Training Opportunities
Children who enter the State’s custody bring with them a wide range of social, emotional, and developmental issues. To help these children, parents must develop new skills and have at their disposal many resources and support services. The key to building the necessary skills is ongoing, flexible training in a wide variety of topics. Training programs at Adoptive and Foster Families of Maine evolve from month to month in accordance with the needs of the families we serve.
Below are some of the many training programs offered by AFFM. If you are interested in any of these programs provided by AFFM or have questions or suggestions about other types of training sessions, then please contact AFFM.
AFFM holds an annual spring training conference in April. The conference provides training designed specifically for families looking for unique and advanced learning opportunities. It is also an opportunity to network with families and other providers from across the state. In addition to the conference, AFFM offers numerous training sessions for both large and small groups.
If you wish to register for an upcoming training, please click here or on the registration button below to see a listing of the scheduled training sessions.
Adoption; Let’s Talk Essentials
Adoption: Let’s Talk Essentials:
An orientation designed to help you feel more confident and prepared as you move through the adoption process.
In this session, we’ll explore the core logistics of adoption, including what to expect before and after finalization. We’ll answer common questions, clarify the roles of key professionals you’ll encounter, and highlight the resources and support systems available to you and your family.
Beyond the practical side, we’ll also share strategies and tools that can support your journey—helping you focus on what matters most: building a safe, stable, and loving future for your child.
Adoption; Minimize Challenges, Maximize Supports
Adoption: Minimizing Challenges, Maximizing Support
Finalizing an adoption is not the finish line—it’s the beginning of an amazing lifelong journey. This training is designed to help new adoptive parents prepare for the realities that can emerge after the court papers are signed.
In this session, we will:
Explore common challenges families may encounter post-adoption
Identify age-appropriate behaviors and how they may shift as children adjust
Focus on the impact of trauma and attachment on behavior and relationships
Highlight resources and support systems available to help families thrive
By the end of the training, participants will be better equipped with practical tools, insight, and strategies to support their children and strengthen family connections through each stage of adoptive parenting.
Building Bedtime Routines
Building Bedtime Routines:
Creating a peaceful and consistent bedtime routine can be challenging—but it’s absolutely achievable with the right approach. In this workshop, we’ll tackle some of the key questions:
What do you and the child(ren) want out of a bedtime routine?
What do you both need for it to be successful?
And how can you make it work in real life?
This session will help you lay the groundwork for a smoother bedtime experience. Together, we’ll build a strong foundation, explore practical tools and strategies, and brainstorm solutions for common bedtime struggles. Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to improve your current routine, this workshop will offer helpful insights and real-world support.
Building Bridges: Welcoming a Foster Child into Your Family
Building Bridges: Welcoming a Foster Child into Your Family
Welcoming a foster child into your home is a meaningful experience—and one that impacts every member of the family. This workshop helps resource families prepare for the emotional and relational dynamics that can arise when a new child joins the household. Participants will explore common feelings experienced by both foster and existing children, learn practical strategies to support healthy sibling relationships, and discover family-centered tools and activities that promote connection. Through guided discussion and hands-on resources, families will gain skills to foster empathy, open communication, and a stronger sense of unity in their home.
Building Healthy Relationships: Navigating Child Sexual Development & Tough Talks
Building Healthy Relationships: Navigating Child Sexual Development & Tough Talks:
This training offers vital guidance for resource parents on fostering healthy development and open communication with children and teenagers.
We’ll cover the stages of typical child sexual development, help you identify potential red flags, and provide practical skills for initiating important conversations and confidently answering difficult questions. You’ll leave equipped to build stronger, safer relationships with the young people in your care.
Building Resilience Through Self-Care
Building Resilience Through Self-Care:
Resilience—the capacity to recover from difficulties—is a vital skill for navigating life’s challenges. One key to strengthening resilience is intentional self-care. In this interactive session, we’ll explore what self-care truly means (and what it doesn’t), examine the various dimensions of self-care, and offer practical tools for setting personal goals that support your well-being. You’ll leave with strategies to help keep your mind and body prepared for whatever comes your way.
Building Safe Connections: Supervising Child Visitation
Building Safe Connections: Supervising Child Visitation
Visits between children and their birth families are a key part of the reunification journey—and can bring both hope and heartache. These moments often stir complex emotions for everyone involved.
In this training, we’ll explore the essential role that visits play in healing and reunification. You’ll gain practical tools for supporting children through the emotional ups and downs of visits, strategies for partnering with birth families, and guidance on how to supervise visits in a way that feels safe, supportive, and respectful for all.
Whether you’re new to fostering or experienced, this training will strengthen your skills in creating meaningful, safe connections during this critical part of the foster care process.
