Information Sheets

Downloadable worksheets, handouts, and information sheets are provided below. Access accessible resources now to help your family or help families you support through the challenges of foster care, adoption, or kinship care.

Caring for children already in the home

Preparing your children for Foster Care or Adoption

This three-page information sheet provides the foundational knowledge to understand the potential impact of foster care or adoption on children already in your family. Information included comes from a research study Dr. Jana completed during her doctorate program.

The Adoptive Sibling Expererience

This handout provides basic information about four of the most common experiences that adoptive siblings – children who were already in the family prior to adoption or foster care – experience in their families. Information included in this handout comes from a research study on over 200+ adult adoptive siblings.

Parenting Tips for Caring for Siblings

This tip sheet offers simple, practical ways to meet the needs of foster and adoptive siblings – children who were already in the family prior to adoption or foster care. Information included in this handout comes from proven effective intervention and clinical experience with foster and adoptive families.

Caring for the whole Family

Family Connection Guide

This handout includes two strategies that have proven to improve all facets of a family - from individual well-being to parent-child relationships to overall family connection.

Good Hard Better Tool

Created as a simple tool, “Good, Hard, Better” is an easy way to remember the importance of balanced communication – a type of communication in which there is space to talk about the “good” things and “hard” things in life while also finding ways to make the “hard” things “better.”

family Communication Home

This guide provides a visual of the five strategies involved in building healthy communication. Research findings revealed that children who were able to openly express their thoughts and feelings honestly have closer sibling and family relationships.