Professionals in mental health and child welfare understand the critical importance of recognizing how trauma affects the children we serve. Trauma-informed practice has increased empathy among staff and foster parents and guided effective interventions that support healing. As a system, we have invested significant time teaching foster parents the why and how of parenting youth from hard places. These efforts have helped preserve challenging placements and supported youth in developing healthy relationships and healing from trauma. However, an important gap remained.
Research and practice consistently show that, when safe, children experience the best outcomes when placed with and reunified with their family of origin. At the same time, trauma-informed parenting is essential to supporting healing and building caregiver understanding. For parents and kin, however, trauma-informed messaging can be difficult to receive. Many experience shame or blame, which can lead to disengagement and limit their ability to internalize and use new tools—despite a strong desire to support their children.
Consider the analogy of building a shelf with only a hammer. While the hammer is not the right tool for every task, no alternatives are available, so it is used. When structural issues emerge, someone introduces new tools but frames them by emphasizing the damage caused by the hammer. This approach can feel overwhelming, shaming, and discouraging—especially when the builder only ever learned to use a hammer themselves.
Together Facing the Challenge – Family Edition (TFTC-FE) was developed to address this gap. It delivers evidence-based, trauma-informed tools in a way that is accessible and respectful to parents and kin. At OFI, we believe that changing lives begins with strengthening families—one connection at a time. We know that the interventions within Together Facing the Challenge support positive outcomes for youth experiencing foster care, and we believe that continuity of language, shared understanding of trauma, and compassionate support in implementing these tools will support and strengthen families while breaking intergenerational cycles across the child welfare spectrum of care.
