News & Library

Keep up with the latest news about Firefly Children and Family Alliance, from recent announcements to new programs and services

Kris’ Corner – What is Mixed Maturity?

My previous post discussed dysmaturity. Just to catch you up in case you missed it, dysmaturity is when a child is one chronological age, but an entirely separate (younger) maturity age; often, but not always, it is estimated that a child struggling with dysmaturity...

Kris’ Corner – Making Friends as a Foster Parent

In my last post, I talked about finding friends from the point of view of a child in foster care. So let’s talk about finding friends when we are foster parents. Why would this need to be a thing? Can’t the people who have been our friends continue to be our friends?...

Kris’ Corner – Spend Time with your Other Kids

This topic today may or may not apply to you (which is something that can be said for all of my topics) but today I want to talk about the other kids in your home. So what do I mean by that? Well, I’m coming at this from the presumption that if you are fostering or...

Kris’ Corner – Stepping on the Roller Coaster

So last time I talked about stepping off the roller coaster of foster care and what that means: staying in your lane, caring for the child in front of you, and letting the case play out at a distance (an emotional distance, that is). But today I want to talk about...

Kris Corner – Losing Yourself

Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, and I want to share with you is the caution of not getting lost in being a foster parent. What I mean by that is before you’re a foster parent, you are a “regular person”. You have interests. You might have hobbies. You...

Kris’ Corner – Points of Joy

So I don’t know that I have a ton to say about this week’s topic, but it’s something that was brought to my attention by an adoption therapist (Melissa Corkum…she has a significant online presence so feel free to look her up for more of what she’s about), who is an...

Kris Corner – Parent the Child in Front of You

Today I just want to touch on something that I was recently encouraged to do by my son’s therapist…and that is to “parent the child that’s in front of me.” Now this could mean many different things, but the context I am talking about is that kids coming from trauma...

Autism Acceptance Month: Nicolas Allion

Nicolas Allion is an Eligibility Specialist at Firefly Children and Family Alliance, where he helps low-income households apply for childcare vouchers and navigate the CCDF policy manual: a job that requires quite a bit of juggling. On top of managing his work at...