Advanced Web-Based Training for Adoptive Parents of Special Needs Children

描述（由申请人提供）：特殊需要寄养儿童的收养安置仍然是全国儿童福利机构的优先事项。这些孩子经常表现出严重的情感和行为问题，在收养合法化后很长一段时间里，这些问题一直困扰着他们的父母。事实上，越来越多的不成功的（即，中断或法律上解散的）收养与特殊需要安置有关。特殊需求问题对孩子和父母来说都是情感上的昂贵，最终对机构和国家来说也是经济上的昂贵。尽管1997年通过了《收养和安全家庭法》，但仍有大约119,000名“等待”寄养儿童，其中一半是10岁或更大。这些孩子是最难安置的；他们的养父母需要具体而有效的培训。研究提供了越来越多的证据表明，收养后的服务，特别是正在进行的养父母培训，与满意、稳定和完整的收养安置呈正相关。然而，这些服务的家长培训部分并不是必需的，而且在美国各地通常都没有。现有课程的质量和重点参差不齐。我们建议发展一系列14个互动网上课程/工作坊，为有特殊需要/年长领养儿童的家长提供高质素、随时可得的中级及高级培训。采用实际方法的培训将解决被收养的年龄较大和/或有特殊需要的儿童经常表现出的一系列严重行为问题。这些问题可能包括性行为、自残、撒谎、饮食失调、睡眠问题、逃跑、偷窃、多动症或RAD。课程还将提供积极和安全的育儿技巧，与亲生家庭合作，以及抚养跨种族/跨文化的收养儿童。在第一阶段，我们将开发和评估一个关于被收养儿童愤怒问题的课程/工作坊。可行性研究将测试该课程/研讨会在提高家长对愤怒问题的认识方面的有效性，并将其与纯文本在线版本的课程和无治疗对照组进行比较。培训将由西北传媒在线提供。参与该项目的受试者将获得关于养育特殊需要收养儿童的重要信息，这可能有助于他们更好地理解和管理这些儿童的异常行为。因此，收养家庭中亲子关系的质量可以得到改善，这有助于稳定收养安置，改善儿童的短期和长期心理健康结果。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Adoptive placement of special needs foster children remains a high priority for child welfare agencies across the country. These children often show significant emotional and behavioral problems that challenge their parents long after the legalization of the adoption. Indeed, increasingly higher rates of unsuccessful (i.e., disrupted or legally dissolved) adoptions are associated with special needs placements. Special needs problems are emotionally expensive to both the child and parents and ultimately financially expensive to the agency and the state. Despite the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act in 1997, there are approximately 119,000 "waiting" foster children, half of them ten years or older. These children are among the most difficult to place; their adoptive parents require specific and effective trainings. Research provides mounting evidence that post-adoptive services, notably ongoing adoptive parent training, are positively correlated with satisfying, stable, and intact adoptive placements. However, the parent training components of these services are not required and often not available throughout the US. The available courses are inconsistent in quality and focus. We propose developing a series of 14 interactive online courses/workshops designed to provide parents of special needs/ older-aged adopted children with high quality, readily available, intermediate and advanced training. The training with a practical approach would address a spectrum of serious behavior problems that adopted older and/or special needs children often exhibit. These problems may include sexualized behavior, self-harm, lying, eating disorders, sleep problems, running away, stealing, ADHD, or RAD. Courses will also be offered on positive and safe parenting techniques, working with birth families, and raising transracial/transcultural adopted children. In Phase I we will develop and evaluate a course/workshop on adopted children's' anger problems. The feasibility study will test the effectiveness of the course/workshop on increasing parents' knowledge of anger problems compared with a text-only online version of the program and a no-treatment control group. The training will be offered online by Northwest Media. Subjects participating in this project will gain important information about parenting special needs adoptive children that may help them to better understand and manage these children's disturbed behaviors. As a result, the quality of parent-child relationships in adoptive families could improve, which could help stabilize adoptive placements and improve children's short- and long-term mental health outcomes.