Catchy Vibes: Exploring Co-Regulation and Emotional Awareness
Catchy Vibes: Exploring Co-Regulation and Emotional Awareness
Imagine having a built-in tool that could bring more harmony to your home and deepen your relationships, accessible to you 24/7. That powerful tool is you, specifically your nervous system.
In this interactive workshop, we’ll explore how your nervous system influences your daily life, focusing on practical ways to listen to your body and regulate your nervous system. You’ll learn simple, fun activities you can immediately use at home to calm yourself and co-regulate with those around you, all through the lens of Polyvagal Theory.
What you’ll gain:
Understand the vital role of your nervous system in well-being and relationships.
Develop heightened awareness to stay adaptable and responsive to life’s demands.
Discover practical activities for both personal regulation and co-regulation with others.
Conflict to Collaboration: Unlocking Effective Resolution Strategies
Conflict to Collaboration: Unlocking Effective Resolution Strategies:
This training explores strategies that parents commonly use to teach children conflict resolution—strategies that are often overlooked when managing their own adult conflicts. Given the high tensions that can arise within child welfare teams, having the right tools for effective conflict management is essential.
In this session, participants will:
Identify their own conflict style
Recognize and regulate their emotions through self-awareness
Practice Unconditional Positive Regard for all parties involved
Examine and challenge their own narratives
Set clear, actionable goals for resolution
Ask thoughtful, solution-focused questions
By the end of this training, attendees will be better equipped to navigate conflicts with confidence, fostering healthier and more productive interactions.
Effective Resource Home: Getting Back to the Basics
Effective Resource Home: Getting Back to the Basics This essential workshop is designed to help resource families build awareness, confidence, and proactive skills around navigating and preventing reports or concerns made against their foster home. Participants will be guided through important topics including:
Finding the Facts: Learn how to locate and understand the laws, regulations, and policies that guide child welfare investigations.
Clarifying the Language: Explore key definitions and commonly used terms in Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) policies.
Understanding Reports (Allegations): Gain a clear understanding of Institutional Abuse (IA) and Standards Complaints (SC) —what they are, why they happen, and where they typically come from.
The Investigation Process: Walk through what to expect during an IA or SC investigation from beginning to end.
Prevention Strategies: Discover practical tips and everyday actions families can take to minimize the risk of a report.
Through open discussion and supportive guidance, this session will empower foster and kinship caregivers to better understand their responsibilities, navigate complex systems, and feel more confident in protecting both the children in their care and the stability of their home.
Empowering Your Voice: Confident Documentation for Resource Families
Empowering Your Voice: Confident Documentation for Resource Families:
This workshop is designed to strengthen your documentation skills, transforming them into a powerful tool for effective collaboration with your child’s care team. We’ll dive into the Dos and Don’ts of documentation, clarify what information should be recorded, and help you understand when and with whom to share it.
In the emotionally complex world of foster care, clear and confident documentation is essential. This training will empower you to document appropriately, ensuring your voice is heard and your observations fully support the children in your care.
Foster Parent College
AFFM partners with Foster Parent College (FPC) to provide innovative, research-based, interactive online courses for foster, adoptive, and kinship parents. FPC’s self-paced training is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. From the comfort of home, parents can enroll, complete a course, and receive a certificate of completion in a single session. For a current list of courses, you can click this link. The content is developed by nationally recognized experts in the fields of parenting, social work, pediatrics, psychology, psychiatry, and education.
Resource families who reside in Maine can sign up through AFFM for free here: REGISTER FOR FREE HERE.
*Please allow 3 business days to receive your username and password. If you do not receive a message please check your spam folder. Email Hether@affm.net with any questions.
Kin are Raising the Kids; Let’s Help
Kin are Raising the Kids; Let’s Help:
Kinship caregivers often step up unexpectedly to care for children in their family, navigating complex child protective systems with little preparation or support. This training is designed to help families and resource families understand the unique strengths and challenges of kinship care. Participants will explore ways to better support kin caregivers through community resources, trauma-informed practices, advocacy, and emotional support. Together, we’ll examine how to reduce barriers and increase stability for the children in their care. Whether you’re a new kin family or looking to deepen your knowledge, this session will provide practical tools and meaningful insight.
Managing Confidentiality; The Why and How
Managing Confidentiality; The Why and How:
As a resource parent, asking questions like “Who,” “What,” “When,” and “Where” is vital. However, managing these inquiries while maintaining confidentiality is equally important. Understanding boundaries regarding sensitive information is key to ensuring the safety and well-being of children in your care.
This workshop will help define these boundaries and provide practical tools for navigating them, emphasizing why confidentiality is critical and how caregivers can operate within these limits.
Key Topics Covered:
Federal and state policies, including DHHS guidelines outlined in the “Little Red Book.”
Exploring different types of confidentiality in everyday situations.
Understanding the rights of foster children and biological parents concerning confidentiality and ownership of “their story.”
