly bringing in this data.


You walked in this room and you took in the data from the

room. Yeah.

I'm familiar with this room.

This looks like where I'm supposed to be, etc, etc.

So it's safe for me to be here and do what I'm supposed to

do. However, What would you have done if you walk in this

room and smelled smoke?

You'd get back out the door because your Thalamus would have

taken that in and that would have registered in your brain

somewhere to say it's a bad idea to be in this room.

That's the same would be true.

If there was someone in here with a gun or there was an active

fire or there was just any water coming down from the ceiling

whatever would have alarmed you but your you took in through

your five senses the entire context of the room very quickly

and said, All right, this is good.

I can be here.

And that's what the thalamus does.

It's your switchboard.

It's where everything goes to and then it goes out from there.

So the Primitive centers your Reptilian Brain, why do we

call it?

The Reptilian Brain?

You guys have not answered a question yet.

Somebody answer a question.

All right, I'll give you a clue fact.

I'll just give you the answer.


The reason we call it The Reptilian Brain is because on The

evolutionary scale the first place we see this brain is in

reptiles. Now what this thing does.

It's right at the back of your skull here The Reptilian Brain

is the oldest brain.

It is your vital functions your heart rate your breathing

your body temperature your balance.

Your hunger your sleep, you're awake.

All of this stuff goes on.

It's really reliable, but it is very rigid and compulsive.

It generally does what it's told to do.

.

It doesn't have the ability to independently think so.

It's getting told to do something from somewhere and it does

it. It's a great system.

Because if I had to remember for my heart to beat and I had

to remember for my liver to process and I had to remember

to breathe along with all the other stuff.

I forget I'd forget one of those and I would last about five

minutes and that would be the end of me.

That's probably true for everybody.

You're born with this system completely developed and intact.

And why is that?

Because the other systems of your brain develop after you're

born, you know, they're somewhat developed but they really

develop after you're born.

Why is this one intact when you're born?


Yes, you need it to stay alive.

And what's the primary role of your brain to keep you alive?

So when your body is developing it develops the brain part

it puts the first energy into the Primitive brain because

if you're born without a primitive brain, you will not survive

and that's all there is to it.

It's pretty much done when you're born.

It's not going to develop anymore.

So it's your autopilot it even works when you're asleep.

Just keeps everything pumping and going and that's so it's

a great system for what it does.

The limbic system is called the mammalian brain.

Why is it called the mammalian brain?

mmm Because the first place we see it on the evolutionary

scale is in mammals.

Yay.

All right.

So this is the brain that you have learned most about and

Trauma as you looked at trauma emotional regulatory healing.

It's responsible for our emotions.

Interestingly enough.

It's also responsible for our memory.

Oh and by the way, it stores your learning Now, isn't it

odd? That your emotional brain would store your memory in

your learning looks like that me up in the rational brain

in the smart part at their this system develops.

by the time you're three And it's constantly developed.


This is your emotional interaction with the world.

This is what gets you in synchrony with other human beings

the ability to read emotion understanding motion respond

appropriately to emotion.

This is what when moms are playing with their babies and

doing all that.

They're developing that baby's limbic system.

So if you can imagine if it's inter feared with people have

a difficult time with relationships.

So let's talk about it a little bit because there's some

parts and pieces here.

So on either side of your head going around your ears and

coming down the bottom of yours is your amygdala.

And that we will talk about what that is in a minute and

then the hippocampus comes off the amygdala and right in

the middle of your emotional brain is your Thalamus.

So what that means is that all those signals that come into

your brain.

Get processed through your emotional brain first.

That's interesting.

Isn't it?

Can't imagine why that would be But I will explain it to

you. You know, I will.

Your amygdala is your smoke alarm.

I think a lot of us have already learned this and so this

is come in the room.

You smell smoke.


It's the amygdala it's basically an elastic bundle of nerves

sitting below your ears inside your head that is designed

to become very excited and then very relaxed so smoke and

then you respond and at some point later on it will relax

again and we'll talk about what that Takes and how long it

takes the limbic system has within it the hippocampus.

The hippocampus is a file clerk.

So I'm driving to work this morning.

I don't remember how long I waited it which traffic light

I you know, there's a lot of things about that drive.

I don't remember but my hippocampus took it in and held onto

it. It takes in all memories and holds onto them and it makes

a decision of whether or not that is a valuable memory.

As you only have so much room in your brain to store stuff

if it decides it's not a valuable memory like how long should

I wait at the traffic light?

