What to Expect: Building a Shared Parenting Alliance

As foster parents, it is important to partner with the biological parents using shared parenting practices to better understand the needs of youth in your care and promote their safety, well-being, and timely permanence.    

What is Shared Parenting and Why is it important?

Shared parenting was developed to promote partnerships in parenting between child welfare workers, biological parents and foster parents providing temporary care for children. Shared Parenting helps focus child welfare agencies on issues of safety, well-being, and more timely permanence for children. The permancey goal for most children who enter foster care is reunification. It is important that the Shared parenting begins at the time of admission to assist in the goal of reunification. Foster parents, biological parents and child welfare workers need to show how they are united together in the best interest of the child. If there is not a shared parenting alliance, children will try to fix the family or parent the parents or younger siblings. Other children may respond by creating a decoy to the conflict between adults to gain parents attention or have them united against the child. This can be detrimental to a child’s well-being as they begin to focus more on the conflict surrounding them versus enjoying their childhood.

How does a foster parent get started?

It is important to start building a shared parenting relationship when the child first comes into your home. Better Living recommends that you contact the biological parents within the first 24 hours of placement if caseworkers approve. Often when children enter a traditional licensed foster home, the biological parents have very minimal information. Imagine how you would feel if all you knew was that your child was staying in a home in Lincoln, NE.

What questions would you have about the home?

How long would it take to build trust with the caregiver?

These are the questions that we expect foster parents to help answer for biological parents. Foster parents can contact the biological parents by calling or sending an email/text. It is important to introduce yourself and describe your experience with foster care or caring for children. Foster parents can decide what information they choose to share with the parents.

Ice breaker meetings are also a great way to start the shared parenting relationship. Ice breaker meetings are facilitated by the case manager and the focus is learning about the youth’s needs, as well as the foster parents’ and biological parents’ parenting style. It is an opportunity to have ongoing and open communication about the child to ensure the child’s needs are consistently met and there is not manipulation between the child and two parents. We know children often have no control in foster care and one way they can gain control is through manipulation. If there is a strong shared parenting relationship this will be solved better than when there is none.

It is also important to begin setting boundaries with biological parents during the initial contact. This way the parents know what is appropriate or expected within the relationship. It is also equally important for the foster parent to remain within their boundary of their role. Foster parents are not case managers and cannot make decisions regarding visits, school, and other major decisions.

Tips to maintaining a positive shared parenting relationship:

1.       When starting a partnership, it is important to look at each other’s strengths.

If we only focus on the things that either we cannot change or that need improvement, we can start to think of the individual in a negative way. Thinking this way will not allow a positive partnership. Instead, we need to think about all the strengths the biological parents have and use those to engage them in the partnership. What does this look like? This could include praising the parent on how well they handled the child’s behaviors from leaving a visit, praising the parent on the important questions they asked the doctor during an appointment, etc.

2.       Maintaining confidentiality is important not only to building trust but also for the shared parenting alliance.

Foster parents may obtain personal information either from child welfare workers or biological parents themselves. It is important for foster parents to know this information needs to be held confidential and only shared with those on the child’s team. Breaking confidentiality could not only lead to consequences on their foster care license but also the shared parenting partnership.

3.       Managing personal emotions can be the biggest challenge some foster parents face within the shared parenting alliance.

It is hard to hold back strong emotions when you learn about a child’s abuse or neglect. However, foster parents also will recognize the goal is reunification and helping biological parents make a change. A foster parent plays a crucial role in helping biological parents make a change. As long as a child is in the foster home, foster parents already have a relationship between the parents through the child. The way foster parents talk to the child about their parents is an important starting point.

4.       Foster parents sharing power and control helps biological parents engage more in decision making and are more investing in the process of creating change.

Often time when children are placed in foster care, biological parents lose control in many decisions such as where the child is placed or what daycare they attend. Sharing decision making with the biological parents can help guide them to appropriate decisions as well as boosting their confidence in their parenting. Failure to share power and control can lead to conflict within the partnership, in which parents are fighting with one another versus focusing on the goal at hand.

5.       Foster parents modeling effective parenting plays an important role to maintaining a positive partnership.

When parents are in direct contact with one another they serve as mentors or teachers. Good teachers do things such as share practical information, provide applications for the information, give the learner opportunities to practice and provide feedback.

Overall, the role of a foster parent in building alliances with parents is very important. The role is challenging at times but worth it to get a child back to their home safely.