Reviewing the DHHS social media policy and strategies for adhering to it.
Addressing common questions and scenarios related to confidentiality.
By the end of this session, participants will be better equipped to respect privacy, uphold confidentiality, and manage boundaries effectively in their caregiving role.
Mandated Reporter Training
Mandated Reporter Training:
All resource families are required to complete Mandated Reporter Training when becoming licensed and must renew this training every four years. Join us for this essential training and earn 2 hours towards recertification!
Mandated Reporters play a vital role in Maine’s child protection system, serving as an early warning network to identify suspected child abuse and neglect. By acting promptly, they help prevent serious and long-term harm to children. Professionals who frequently work with children are in the best position to recognize and report suspected abuse or neglect, and the law requires them to do so.
This training ensures that you, as a resource parent, are equipped with the knowledge to fulfill this critical responsibility.
Navigating the Maine Child Protective Court System
Navigating the Maine Child Protective Court System:
This training gives resource families an introduction to how the Maine Child Protective Court process works. The session covers the main step in the court timeline, explain common legal terms, and clarify the roles of the different people involved. By the end of the session, families will have a stronger understanding of the court system and feel more confident in their role as part of the child welfare team.
Nourishing Trust: Understanding Food & Nutrition in Foster and Adoptive Families
Nourishing Trust: Understanding Food & Nutrition in Foster and Adoptive Families
Join us for a practical and supportive training designed specifically for foster and adoptive parents. This session will equip you with the knowledge and tools to confidently navigate children’s nutritional needs and mealtime challenges.
We’ll explore common nutritional deficiencies often seen in children who have experienced early life adversity, how medical professionals identify them, and the reasons behind specific dietary restrictions. We’ll also dive into everyday feeding challenges like picky eating, food insecurity, and sensory sensitivities. Most importantly, you’ll gain strategies to help children develop a healthy, trusting relationship with food.
Whether you’re managing medical needs or daily mealtime stress, this training will provide guidance to foster both nourishment and trust at your table
Parenting Life Skills
Parenting Life Skills: This training explores essential parenting life skills that lay the foundation for raising children who are confident, capable, and resilient. Participants will learn strategies that go beyond basic caregiving to support children’s emotional, social, and practical development while also maintaining caregiver well-being.
Through this training, parents and caregivers will gain tools to create a safe, supportive, and nurturing environment that fosters children’s independence, resilience, and emotional health. The focus is not only on guiding children to behave well but on helping them grow into capable, confident, and emotionally healthy individuals.
Positive Discipline
Positive Discipline Children face many challenges as they grow, but two of the most significant are learning acceptable social behaviors and developing self-control. This underscores the importance of taking time to teach and guide children in making thoughtful choices and managing their own behavior. These skills can begin developing from an early age.
Psychotropic Medication Training
OCFS has prepared training about the use of Psychotropic Medication for children and youth in foster care. The training covers various types of psychotropic medications, their uses and implications, as well as outlines the Department’s protocol. This training is mandatory for all resource parents, including unlicensed kinship families caring for a child in OCFS custody. The training should take less than two hours to complete and can be done any time that is convenient for you.
You may access this training through the AFFM Lending Library via DVD or web viewing here:
Resources for Succes
AFFM Resources for Success This workshop explores the true meaning of discipline and introduces participants to the seven principles of positive discipline through interactive group work and class discussion. Participants will leave with practical tools and strategies they can use at home to foster cooperation, understanding, and mutual respect.
Reports In Foster Care: Recognizing, Responding, and Reducing the Risk
Reports In Foster Care: Recognizing, Responding, and Reducing the Risk:
This essential workshop is designed to help resource families build awareness, confidence, and proactive skills around navigating and preventing reports or concerns made against their foster home. Participants will be guided through important topics including:
Finding the Facts: Learn how to locate and understand the laws, regulations, and policies that guide child welfare investigations.
Clarifying the Language: Explore key definitions and commonly used terms in Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) policies.
Understanding Reports (Allegations): Gain a clear understanding of Institutional Abuse (IA) and Standards Complaints (SC) —what they are, why they happen, and where they typically come from.
The Investigation Process: Walk through what to expect during an IA or SC investigation from beginning to end.
Prevention Strategies: Discover practical tips and everyday actions families can take to minimize the risk of a report.
Through open discussion and supportive guidance, this session will empower foster and kinship caregivers to better understand their responsibilities, navigate complex systems, and feel more confident in protecting both the children in their care and the stability of their home.
Training Required for Licensed Families
Period of Purple Crying. Training for resource families who need to complete this training please click he
Infant Safe Sleep. For more information about a safe sleep environment.
Mandated Reporter Training. Resource families looking to take the Mandated Reporter training and test. This is required every 4 years as well as upon becoming a resource family.
Other Training around the state. Click here to see more information about upcoming training sessions.
