FAQ

In a difficult moment, your first job is not to teach, correct, or set a consequence. It is to be a steady presence the child can settle alongside. This is the principle of connection before correction, sometimes summarised as “connect, then correct” or “regulation before reasoning.” When a child is dysregulated, the thinking part of the brain is not available, and what gets through is your tone, body, and presence. Things that help include bringing your own calm into the room first, getting down to the child’s level, using a calm voice, naming the feeling briefly (“that looked really frustrating”), offering reassurance (“I’m here, we’ll figure this out together”), and staying present even when the child is pushing away.

Once the child’s nervous system has settled, sometimes minutes later, sometimes longer, there is room for the conversation about what happened. That conversation tends to be shorter, calmer, and more useful than anything that could have happened in the moment. Any consequences that are appropriate can come then, and they will land better for it.

Source: CFS Trauma-Informed Practice Notes

Children who have experienced trauma often expect adults to leave, disappoint, or hurt them, because past experience taught them this. A child who pushes you away after a good day, refuses your help, or reacts to a small change as though it were a major betrayal is not behaving badly. Their nervous system learned that closeness and predictability could not be trusted, and that learning does not unlearn quickly. Pushing away, refusing help, and testing the same limit repeatedly, as if checking whether the response will change, are common patterns. Try not to take the testing personally while you keep providing new evidence.

Trust is built by behaviour, not by reassurance or intention. Three things anchor it: following through on what you said you would do, including small things, being consistent even when it would be easier not to be, and repairing when mistakes happen. You will get things wrong, promises will get broken, and frustration will sometimes spill out. What matters with relational trauma is what happens next: coming back to the child, naming what happened, and reaffirming the relationship. That is repair, and a relationship with small ruptures and consistent repair teaches the child that connection survives difficulty.

Source: CFS Trauma-Informed Practice Notes

It very well could be. Trauma affects the body, not just thoughts and behaviour. A nervous system shaped by trauma stays on alert for danger long after the original conditions have ended, so the body keeps preparing for the next hard thing. That can show up as frequent stomach-aches or headaches around stressful times, sleep disturbances, nightmares or bedtime resistance, sensory sensitivities to noise, light, or textures, fatigue, and being easily startled. These body-level signs are sometimes misread as attention-seeking or making things up — but they’re real, and they’re a nervous system that hasn’t yet learned this place is safe.

A child whose body is in a stress response can’t reason their way out of it, so the work is to help the body settle, not explain it down. Calm, predictable routines (especially around sleep and meals), gentle transitions with warnings, quiet low-stimulation spaces to retreat to, comfort items the child finds settling, and a calm adult presence tend to do more than words in those moments. Worth mentioning persistent physical symptoms to the child’s doctor too, so anything medical is ruled out.

Source: CFS Trauma-Informed Practice Notes

A young person who is unreasonably late but for whom you have no specific reason to fear is not automatically “missing” under MCFD policy, though they can become so depending on circumstances. Take the steps a prudent, responsible parent would before escalating: try to contact the young person directly by phone or text, reach out to friends, coaches, teachers, or others who might know where they are, and check the places they are likely to be. If you locate them, no further action may be needed, but always notify the social worker of what happened.

One exception: if a youth is on probation and breaches their conditions, including curfew or required check-ins, you must immediately contact the social worker or Centralized Screening, or Police/RCMP.

Source: Foster Family Handbook

Discipline that teaches self-control works far better than punishment, which only tells a child after the fact that a bigger person disliked what they did. For children in care, many of whom have already been harmed by adults, punitive approaches tend to reinforce rejection and damage trust. Approaches consistent with the CFCSA include talking issues through, praising and encouraging positive behaviour, modelling the rules yourself, setting clear and consistent expectations, removing issue-related privileges as a logical consequence, allowing natural or logical consequences, and using time out without any element of seclusion or confinement.

Children have the right to know what is expected of them and what the consequences will be, and the more they help set the rules and limits, the sooner they accept them. This is especially true for older children and youth. If you are struggling with a particular behaviour, talk to the child’s social worker and your resource social worker early, before things escalate.

Source: Foster Family Handbook

Physical restraint, meaning intentionally restricting a child’s ability to move, is not an acceptable form of discipline. The only situations where it may be used are for the immediate safety of the child or another person, or where it is specified in the child’s Plan of Care and was developed in consultation with a recognised professional expert in child care.

If you do have to restrain a child for immediate safety, you must report what happened to both the child’s social worker and your resource social worker immediately afterward.

Source: Foster Family Handbook

Corporal punishment is forbidden for any child in care under the CFCSA, with no exceptions. That means any physical force that may cause pain, including spanking, slapping, hitting, shaking, or forcefully pushing a child.

MCFD policy also prohibits a range of other practices, again with no exceptions: depriving a child of basic needs or rights such as food, clothing, shelter, bedding, or contact with parents; denying family visits, phone, or mail contact that is not restricted in the Plan of Care; threatening to remove the child from your home; assigning excessive exercise or work as punishment; pressuring the child’s religious or personal beliefs; humiliation, ridicule, or verbal abuse; group punishment for one child’s behaviour; using another child against them; and seclusion or confinement, meaning containing a child in a space they cannot leave without permission.

Source: Foster Family Handbook

Preparing the child beforehand makes a real difference: let them know what to expect and talk about how they are feeling. Children who sense that their reactions are understood tend to handle visits better. Afterward, give them time and space to process. Some children are unsettled or emotionally dysregulated after contact, and that is usually the normal result of navigating complex, meaningful relationships rather than a sign the visit went wrong. Routine, calm, and connection with you in the hours that follow help the child settle.

If a child is not having regular contact because of court restrictions, safety concerns, or other reasons, that absence matters too and should be addressed in their Plan of Care. A child in that situation may need extra support to understand and manage the loss of contact, which is worth raising with the social worker.

Source: Foster Family Handbook

Your role depends on the placement. Some Family Care Home Agreements, particularly for specialised care at levels 2 and 3, specifically require you to supervise visits; in other cases the social worker may ask you to play a particular part. Check your agreement and confirm your role with the child’s social worker before visits begin rather than assuming you are the supervisor or facilitator.

Before any visit, settle the details with the social worker: where it happens and how long it lasts, how food and gifts will be handled, how you will give the child and parents some privacy while keeping appropriate supervision, who supervises if supervision is required, and any safety concerns. Where you can, arrange visits at times that do not disrupt your family’s regular routine, which helps the visits feel ordinary rather than exceptional.

Source: Foster Family Handbook

Visits are one of the main ways a child keeps a real connection with their birth family. Without contact, children can build up exaggerated ideas about their families, either overly positive or overly negative. Regular visits give the child a realistic picture, reassure them that their family is still present and interested, help them adjust to having two families during the placement, and, where reunification is the goal, keep alive the bonds the child will need to return home.

For a child who has experienced abuse or trauma, the feelings around visits can be complex: they may be excited, anxious, conflicted, or unsettled before and after. Being aware of and prepared for those reactions is part of your role.

Source: Foster Family Handbook