Well who cares delete that file, but if it's about how I

should behave in a certain situation or how I should respond

to a certain situation that might be important.

So that's going to get filed and it's going to get filed.

If you've seen it.

Everybody has seen the pictures of the brain with all the

folds in it actually physically those are like filing Is

it finds a spot puts it down in there knows where it is and

can go back and get it at a at a second notice when it needs

it. Now that's kind of the basics of how the limbic brain

works the rational brain.


This is the newest part of our brains evolutionarily speaking

higher mammals, the Apes dolphins.

Whales pretty much they have this they also have language

and some of them make tools.

So there's a lot of stuff going on.

They had they're pretty smart in a lot of ways.

It's language its conscious thought it's mad.

Meaning by that actions in the mathematics are in there,

but its actions and consequences when I say math.

I also mean that right side is the cool side.

That's where all the art and the music and the dance and

all that stuff goes in the language.

This is the boring side.

This is the analytics.

This is the math this is that kind of stuff and there actually

is a difference in developmental rates of those brains the

right side develops first.

So if I'm just hanging out somewhere and I'm for and Andres

for which we neither one of us remembers being for and I

just go up and say hey man, let's pretend it's that guy over

there came over here and he said that to you and then you

did this and then you and I went over and we did that and

we're going to play like that all day but as mature adults

if I walked up to someone I didn't know when did that to

under a he'd go whoa, right?

And the reason is because my left side has left side has

caught up with his right side and the right side when it


was bigger than the left side would roll with that.

But now the left sides big enough to go wait rational thought

I'm going to look really stupid if I do that right example.

Who in this room can draw me a picture?

She's already started who can draw me a picture.

Andre can draw me a picture who can sing a song that's your

left side talking because what if I said that to a roomful

of kindergartners every hand in the room because the left

brain is not big enough to go.

You can't sing.

You can't draw, you know, it's all right side stuff, which

is important and I might come back to that later if we have

a chance.

so 1200 pound horse 200-pound rider who looks to be in control

here. The horse looks to be in control.

I would say right now the rider looks like he's in control,

you know, because they're just they're just having a little

tried right but what happens if a snake runs out in the road

this can switch in a New York second.

Now let's talk about why that is.

So this limbic system is was developed in us a long time

ago when mammals became mammals.

So let's say I'm driving down the road and Andre pulls out

in front of me.

I'm going 40 miles an hour.

I got about 50 feet to stop.

Otherwise, I'm going to hit him.


Let's put the rational brain in charge of this.

And let's go.

Hmm.

I'm traveling about 50 miles an hour 40 miles an hour.

There's a guy up there about 50 feet.

I will need to raise the car wreck.

Because I cannot rationally think that out fast enough to

stop that car in time.

I need a hijack of my brain.

I need something to take over and do something fast.

Here comes the limbic system.

Because the way it's going to work is the amygdalas going

to go.

Oh man, there's a car out there in the hippocampus says Let

me see what we do.

Pull the file slam on the brakes.

Okay, lots of cortisol over the brain because we want to

block the peripheral vision and we want to shut down the

social interaction and then let's send some adrenaline down

through the Primitive brain system so we can depress the

brake really fast.

that's going to travel through my brain at about 600 miles

an hour and I'm going to stop in time to not have that wreck

and that's what my limbic system does for me because when

this developed when I when I was when we were primitive folks

and we had our bow and arrow and we were stomping through

the bushes and we heard these big loud crash is coming from


the side are rational brain might go hmm I wonder what that

is and we would be something's lunch we had to just react

run faster than we possibly thought we could run get up that

tree very quickly and survive Because what's the job on my

brain to keep me alive?

So it's a great system.

How many of you have had an almost car wreck in your life?

Right?

Right.

So and you stopped in time right you did well.

Okay, same thing right?

So when that was over the second you realize you're not going

to have a rack you went.

I'm so relaxed now because I didn't have that right right,

not so much.

In fact, you're shaking like a leaf for about a half an hour.

That's not your nerves.

That is the cortisol and adrenaline that is pumping through

your blood that your limbic system shot in there so that

you could relax and sources you could react and it takes

about 30 minutes for that to work its way out of your system

depending on how well your system works.

So this is a great system.

It's a survival system and it works fantastically.

If you're in the woods and there's a bear.

right But what happens if the bear comes home every night

and beats up your mom.


What happens if your life is one long series of emotional

car wrecks?

