Respite care is about stability, both for the foster parent and the child. It helps prevent burnout and recharges you so you can get back to it.

Parenting is hard. There is nothing like having to care for a tiny human with no impulse control. It is not uncommon for parents to sometimes feel like they are in too deep. How can you keep your head above water? Here are six tools or resources to help you keep going when overwhelmed with fostering children.

Trust-Based Relational Intervention®, or TBRI, is an advanced intervention process “designed to meet the complex needs of vulnerable children.” It is a tool developed by Karyn Purvis and David Cross at Texas Christian University and focuses on caring for “children from hard places.”

Fostering is always temporary. The primary goal is permanence. The first strategy is to reunify a child with their parents, or with extended family if the parents are not an option. If that is not possible then other forms of permanency are needed, such as adoption.

Any parent will tell you children can be picky. Foster children come from hard places and often have food insecurities. It can be difficult to get them to eat enough real food and protein. That is why I want to share this pancake recipe with you. They are my favorite, go-to pancakes, with the bonus benefit that my toddler loves them too.