PRIDE Training in Delaware: Schedule, Sessions, and What to Expect

You've attended the information session and you're committed to becoming a foster parent. Now comes PRIDE training — 27 to 30 hours spread across nine sessions that will fundamentally reshape how you think about parenting. For some people, this is where the excitement builds. For others, especially those juggling full-time jobs or living in Sussex County's rural areas, this is where the process starts to feel like a second job.

What PRIDE Training Covers

PRIDE stands for Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education. Delaware uses a competency-based version of this national curriculum, tailored to the state's legal and cultural context. The goal is to build five core competencies: protecting and nurturing children, meeting developmental needs, supporting relationships with birth families, connecting children to safe lifelong relationships, and working as part of a professional team.

Here's the session-by-session breakdown:

Session 1 — Connecting with PRIDE: Introduction to Delaware's child welfare system under DSCYF. The legal rights of children in care and the mission of the Division of Family Services. This is where the scope of what you're signing up for becomes concrete — you'll learn that fostering is a partnership with the state, not an independent parenting arrangement.

Session 2 — Teamwork Toward Permanence: The "shared parenting" model. How to work alongside birth parents, caseworkers, and Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs). This session challenges the idea that foster parenting is a solo endeavor. Delaware's system expects you to actively collaborate with the same people the child was removed from.

Session 3 — Attachment and Trauma: The biology of trauma and how abuse impacts brain development. Techniques for building secure attachments with children who've learned that adults aren't safe. This is often the most emotionally intense session, and many foster parents later say it was the most valuable.

Session 4 — Meeting Needs Through Loss: Understanding a child's experience of time and grief. The "Child's Clock" concept is introduced here — a six-year-old who's been in three placements experiences time very differently than an adult. When a child is removed from their home — even an unsafe one — they experience profound loss. This session teaches you to sit with that grief rather than trying to fix it.

Session 5 — Strengthening Relationships: Cultural competence, supporting a child's racial, religious, and gender identity. In Delaware's diverse landscape — from Wilmington's significant Black community to Sussex County's LGBTQ+ coastal corridor to Kent County's military families near Dover Air Force Base — this competency is directly practical, not theoretical.

Session 6 — Discipline: Delaware law prohibits corporal punishment for foster children. No spanking, no physical discipline of any kind, period. This session covers de-escalation techniques and positive behavioral management. If your parenting approach has ever relied on physical discipline, this is where you'll need to make a genuine shift — and the assessor will evaluate whether that shift is real during your home study.

Session 7 — Continuing Relationships: The permanency spectrum — reunification, guardianship, adoption, and independent living. Concurrent planning gets real here. You'll learn what it means to simultaneously support a child's return home while preparing to be their permanent family if reunification fails.

Session 8 — Planning for Change: Preparing for your first night with a foster child. Safety planning for children with a history of sexual abuse. The practical logistics that training often leaves until the end — what do you do when a child arrives at your door at 10 p.m. with a trash bag of belongings and a look that's equal parts terror and defiance?

Session 9 — Making Informed Decisions: Your final commitment. You'll interact with a panel of current foster and birth parents. This is the moment where theory meets testimony from people who've lived it.

Scheduling and Logistics

Children & Families First (CFF) delivers most PRIDE training in Delaware, with sessions offered across all three counties. Training cohorts typically run on weeknight evenings or Saturday sessions, but schedules vary by location and demand.

Here's the scheduling challenge: if you live in Sussex County and the next available cohort is in Dover or Wilmington, you're looking at significant drive time on top of the training hours. A round trip from Georgetown to Wilmington is over two hours. Some applicants report waiting several weeks for a local cohort rather than commuting to another county.

Contact your Foster Home Coordinator (FHC) immediately after your information session to get on the next available training schedule. Cohorts fill up, and a missed cycle can add one to two months to your timeline. If flexibility exists, ask about cohorts in adjacent counties — sometimes the Dover schedule works better than waiting for the next Georgetown session.

The 85% Pass Requirement

Delaware requires an 85% passing score on training assessments, which is a genuine stressor for foster parents who haven't been in a formal educational environment recently. The assessments are competency-based, not trivia-based — they test whether you can apply what you've learned, not whether you memorized statistics. Taking notes during sessions and asking questions when concepts are unclear is the best preparation.

The training also includes a tiered system beyond PRIDE. Prevent Child Abuse Delaware (PCAD) manages Levels 1 through 5 of ongoing certification, with Levels 3-5 covering specialized topics like sexual abuse response, depression and suicide awareness, and crisis de-escalation for high-needs placements.

Beyond PRIDE: Additional Required Certifications

Before your first placement, you'll also need current CPR and First Aid certification — both partners in a dual-parent household must be certified. Mandated reporter training is required under 16 Del. C. Section 903, teaching your legal obligation to report any suspicion of abuse or neglect directly to the DFS Report Line at 1-800-292-9582. If you're open to children with complex behavioral health needs, psychotropic medication training is also required.

Annual Continuing Education

Licensing in Delaware requires continuous professional development. Traditional foster homes must complete 12 to 15 hours of annual training. Specialized and therapeutic homes often need 20 hours. You can fulfill these through online modules, self-study, or in-person cluster meetings organized by the Delaware Foster Parent Association.

The annual requirement isn't busywork — DFS tracks compliance, and falling behind on training hours puts your license renewal at risk.

For a downloadable PRIDE session tracker, county-by-county scheduling tips, a study guide for the competency assessments, and a complete list of approved continuing education options, our Delaware Foster Care Licensing Guide has you covered.

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