Remember what I said about elasticity of the amygdala just

like a rubber band you stretch it and you stretch it and

eventually it doesn't go back all the way.

So the amygdala stays a little stretched out and now it's

responding to threats that are not really threats Everything

feels like a threat.

Everything is reactive.

Now I can calm that down.

if I drug it I can calm that down if I pour some alcohol

on it.

There's a lot of addictions I can get into that will make

me feel okay for a little while, but by and large it's going

to return to that traumatized state.

and these Are the children that are coming into your home?

They've been through this and they are in a reactive State

and until they have calming soothing calm environment for

a while for them.

It's not 30 minutes.

It's more like 30 to 45 days without being excited just tough

to do for a kid.

So the kids are coming that way.

Who else is coming to us in this condition?

Their parents absolutely these apples land right next to

these trees.

And I don't mean that in a disparaging way.


I mean that if your parenting the parenting you had was traumatizing

there's a high likelihood and the study say between sixty

and seventy five percent that you will also abuse neglect

or abandon your children.

We like to call that intergenerational transmission in the

social work field in the common vernacular.

It's the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

This trauma makes sense.

Do you understand why the brain works this way why it has

to work this way to keep you alive.

But how if it gets off track it can essentially ruin your

life. So let's move on and let's talk about Family Center

practice because we're all about that right Andre.

That's right.

And since you're a family team conferencing facilitator,

I am going to ask you nothing.

I'm going to come over to you and ask you to explain family-centered

practices to me.

That's a family team conference.

That a family-centered practice is all centered on the family.

Why would we do that?

I mean after all these people are traumatized people who

just you know, geez.

Hmm what sure they do, but what good is that?

Let me ask another question.

Who's this guy?

But you can't look on there.


See I don't put the answers on here.

I just He's what?

Yes.

Yes, that's all you know.

It's a start.

It's better not knowing nothing.

This is a Maori Warrior from New Zealand.

Now the Maori these have a very interesting history that

runs very parallel to the indigenous people of our country.

So the Maori he's were Polynesian boat people who somewhere

around the thirteen hundreds.

We think we're paddling around and found this big empty Island.

We now know as New Zealand.

And they set up camp and set up Villages there over the next

couple hundred years and they fished and they farmed and

they had a good life there then sometime in the 1500 s the

British discovered, New Zealand.

Which is a little confusing to me because that would be a

little like I'm driving down the road and I see you guys

as house and I go wow that is so much nicer house than I

got. I discovered that I'm going to put a flag on your porch

and you're going to live in a little corner in the backyard

and I'm taking over the house.

It's work for you then work for you.

You look like somebody I don't argue with about it either.

This sounds like a silly idea, right?

Does it ever happen?


Yeah, yeah, because the British actually lived in harmony

with the Maori for a while, but more British came and they

consumed more of the land and they wanted more of the island

and they wanted more of the resources and So eventually they

had some little Wars with the Maori and to settle the war

since the British had guns in the Maori had Spears.

They simply said listen, you know, we're going to sign a

treaty. He does that sound familiar.

We signed a treaty with you that you're going to live on

a reservation sound familiar.

And we're going to have the rest of the island and then we

just we won't kill you.

That's the deal.

And that actually worked for a while.

Anybody know of a familiar story like that?

hmm It worked for a while.

And then in the 1970s the Maori notice something that we

might also recognize that they were highly over-represented

in the juvenile justice system in the criminal system.

And in the child welfare system.

Maori children were being removed from their parents at a

much higher rate.

Than the non-maori people that were living there.

So the Maori got a lawyer and they went to the British government

and they said hey.

You're in violation of our treaty.

Because it says in our treaty that we have the right to practice


our native customs and when we have a problem in our family,

we don't call an outsider's to solve it.

We have this big round building in the middle of our village

and we all go sit there and we talked it out and if the kids

need to go live with somebody else that's what we do and

you know, if mom needs to go to rehab we do that we can do

that. We don't need you to come.

Our kids so we'd like for you to not come take any more of

our children.

And the New Zealand government said what?

Sure, that's fine.

Not so much.

They pretty much threw them out.

And the Maori hard some lawyers and they sue them.

You think they want her lost they won?

and as the result In 1989 New Zealand past the young persons

in their family act which required for all child welfare

professionals to participate in the family group decision

making process which we also call Family Team conferencing.

So what that meant was that under New Zealand law before

you could remove a child from a home you had to have a family

team conference with the family.

