PRIDE Training in New Brunswick: What Foster Parent Applicants Can Expect

PRIDE training is the point in the foster care application where many people go from uncertain to ready — or from enthusiastic to honest with themselves about whether this is the right commitment. Both outcomes are legitimate purposes of the training.

In New Brunswick, PRIDE (Parent Resources for Information, Development, and Education) is mandatory for all applicants before a home study can be initiated. It's not a test you pass or fail. It's a structured preparation curriculum designed to ensure that anyone who opens their home to a child in care understands what that child has likely experienced and what fostering genuinely demands.

What PRIDE Training Covers

The curriculum is 27 hours total, structured as nine three-hour sessions. Each session addresses a distinct competency area:

Session 1: Connecting with PRIDE An overview of New Brunswick's foster care system — the roles of the Department of Social Development, placement coordinators, and social workers. You learn what the different care types look like and what professional expectations come with a foster home license.

Session 2: Teamwork Towards Permanency This session introduces the "shared parenting" model at the centre of New Brunswick's approach. Foster parents are not a replacement family — they are one part of a care team that includes the child's social worker, birth family, and the child themselves. This session prepares you for the collaborative (and sometimes uncomfortable) realities of that arrangement.

Session 3: Meeting Developmental Needs — Attachment One of the most practically important sessions. It covers the neuroscience of early childhood trauma — how abuse, neglect, and chronic instability affect brain development and the ability to form healthy attachments. Children in care often present behaviours that are confusing or exhausting until you understand their developmental origin.

Session 4: Meeting Developmental Needs — Loss Every child who enters care has experienced loss, regardless of why they were removed. This session helps caregivers understand that grief and loss manifest differently in children than in adults, and that difficult behaviour is often a child's way of expressing something they cannot articulate.

Session 5: Strengthening Family Relationships Covers cultural identity and heritage preservation. Under New Brunswick's Child and Youth Well-Being Act, there is a legal obligation to support a child's connection to their culture — this is especially significant for Indigenous children, Francophone children placed with Anglophone families, or any child whose cultural background differs from that of the foster household.

Session 6: Discipline vs. Punishment New Brunswick prohibits all forms of corporal punishment in foster homes. This session replaces the traditional discipline framework with trauma-informed approaches: how to respond to difficult behaviour in ways that build trust rather than triggering further dysregulation in a child who has already experienced harm.

Session 7: Continuing Family Relationships Prepares you for the logistics and emotional weight of birth family visits. Birth family contact is the norm in New Brunswick foster care, not the exception — in most cases, regular visitation is required as part of the child's Service Plan. This session helps you manage those logistics and protect both the child's emotional wellbeing and your own during the process.

Session 8: Planning for Change Focuses on your own household. How will fostering affect your biological children, if you have them? What happens when a placement ends? How do you manage a child transitioning back to their birth family, or transitioning to adoption with another family? This session prepares the whole household, not just the primary caregivers.

Session 9: The Informed Decision A summary and reflection session. By the end of this session, applicants are expected to make a clear-eyed decision about whether they want to proceed to the home study. Some people decide fostering isn't the right fit for their current circumstances. That is a valuable outcome — for them and for the children who would otherwise be placed in a home that wasn't truly ready.

How PRIDE Is Delivered in New Brunswick

The Department of Social Development delivers PRIDE in both English and French. New Brunswick's bilingual status is a legislative requirement, not a courtesy — Francophone applicants are entitled to complete PRIDE training in French, with a French-speaking facilitator, regardless of where in the province they are applying.

Traditionally, PRIDE was delivered entirely in-person in group cohorts. Since 2020, virtual delivery (primarily via Zoom) has become standard for the initial information session and, in some regions, for portions of the training itself. Whether your cohort is fully in-person, hybrid, or primarily virtual depends on your regional office and the current scheduling approach in your area.

Cohort availability is one of the real variables in the application timeline. Not all regions run PRIDE sessions continuously throughout the year. In some areas, there may be a waiting period of several weeks between when your background checks clear and when the next cohort begins. This is one of the factors that can extend the overall timeline beyond the minimum.

Where PRIDE Fits in the Application Timeline

The sequence matters. You cannot begin PRIDE training until the initial screening — including the background check process — has been completed. The sequence is:

1. Initial inquiry or CCNB portal application
2. Information session (one hour, virtual)
3. Background checks initiated (Vulnerable Sector Check + DSD Social Development Record Check for all household adults)
4. PRIDE training enrollment (once screening is cleared)
5. First Aid and CPR certification (required before home study is finalized)
6. Home study — the SAFE assessment interviews and physical inspection
7. Approval and licensing

PRIDE is roughly in the middle of the process. Applicants who complete it often describe it as a turning point — the stage where abstract interest becomes concrete understanding of what a child in care is experiencing and what the commitment actually looks like.

First Aid and CPR

Alongside PRIDE, all New Brunswick foster parents must hold a valid First Aid and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) certificate. The required standard is a CSA Group certified Type 2 basic small first aid kit and training from an accredited provider — the Red Cross and St. John Ambulance both offer qualifying programs across the province.

Your certificate must be current when the home study is completed. If it expires during the licensing period, it must be renewed.

After PRIDE: What to Expect

Completing PRIDE does not mean automatic progression to a home study. Your file needs to be reviewed by your regional office, your background checks need to be cleared, and a social worker needs to be assigned to your home study. In busy regions or during periods of high application volume, there may be a brief wait.

The New Brunswick Foster Care Guide covers the full pipeline from CCNB portal to first placement, including a breakdown of what the home study social worker is evaluating, the physical safety standards for your home, and how to prepare for the lifestyle and values interviews that run alongside the physical inspection.

A Note on Specialized Training After Approval

PRIDE is pre-service training — it gets you to the point of approval. Once you're licensed and have an active placement, DSD expects ongoing professional development. The NBFFA (New Brunswick Foster Family Association) provides post-approval training and support through its Foster Assistance and Support Teams (F.A.S.T.). Some specialized placements, particularly in the Professional Care Home model, may require additional training specific to the child's needs.

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