Family Training with ARC Methods

CHS offers an innovative resource for foster, pre-adoptive, and kinship caregivers as they prepare for placement, build attachments, and meet the needs of children who have experienced separation, loss, and trauma.

We believe that permanency is essential for child and youth wellbeing. Legal, emotional, and relational permanency are each important. The journey to legal permanency through reunification, guardianship or adoption can bring both joys and challenges. Even when families have experience parenting and/or experience with fostering/adopting – every youth is different and will bring unique strengths and needs.

Our team of experienced trainers is available to partner with families to equip caregivers with what they need to be successful. Click here to access our updated training calendar. Our staff have numerous certifications including:

Meet the Trainers

Dana Gracie

Walter Johnson

Trudy Robinson

Misty Taylor

Start with a Connection

Meet Children Waiting for a Family

Every child deserves love, support, and a place to call home. Meet the youth in foster care across North Carolina who are waiting for a permanent family to help them thrive.

Help a Child Find a Home

The Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) Model

The work of keeping children safe while they heal from past trauma and loss, and move toward permanency, is shared work that requires all of us to be trauma-responsive. Children and youth affected by trauma and loss demonstrate great resilience. They also may have needs that can challenge the most experienced caregivers. The Attachment, Regulation, and Competency (ARC) Model is a framework that provides tools and resources to provide a more knowledgeable and confident trauma-informed approach to children and youth. The name of the model, often referred to as simply ARC, refers to areas of functioning often impacted by traumatic experiences, particularly when that trauma occurs in childhood.

What Parents are Saying

This training reminded me that what I’m experiencing with my placement isn’t abnormal. It was nice to go over what to expect while parenting a child that has experienced trauma. Or goal is not to fix them but to give them the tools and environment they need to thrive.

The ARC Model gives us a shared language for talking about trauma and healing and is chosen over other models for its numerous tools and resources available, including the flexibility to develop new resources as needs arise. It also has a future-oriented focus, not just focusing on past events, but it supports children, adolescents, and caregivers alike to look forward, and engage in the world in a manner that is empowered and confident.

A – Attachment

This is about relationships and how we connect to others. Who do you trust? Who makes you feel safe?

R – Regulation

This is about the way people manage their emotions. How do you feel about feelings? How do you manage your feelings? What kind of coping skills work best for you?

C – Competency

This is about strengths and the things we do well, like problem solving and decision making; it’s also about how we feel about ourselves. What are you good at? What do you believe about yourself?

ARC Reflections

ARC Reflections is a training curriculum for foster parents, kin, and other caregivers of children and teens exposed to complex trauma.

Participants learn how trauma may affect youth in their care and develop tools for managing these challenges. An evaluation by Child Trends, a non-profit, nonpartisan research center, showed ARC Reflections to be immediately helpful to foster parents in understanding and supporting the children and teens in their care. Every parent who fosters or adopts through Children’s Home Society has the opportunity to take this training. Upon completion of ARC Reflections, parents have access to a monthly ARC Skills workshop. This workshop provides the opportunity to learn how to apply the information and work through challenges with other parents.

ARC Explorer

ARC Explorer is our e-newsletter designed to help parents and staff grow and discover new ways to understand and apply ARC in their work – with the help of our friend Archie. Several times a year this newsletter will arrive in your inbox with brief features that take into account busy schedules and are designed for reading “at a glance” all while providing a little guidance from Archie. For those parents interested in a deeper dive, the newsletter contains links for further reading.

Family Education & Support