And you had to sit the family down only one Social Work person

could be in the room.

And the family had an opportunity to develop a plan to provide

for the safety permanency and well-being of the child if

the family's plan provided for the safety permanency and


well-being of the child.

The court was forced to accept their plan.

All the systems imposed barriers to practice were eliminated

in other words judges couldn't stop it case managers couldn't

stop it Guardian ad litems couldn't stop it.

No one could stop it.

As long as the Maori had a good plan and within six months

80% of the Maori children in foster care went home.

In fact, it works so well.

That it was soon in Australia soon in Great Britain soon

in Ireland Sue need Canada from candidate came down into

Pennsylvania to American Humane and fortunately for me about

nine or ten years ago.

I went to a conference with American Humane up in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania. And I saw this these guys from New Zealand

that had developed a practice where there it was a guy from

Britain and developed the practice and I got to have workshops

right with these guys these very Originators of this thing.

I talked to him and I said this is fantastic.

This is how we have to work with families.

We just don't do this.

We just give them case plans and tell them to go do this

stuff and we don't even talk to him.

And so I came back and at the time I was a director of Gulf

Coast CMO, so I gathered my team around and I said, I'm so

excited. This is how we're going to do this from now on and

you know what they said.


What you can't do this with those people?

They're not going to listen.

Took a while, but we changed it didn't we Andre?

Case management organizations now have it in their contracts

to retain facilitators on their staff and they have quotas.

And now this practice is what we do because we've learned

and there is enough data out there that the metadata the

meta-analysis says this works.

The problem folks have with it is implementing it because

it's not in law.

And judges will fight it and magistrates will fight it and

lawyers will fight it and Guardians will fight it and so

the thing to do is the difficult part is getting it and going

because we don't have laws for it here like to do in New

Zealand New Zealand and have an option.

It was part of their settlement under the young person has

in their family act so So now we've talked about who were

working with why folks act the way they act and it is not.

immoral deficit folks do not abuse neglecting or abandon

their children because they're morally corrupt.

Or because they're just bad.

They're acting on what they know their amygdala and the hippocampus

is responding the way they've been conditioned to respond

not to excuse it.

But just to understand it.

We also know how we came to this place where we believe as

you said that it's right to work with families and not on


families. They're not Machinery that we go get some screwdrivers

and wrenches out and fix we're not here for that.

We're here to work with them to help them find a new Right.

So now we're gonna talk about co-parenting.

What's wrong with these folks on a seesaw?

They're not balanced.

Are they now?

There's nobody's trying to hurt that kid.

Somebody wants to look at his report card and somebody's

trying to hand him.

His lunch is what it looks like to me, but they're all about

to fall off.

now By definition co-parenting was originally used as a term

to describe biological parents who have a child together,

but don't live together.

Interesting to me is the first place.

We really see it written in laws and Italian divorce laws.

Italian divorce laws were the first to recognize the child's

right to have a stable relationship with both parents irrespective

of their relationship with each other the child's, right?

To have a stable relationship with both parents irrespective

of their relationship with each other.

So it's not about a case managers rights.

It's not about a foster parents rights.

It's not about a birth parents rights co-parenting is about

a child's right anybody ever know a divorcing couple with

kids who didn't pay attention to this.


And some kid is stuck in the middle of adult junk this happens

sadly and foster parent / birth parent relationships all

the time.

And we're going to talk about why that is and what we can

do about it.

so under you got kids.

What's your what's your youngest one?

How 13?

What's your name Jasmine Jasmine?

It's a great name.

So let me see Pi got to a great.

He's deputies with me Andre we're taking Jasmine.

You know and you had like you what are you ready to get rid

of her?

He's just not look at him though.

He's not how does that feel feels terrible.

This is the power of His amygdala.

Because that just kicked in on him right here, even though

we're in a classroom and he knows this is just a conversation

that amygdala took a little jump and his brain started figuring

out. Oh, here's what I do.

I'll tell you what am I right?

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

But sorry, we're taking her anywhere.

We'll put her in these guys home.


They're better parents than y'all are.

What is that?

Not the message.

Are you still a parrot?

Are you now a co-parent?

Did you volunteer to be a co-parent who's next on this list?

You're reading it now, aren't ya as well?

Absolutely.

the second that I took Jasmine and put her over here in this

house. These guys became co-parents.

They're on the seesaw.

Now they may be balanced or unbalanced, but they are co-parenting.

