Foster Care Training in Louisiana: What to Expect from Deciding Together

If you have researched foster parent training in other states or spoken to someone who fostered somewhere else, you may have heard of MAPP, TIPS-MAPP, or the Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting. Louisiana does not use any of those programs. The state adopted a different curriculum called Deciding Together, and understanding how it works — and what sets it apart — is important before you begin your application.

What Is Deciding Together?

Deciding Together was developed by the Child Welfare Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. Louisiana adopted it as its pre-service training model because it offers a more individualized, consultative approach than group-based alternatives. While TIPS-MAPP typically runs in cohort settings with multiple families progressing through the material together, Deciding Together is designed to work one-on-one — or with a single family — alongside a DCFS Home Development Specialist over approximately seven sessions.

The total time commitment is 15 to 21 hours of direct training, though preparation, reflection exercises, and scheduling time between sessions add to that.

The name reflects the design philosophy. By the end of the curriculum, both the prospective foster family and the DCFS specialist are expected to have reached a genuine shared decision about whether the family is ready and suited to foster. It is not a pass/fail test. It is a structured mutual assessment.

The Seven Sessions: What Each One Covers

DCFS organizes the Deciding Together curriculum into seven distinct sessions. Each session builds on the previous one and is intended to surface any concerns — yours or theirs — before you are certified.

Session 1: Introduction to Child Welfare and the Role of the Resource Parent This session establishes the legal and administrative context. You learn how Louisiana's Department of Children and Family Services operates, what the Children's Code requires, how CINC (Child in Need of Care) proceedings work, and what your specific role as a certified "resource parent" looks like within that system. Many applicants are surprised by how court-centered Louisiana's child welfare system is — the judge, not DCFS, holds the ultimate authority over placement and permanency decisions.

Session 2: Understanding Attachment, Separation, and Grief Children entering foster care have experienced at least one significant disruption — removal from their birth family. This session covers attachment theory, how early childhood experiences shape behavior, and what it looks like when a child is grieving the loss of familiar people and places. This is often the first time prospective parents genuinely confront the emotional weight of what they are taking on.

Session 3: The Impact of Abuse and Neglect on Child Development Louisiana's foster care population reflects the state's broader challenges: the opioid and addiction crisis, poverty, and environmental instability driven by regular hurricane seasons. This session examines how abuse, neglect, and prenatal substance exposure affect brain development, emotional regulation, and behavior — and what realistic expectations look like for the children likely to be placed in your home.

Session 4: Working with Birth Families and Supporting Reunification Louisiana is a reunification-first state. The primary goal for most children entering care is to return home to their birth family once safety conditions improve. This session prepares prospective parents for the reality that they will likely work alongside — rather than against — a child's birth parents. This is one of the sessions where many applicants discover whether they have the emotional bandwidth for the role.

Session 5: Discipline vs. Punishment — Positive Behavioral Interventions Louisiana law strictly prohibits corporal punishment for foster children. This session distinguishes between punitive and corrective approaches, introduces trauma-informed discipline strategies, and helps applicants develop consistent behavioral frameworks that work with children who have experienced trauma rather than triggering further fear or dysregulation.

Session 6: Trauma-Informed Care and Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) This session goes deeper into the neuroscience of trauma and introduces TBRI, a specific therapeutic approach that emphasizes connection, empowerment, and correction rather than compliance and control. Families interested in therapeutic foster care will encounter more intensive versions of this training through private agencies like Methodist Foster Care.

Session 7: The Decision to Commit — Finalizing the Mutual Selection Process The final session brings together everything discussed in the previous six and asks both parties to reach a clear decision. If the specialist or the applicant has unresolved concerns about fit, capacity, or readiness, this is the intended space to name them. Families who decide to proceed receive their training completion record, which is required for the home study file.

Required Auxiliary Certifications

Deciding Together is the core curriculum, but Louisiana also requires several supplemental certifications before certification is finalized:

• CPR and First Aid: Required for all foster parents; must be renewed every two years
• Safe Sleep: Mandatory for any family approved to care for infants
• Medication Administration: Covers dosage, storage, documentation, and reporting
• Reasonable and Prudent Parent Standard: Training on the 2015 federal Normalcy Act provisions that allow foster parents to make everyday parenting decisions — like letting a child join a sports team or attend an overnight with friends — without getting caseworker approval for each activity

These certifications are typically scheduled through your regional Home Development Office or approved training providers. Ask at orientation which providers your region uses.

How to Get Started with Orientation

The first step toward Deciding Together is attending an informational orientation. You do not need to complete orientation before deciding whether to pursue licensing — the orientation itself is designed to give you enough information to make that decision.

To find upcoming orientation sessions, contact your regional Home Development Office directly or visit the DCFS training calendar online. Louisiana has nine regional offices covering all 64 parishes:

• New Orleans metro (Region 1): Orleans, Jefferson, Plaquemines, St. Bernard — (504) 736-7171
• Baton Rouge (Region 2): East Baton Rouge and surrounding parishes — (225) 925-6500
• Covington (Region 3): St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, and surrounding parishes — (985) 893-6225
• Lafayette (Region 5): Acadiana region — (337) 262-5970
• Shreveport (Region 8): Caddo, Bossier, and surrounding parishes — (318) 676-7323

Training is delivered in English. In regions with significant French Creole or Spanish-speaking populations, requests for language accommodations should be made early — contact the regional office at the inquiry stage, not after you have already started the application.

Scheduling Around Shift Work and Offshore Schedules

One of the most common concerns for Louisiana applicants involves the "offshore" work schedule common in the oil and gas industry: 14 days on, 14 days off. Because Deciding Together is delivered in individual sessions rather than a group cohort, there is more scheduling flexibility than in states that require attending a fixed-date class series. Sessions can typically be scheduled around the applicant's availability as long as progress is being made and sessions are not indefinitely delayed.

If your work schedule creates genuine scheduling barriers, raise this early and directly with your Home Development Specialist. Families can request reasonable modifications for session timing. The goal of Deciding Together is mutual readiness, not administrative compliance — a specialist who understands your schedule from the beginning is more likely to find workable arrangements than one who discovers the conflict mid-process.

Rural applicants should also be aware that regional trainers in less-populated areas sometimes have constrained availability. In Alexandria, Monroe, or Lake Charles regions, scheduling delays can add weeks to the training phase. Starting the conversation about training availability at orientation — before submitting your application — helps you set realistic timeline expectations.

What Happens If You Stop the Process

Deciding Together is explicitly designed so that either the applicant or DCFS can discontinue the process at any point without penalty. If you complete two sessions and decide fostering is not the right fit, you simply stop. There is no formal withdrawal process or negative consequence. Your background check results remain in the system, but they are not reportable unless an abuse or neglect finding was made.

If DCFS determines during the process that a family does not meet requirements or is not yet ready, they may delay rather than deny — recommending additional steps before proceeding. Outright denial is rare at the training stage; it more commonly occurs if background check results surface disqualifying findings.

After Training: What Comes Next

Completing Deciding Together moves your file into the home study phase. The DCFS Home Development Specialist who conducted your sessions will also play a role in your home study assessment. For many families, the relationship built during training helps the home study feel less like an inspection and more like a continuation of a conversation that has already been happening.

If you want a detailed picture of what comes next — and what to prepare before your first home visit — the Louisiana Foster Care Licensing Guide covers the home study process, document checklist, and home safety standards in practical, actionable terms that the DCFS handbook does not.

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