KIPP is a statewide partnership between the University of Kansas, the Kansas Department for Children and Family Services, and Kansas’ two private providers of foster care – KVC Kansas and St. Francis Community Services.

KIPP’s Goals:

• Provide intensive services to support families with children in foster care
• Help families of children with serious emotional disturbance (SED) reintegrate earlier and with more stability
• Increase families’ capacity to provide for their children’s needs
• Work with the family and community on addressing barriers to reintegration
• Connect families to community services and supports

Parent Management Training – Oregon Model (PMTO)

Parent Management Training – Oregon Model (PMTO) is an evidence-based intervention which means that it has been demonstrated, through scientific studies, to be effective in treating behavioral problems.

PMTO believes that parents are their children’s most important teachers.  Therefore, most of PMTO is done with the parents to empower them with effective child-rearing strategies, such as;

Skill Encouragement:

Teaching concern for others and positive behaviors through effective instructions and encouragement.

Limit-Setting:

Giving consistent, short, non-physical sanctions such as time-out, privilege loss, and work chores for specific misbehavior.

Problem-Solving:

Setting goals, brainstorming, figuring out solutions, and carrying out plans.

Monitoring:

Keeping track of children’s friends and whereabouts, and ensuring adult supervision for children’s activities.

Positive Involvement:

The many ways parents show love for their children, including attention and support, participating in children’s interests and activities, and showing care and concern.

What do services look like?

What reintegrated and foster families may notice most is the increased visits and intensity of services for the first six months of reintegration efforts.  This increase in visits is critical to KIPP’s success.

Families will have:

• At least 2 parent sessions with a KIPP therapist a week.
• At least 1 session with the parent, child, and KIPP Therapist each week.
• Regular visits for the parent and child each month.

Who can participate?

KIPP will be studied as part of a rigorous cross-site evaluation to inform the child welfare field.  Only families whose children meet clinical criteria are eligible for KIPP; they will be randomly assigned to receive therapy or assessments.  Families cannot be court-ordered to KIPP; however, participation in KIPP may facilitate reintegration.

How successful is KIPP?

See this article: Kansas Intensive Permanency Program (KIPP) Team Celebrates Fourth Year