Family Mosaic Discussion Guide and Video Series
Explore videos and activities to strengthen supportive relationships and advance foster care as a support to families.
Collaborative, trusting relationships between families, resource parents, kinship caregivers, service providers, and child welfare agency staff matter to the well-being of children in care. Families who are supported by teams are more likely to be successful in reunification. Supportive relationships among all parties can facilitate early assessment of family, kin, and child needs and identification of services and support to promote family well-being.
Family Mosaic Video Series
The Family Mosaic video series reveals the efforts required to build this trust. Each mosaic tells one family’s story from three perspectives. In a mosaic, where individual pieces come together to form a vivid picture, looking at only one piece by itself doesn’t show you all there is to see. In the same way, different perspectives within a family come together to tell a more complete story of what is needed to support family well-being.
Watch the videos
Understanding the Story: Family Mosaics Discussion Guide
Partner the mosaics with activities in the discussion guide to build a common understanding of what it means to see foster care as a support to families, not a substitute for parents. Individuals can use activities to reflect on how to sharpen relationship-building skills, and teams can use activities to identify the barriers to working in partnership, find collective solutions, and check in over time to monitor practice change.
Read the GuideHow Can I Use Family Mosaic Activities?
Leaders and Program Managers
Build an agency culture that supports collaborative work with families and communities. Use activities in meetings with management and community partners to align values and beliefs around foster care as a support to families, not a substitute for parents.
Supervisors
Use in one-on-one coaching and team meetings to create shared understanding and develop collaborative strategies. Assign individual and collective activities that will help staff value the time and effort needed to build trusting relationships between resource parents, kinship caregivers, families, child welfare agency staff, and service providers.
Training Managers
Integrate into training for preservice staff, supervisors, kinship caregivers, and resource parents to enhance skills for creating trusting relationships and build understanding of foster care as a support to families, not a substitute for parents.
Interested in Earning Continuing Education Credits?
We are pleased to offer social work, clinical psychology, counseling, and marriage and family therapy continuing education units (CEUs) with this learning experience. If you would like to purchase CEUs after completing activities in the discussion guide, please click on the corresponding link:
- Understanding the Story: Family Mosaics Learning Experience - Activity 1
- Understanding the Story: Family Mosaics Learning Experience - Activity 2
- Understanding the Story: Family Mosaics Learning Experience - Activity 3
- Understanding the Story: Family Mosaics Learning Experience - Activity 4
- Understanding the Story: Family Mosaics Learning Experience - Activity 5
* Note: The CEU sponsor, R Cassidy Seminars, maintains responsibility for its CEU program. For more information on the licensing program and requirements, please visit their website
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Learn how we can help your agency build the capacity to thrive.
Email: capacityinfo@icfi.com
Phone: 1.844.222.0272
Visit the Center for States' Contact Us webpage for more information.