They didn't necessarily choose that role on the other hand

they did.

and of course Anybody that works in this field knows that

the rest of the family comes along for the ride, is that

correct? Is that correct?

Did he bring family along with him?

You like them all?

There you go.

So you're going to have Grandma you're going to have the

aunt you're going to have all these folks that are Tangled

Up in this web.

And then you're going to have case managers this I'm going

to just for foster parents.

You're going to love some of your case managers.

Some of them you want to kill them probably just say it.


Guardian ad litems do they get mixed up in cases?

Mmm-hmm.

You're going to love some of the Guardian ad litems you work

with some of them.

Not so much.

There are child advocate there to advocate for the rights

of the child and Advocate and Advocate and Advocate and advocate.

you'll see some of them are great therapists are they mixed

up in this stuff because you know Jasmine needs a therapist

now you know oh DCF all up in this mix to all these rules

and regulations and all this junk and just anybody who has

regular contact with this kit so we take a child who's in

a co-parenting Sit everybody is in some sort of a co-parenting

situation because child that's in the home you guys have

family you've got whatever you probably got aunts and uncles

and I don't know grandparents whatever you got You've now

you have placed this child in a situation where the child

has a new set of co-parents that are completely foreign,

but they're all in this mix somehow.

Now what co-parenting does is it as bio parents to be more

responsible for the care of their children and puts them

together in one Forum with the other people who are helping

care for their children.

Let's peel that onion back a little bit.

So Jasmine's over there living for you and I got a case manager

right here.

She comes and gets Jasmine.


Once a week brings Jasmine here to the one hope office.

And Andre you and Mitzi get an hour visit.

right Back she goes.

How's that parenting going for you?

Are you parenting that child?

Not much.

Are you responsible for her care?

No.

You're going to show up with a sack of Mickey D's.

And a big stuffed bunny and you're going to say I don't worry

Jasmine. We're getting you home next week.

right You know why you're going to say that.

You know why our parents say that?

Because the left brain never caught up to the right brain,

we think they're lying.

They're speaking from the right side of their brain.

That's where all your imagination is all the stuff that you

dream up.

That to most of our parents is real.

Because if their left brain and they can see this by the

way on brain scans traumatized people as adults, they can

physically see the small left versus the larger, right?

This is fairly recent that they've been able to actually

photograph this so it's real.

If the left brain was big enough to do the good logic and

the good math.

Well, hello you and the lost your kid Andre.


It's your tiny little left brain that caused this.

It's true.

It places willing foster parents and other caregivers in

the position of being able to model parenting behaviors for

the biological parents the parents that we work with have

they had parenting modeled for them.

No.

Now you want to go with no.

That's true.

They have had parenting model for them.

Just not very good.

And what happened in their hippocampus it stored that this

is how you parent kids, right?

People hate it.

Sometimes when you talk about the brain as a piece of Machinery

because it takes away a lot of the metaphysical stuff that

we like to believe.

But here's the good news Machinery can be fixed.

People are not just all bad.

So we'll talk about that later too removes triangulation

that occurs when children feel torn between different parent

figures. So Jasmine was very poorly behaved child when you

got her.

She's smart mouth you guys constantly.

She broke stuff in your house.

It's pretty bad.

You cover for a couple weeks.


She kind of calm down.

You guys were nice and calm with her and now she's doing

better. But then what does she get?

She gets a visit with her parents.

And what does Mitzi say to her?

That's right.

That ain't your mama.

Look at y'all know I didn't that ain't your mama.

You ain't got to do nothing.

That just lets me play today.

People ain't nothing to you.

Don't even know those people.

So she comes back and now you have received back into your

home and entirely different child than you sent on the visit

and you're going to call the case manager.

And you're going to say those people should not be visiting

with this child.

They're messing her up.

Right this this happened all the time understand it.

So.

But the most important thing the co-parenting does is it

forms a team to support the child because co parenting is

about the child's right to have a stable relationship with

all these folks don't matter how they feel about each other.

So when we first started teaching co-parenting which was

G's nine ten years ago.

I got to tell you I got enlisted in this early on and I got


asked to go to the State foster parent Association, and this

was like nine years ago and do a workshop on co-parenting.

I went in there completely naive and I had a room of about

a hundred what I'll call Old Salt foster parents members

of the foster parent Association Ben Foster and forever and

guys when I told them that I thought they ought to be working

more closely with the birth parents.

I was not sure I was going to Escape the Room alive.

But now the state whole state is changed.

