The Need for Comprehensive Foster Parent Training

Child welfare systems across the country have struggled to recruit and retain quality foster parents to care for the nearly 400,000 youth in care nationwide.

The severity of the problem:

Only one bed available for every two foster youth in Louisiana (Bourgeois, 2024; Brown, 2024);

More than 200 foster youth housed in hotels in Los Angeles County due to a lack of placements (Hurd, 2023);

Iowa receiving 35% more referrals for foster homes than what is available (Swayne, 2024);

New York having 16,000 children in care in 2021, but only 11,000 foster homes (Cotel-Altman, 2022)

50%

30 to 50% of foster parents quit after the first year

By some estimates, anywhere between 30 to 50% of foster parents quit after the first year, citing a variety of issues that include an inability to handle challenging behaviors or a feeling of unpreparedness to handle the realities of caring for this vulnerable population (Gibbs & Wildfire, 2007).

Among these reasons was a reported lack of training for foster parents, also known as resource caregivers. Training requirements and quality differ from state to state and jurisdiction to jurisdiction, with minimal input from the federal government. Yet the importance of training cannot be understated; research has shown that foster parents who received quality pre-service training and post-licensure training are more likely to remain resource caregivers (Hanlon et al., 2021; Hebert & Kulkin, 2018).

The Solution

The National Training and Development Curriculum

The National Training and Development Curriculum for Foster and Adoptive Parents was developed to fill in this gap in training. NTDC, as it is better known, is a collaborative research-based curriculum that brings together input from those with lived experience in foster care, including former foster and adoptive youth and resource caregivers. The project is funded by the federal Children’s Bureau and has grown from eight pilot sites to being adopted by 44 states and several tribal child welfare systems.

Learn more about the curriculum

Promising Evidence

NTDC is the largest study in the nation of a curriculum that trains foster and adoptive parents. It has been extensively and rigorously evaluated during the last five years on each of its three components for satisfaction, knowledge gain and effectiveness. The findings have been encouraging, as the following table shows.

NTDC caregivers had a better understanding of trauma and how trauma impacted their daily lives.
NTDC caregivers had statistically significantly larger growth than comparison group caregivers in their Trauma-Informed Parenting Scale
NTDC caregivers were more receptive to the child’s family connections
NTDC caregivers had larger growth than comparison group caregivers in their Receptivity to Birth Family Connections Scale
NTDC caregivers maintained their knowledge of child development beyond the completion of the training
Comparison group caregivers had statistically significantly larger loss than NTDC caregivers in their Foster Child Development scale
NTDC caregivers had greater confidence in parenting children with challenging behaviors
NTDC caregivers scored statistically significantly higher on the Challenging Children Applicant Subscale than control caregivers, and also had statistically significantly larger growth in their scores
NTDC caregivers had greater confidence to act in their parent role
NTDC caregivers scored statistically significantly higher than comparison group caregivers on the Parenting Self-Agency Measure
NTDC caregivers felt their mental and physical health increased
NTDC caregiver self-rated health increased, while it decreased for comparison group caregivers.

Words From Training Participants

Resource caregivers who participated in the NTDC training gave particular praise to the focus on working with young people who have experienced trauma. One resource caregiver who completed the training in Florida explained:

NTDC parents were more likely to foster:

Explore the Evaluation Reports and Publications

Have questions or need information?

Email NTDC Director Sue Cohick directly through the form below.

Words From Facilitators

I loved the material, especially the displays of understanding and the stories!

NTDC Facilitator

I appreciated the activities that tugged on my own emotions because it took a personal experience and related it to what kids in foster care experience but to a higher degree.

NTDC Facilitator

The “Real-Life” videos and examples are also excellent tools for empowering foster/adoptive parents.

NTDC Facilitator

Theme content incorporating many podcasts and real life videos will greatly enhance foster parent training.

NTDC Facilitator

Material is well organized, rich in content for families and easy to understand.

NTDC Facilitator

Love the trauma informed material that will help parents gain a better understanding of child’s behavior.

NTDC Facilitator

The building of themes really work well together. It flows very well in the format.

NTDC Facilitator

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About the Curriculum

Accessing the Curriculum

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Families and facilitators participating in the Pilots can log in here to access further information and resources.

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This product was funded by the Children’s Bureau, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under grant #90CO1134. The contents of this document are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Children’s Bureau.