An Evaluation of the National Training and Development Curriculum

Overview

The National Training and Development Curriculum (NTDC) is a new, interactive classroom and online curriculum that provides parents who are fostering, adopting, or kinship caregiving with essential information, knowledge and tools about parenting children who have experienced trauma, grief or loss. Once a child is placed in a caregiver’s home, the NTDC also helps to build skills by providing ongoing learning opportunities and resources for parents as the child in their care grows and enters new developmental stages. The NTDC is based on research and input from experts and individuals who have experience with fostering and adopting.

The NTDC was evaluated rigorously in seven pilot sites across the country. A total of 4,268 foster, adoptive, and kinship parents participated in NTDC trainings between September 2020-August 2022. Of these, 1,826 volunteered to participate in the evaluation. The NTDC is freely avail- able to any state, county, tribal nation, territory, or private child welfare agency.

Impact

When comparing the results of parents who participated in NTDC training (Intervention Group) with parents who continued to participate in the pilot site’s existing training (Comparison Group), the results clearly substantiate the impact of NTDC on parents and the children in their care.

  • NTDC caregivers had a better understanding of trauma and how trauma impacted their daily lives.

    NTDC caregivers had statistically significantly larger growth than comparison group caregivers in their Trauma-Informed Parenting Scale

  • NTDC caregivers were more receptive to the child’s family connections

    NTDC caregivers had larger growth than comparison group caregivers in their Receptivity to Birth Family Connections Scale

  • NTDC caregivers maintained their knowledge of child development beyond the completion of the training

    Comparison group caregivers had statistically significantly larger loss than NTDC caregivers in their Foster Child Development scale

  • NTDC caregivers had greater confidence in parenting children with challenging behaviors

    NTDC caregivers scored statistically significantly higher on the Challenging Children Applicant Subscale than control caregivers, and also had statistically significantly larger growth in their scores

  • NTDC caregivers had greater confidence to act in their parent role

    NTDC caregivers scored statistically significantly higher than comparison group caregivers on the Parenting Self-Agency Measure

  • NTDC caregivers felt their mental and physical health increased

    NTDC caregiver self-rated health increased, while it decreased for comparison group caregivers.

NTDC parents were more likely to foster:

Fostering likelihood
Permanency Likelihood

Results from Classroom-Based Training

NTDC caregivers had statistically significant growth in their NTDC pre-posttest knowledge assessment scores.

Pre-Post Test Result Comparison

Participant competency gains are high. Participant post-tests showed statistically significant improvement in 18 of the 18 themes. The greatest score improvement was in the ‘Mental Health Considerations’ theme (50% improvement from pre- to post-test).

Participants are satisfied with the content being delivered. Participants rated their satisfaction using a 6-point scale, with higher scores indicating greater satisfaction.

Graph - Overall average satisfaction with the training 5.3 out of 6

Participants most appreciated the videos, stories shared by individuals with experience fostering and adopting, interaction with other parents, examples and case studies, group activities, and handouts.

Participants felt that skills being taught were important. They gave the content an average importance rating of 9.6 out of 10. The ‘Separation, Grief and Loss’ skill of recognizing the signs of grief and loss underlying children’s behavior was rated most important.

Graph - Content importance rating 9.6 out of 10

Participants were reasonably confident, with confidence ratings of 8.9 out of 10. Participants were most confident in their ability to implement the skills in the ‘Kinship Parenting’ theme.

Graph - Confidence Rating 8.9 out of 10

Participants were very likely to use skills gained. They gave an average likelihood rating of 9.3 out of 10. Participants were most confident they would use the skills learned in ‘Kinship Parenting.’

Graph - Average likelihood to use skill gained

Results from Right-Time Training

Right-Time online trainings were well received.

Average perceived competency increased on all questions. Statistically significant competency changes » were observed from pre- to post-test, increasing from 8.3 to 9.0 out of 10.

Graph - Average Perceived Competency Increased to 9.0 from 8.3

Participants improved their accuracy in answering questions from the pre to the post-tests. Participants showed statistically significant improvement from pre- to post-test, from 78% to 82% in overall accuracy. The theme with the greatest improvement was ‘Sexual Development and Identity.’

Graph - Overall Accuracy Improvement to 82% from 78%

Satisfaction was high. Participants agreed trainings were relevant to their needs, applicable to real life, and they would recommend it to other parents.

Feedback on Remote Training

Almost all of the participants included in this evaluation took the NTDC on a remote platform.

Participants’ experiences with the online setting are positive. Participants report with an average comfort rating of 5.6 on a 6-point scale.

Graph - Average Comfort Rating 5.6 out of 6

Participants did not feel that the virtual implementation of the NTDC impeded their learning. Overall scores were 2.2 on a 6-point scale. A rating of 1 would indicate zero impact on their learning.

Full Evaluation Report

To dive deeper and see more data and proof points, view the full report.

View and Download Full Report

Words From Facilitators

I loved the material, especially the displays of understanding and the stories!

I appreciated the activities that tugged on my own emotions because it took a personal experience and related it to what kids in foster care experience but to a higher degree.

The “Real-Life” videos and examples are also excellent tools for empowering foster/adoptive parents.

Theme content incorporating many podcasts and real life videos will greatly enhance foster parent training.

Material is well organized, rich in content for families and easy to understand.

Love the trauma informed material that will help parents gain a better understanding of child’s behavior.

The building of themes really work well together. It flows very well in the format.

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This product was funded by the Children’s Bureau, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under grant #90CO1134. The contents of this document are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Children’s Bureau.

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