Its now focusing on not all foster parents still want to

do it, but the attitude is much different I went back and

did it a few years later and hardly anybody showed up for

the class was boring that point.

So we started off teaching this very technically.

Yeah.

Well, you got to have a CO Parenting Agreement.

You have a special meaning we got to fill out these forms

you're going to do this.

You can do this you're going to do that.

You're going to do this or a sign here, and we found that

that really didn't work.

It's very organic.

Because it looks very different to different people and I'll

give you a very clean example of that later on but co-parenting

means different things to different people the most successful

in the most meaningful co-parenting relationships.

We've seen so far have just been birth parents reaching her


foster parents reaching out to birth parents because this

is really hard work because why because every one of us,

is called including foster parents when I started to get

into this work.

This is what I thought.

Yeah, I feel very strongly that I should go work with children.

And you know what I've had some amazing experiences in my

life. Nobody is going to know what it feels like on this

side. Except me.

I'm going to be the one that comes into this business that's

been in foster care that's been in group homes has really

had that whole experience and and I got here and I realize

Not so much.

There's a lot of people here.

There were called here by their own experience different

experiences some Not So Different.

But all calls and this is really about working from the heart.

So what would foster parents have to worry about here?

Just say it out loud.

Hmm raising a kid, they might not so much.

How about scary birth parents?

Number one these folks are scary.

Ever made a scary birth parent, huh?

Have you all met a scary birth parent?

Yeah.

Some of them look like they're trying to be scary.

Don't they they like to going out of their way to get all


loud and it isn't.

Yeah.

Why do people do that?

I mean that's not a way to make friends.

Is it to try to be scary?

Why would you want to do that?

What do you think?

Someone would want to do that?

So they did some studies on this and they studied men in

prison who are really scary.

And this is what they learned at the end of it.

It wasn't about I want to look tough.

I want to be bad.

I want to be this one of you that it was this.

That every time in my life, I've let somebody here.

They are me.

Big scary wall keep you out.

You can't come too close to me.

That's very different than what we sometimes think.

That they're you're seeing when you see that scariness what

you're really seeing is a very very damaged individual that

doesn't want anybody to get too close.

So what's next?

Lifecycle interruptions, of course.

She's got my phone number.

She'll be drunk texting me at two o'clock in the morning

and she's gonna be coming over to my house.


It was some money with some food.

I want to never get rid of her, right?

and by the way I want to co-parent with you for you couldn't

raise your own kid.

You want me to co-parent with you Andre seriously?

and of course They worry about reunification because here's

the thing.

I don't know about y'all, but I know this about me that if

all you knew about me was the bad stuff.

I've done in my life.

I can't pass that test.

So what are you going to know about Mom?

You're going to know what you read in a shelter petition.

Yep.

She locked the kid up in the cabinet put a padlock on the

kitchen cabinet put the three-year-old in the kitchen cabinet

padlock them in there and went out and stripped so she could

get some crack.

That's an actual Case by the way.

That's what you know, and by the way I saw on Grady's website.

Whoa, she's really scary.

That's the sum of your information.

Do you want to send a kid back to that?

Of course not and if you never know any more than that.

Even if the case manager here is coming over house and oh,

yeah, she's changed.

She's so different.


Now, you know, she's taking all her drug test and I mean

by that yes, I've seen that picture I had a no This is I

took all these quotes out of articles on co-parenting.

This is a foster mom.

Can y'all I read that?

sound familiar What would birth parents have to worry about

their we're going to get into a co-parenting relationship

with foster parents.

They might do that whether they cope are not.

But tell you what to do.

So how about mistrust generationally embedded mistrust Because

by the way, here's a clue when you get your license your

DCF just like the rest of us.

That's right.

They don't know you from any other DC aware all do all the

people that took my kids.

That's who you're going to be.

No this it's seven out of ten seventy percent of the parents

that we remove children from were themselves removed as children.

These things can go back generation over generation over

generation. And by the way, if they call you HRS their deep,

they've been in this a long time and they know more about

it than you do.

Of course, you're going to rat them out the second they do

something wrong.

Right because I that's a foster parent job.

The DCF people will rat you out.


This is a birth parent.

This is real people saying real stuff didn't make it up just

copied and pasted it.

Local Diskfile:///centervideo.forest.usf.edu/video2$/center/coparenting/foster/VEED-subtitles_Coparenting%20What%20Foster%20Parents%20Need%20to%20Know%20Part%201_default.txt

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