Young people who leave care with few or no educational qualifications are at very high risk of social exclusion in adulthood. Yet in the past their education has attracted little attention from researchers or professionals. Studies by the editors and contributors to this volume show that the educational standards attained by young people in care fall progressively behind those of their peers living with their own families. This research-based book looks at the educational experiences of children and youths in nine different European countries and Canada. It identifies the obstacles that prevent them from realising their aspirations and discusses ways of improving their opportunities. How can countries with different traditions, welfare regimes and administrative systems learn from each other? What needs to be done at national, local and individual levels to give children in care equal chances with those living with their families? At present a child in public care is five times less likely to go to university than others. How can teachers, social workers and carers better support their educational attainment, and enable more of them to succeed and progress to tertiary education? This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Social Work.

Intercountry adoption represents a significant component of international migration; in recent years, up to 45,000 children have crossed borders annually as part of the intercountry adoption boom. Proponents have touted intercountry adoption as a natural intervention for promoting child welfare. However, in cases of fraud and economic incentives, intercountry adoption has been denounced as child trafficking. The debate on intercountry adoption has been framed in terms of three perspectives: proponents who advocate intercountry adoption, abolitionists who argue for its elimination, and pragmatists who look for ways to improve both the conditions in sending countries and the procedures for intercountry transfer of children. Social workers play critical roles in intercountry adoption; they are often involved in family support services or child relinquishment in sending countries, and in evaluating potential adoptive homes, processing applications, and providing support for adoptive families in receiving countries; social workers are involved as brokers and policy makers with regard to the processes, procedures, and regulations that govern intercountry adoption. Their voice is essential in shaping practical and ethical policies of the future. Containing 25 chapters covering the following five areas: policy and regulations; sending country perspectives; outcomes for intercountry adoptees; debate between a proponent and an abolitionist; and pragmatists' guides for improving intercountry adoption practices, this book will be essential reading for social work practitioners and academics involved with intercountry adoption.

Mariana the Mermaid is not like the other mermaids. Abandoned by a careless mother on the ocean floor, she has never laughed or played, and can barely even swim. She feels useless. Then she meets Muriel the Turtle, who welcomes her into her family and teaches her to sing her own mighty song, making her feel confident and ready to join in with the other mermaids. Written for children aged 4+, this picture book uses a simple metaphor to show how children who have experienced neglect or who lack confidence can learn to find a sense of self-worth. It will help children explore their feelings and encourage communication.

Can I Let You Go? is the true story of Faye, a wonderful young woman who may never be able to parent her unborn child. Faye is 24, pregnant, and has learning difficulties as a result of her mother's alcoholism. Faye is gentle, childlike and vulnerable, and normally lives with her grandparents, both of whom have mobility problems. Cathy and her children welcome Faye into their home and hearts. The care plan is for Faye to stay with Cathy until after the birth when she will return home and the baby will go for adoption. Given that Faye never goes out alone it is something of a mystery how she ever became pregnant and Faye says it's a secret. To begin with Faye won't acknowledge she is pregnant or talk about the changes in her body as she worries it will upset her grandparents, but after her social worker assures her she can talk to Cathy she opens up. However, this leads to Faye realizing just how much she will lose and she changes her mind and says she wants to keep her baby. Is it possible Faye could learn enough to parent her child? Cathy believes it is, and Faye's social worker is obliged to give Faye the chance.

Childhood separation and loss have become virtually a way of life for a large number of children throughout the world. Children separated from their genetic parent(s) and consequently their genealogical, social and cultural roots due to processes such as adoption, parental divorce/separation, donor insemination, single parenthood by choice and child trafficking can face social, emotional and psychological difficulties. This book explores the premise that a proper understanding of the complex inner world of modern day separated children and their psycho-social development requires a shift in focus or emphasis. It presents the notion of socio-genealogical connectedness as a new theoretical framework for studying and promoting these children's growth and development. This new theory simultaneously challenges and complements existing notions of psycho-social development, including attachment theory and Erikson's psycho-social theory of personality development. Owusu-Bempah proposes that this sense of socio-genealogical connectedness is an essential factor in children's adjustment to separation and their emotional and mental health; much like those adopted, separated children suffer a loss of genealogical continuity, and hence, loss of 'self'. This hypothesis is discussed and ultimately supported through both the author's own research and a broad selection of theoretical and empirical material from other areas. The book further considers the implications of this notion of socio-genealogical connectedness for childcare policy and practice, as well as directions for future research in this and related fields. Children and Separation is an invaluable resource for academics, students and childcare professionals. The accessible style of the book ensures that it will also be useful to parents and anybody affected by childhood separation.

Since 2004, the number of international adoptions in the United States has declined by more than seventy percent. In The End of International Adoption? Estye Fenton studies parents in the United States who adopted internationally in the past decade during this shift. She investigates the experiences of a cohort of adoptive mothers who were forced to negotiate their desire to be parents in the context of a growing societal awareness of international adoption as a flawed reproductive marketplace. Many parents, activists, and scholars have questioned whether the inequality inherent in international adoption renders the entire system suspect. In the face of such concerns, international adoption has not only become more difficult, but also more politically and ethically fraught. The mothers interviewed for this book found themselves navigating contemporary American family life in an unexpected way, caught between the double-bind of work-family life and a new paradigm of thinking about the method-international adoption-that they used to create those families.

Since 2004, the number of international adoptions in the United States has declined by more than seventy percent. In The End of International Adoption? Estye Fenton studies parents in the United States who adopted internationally in the past decade during this shift. She investigates the experiences of a cohort of adoptive mothers who were forced to negotiate their desire to be parents in the context of a growing societal awareness of international adoption as a flawed reproductive marketplace. Many parents, activists, and scholars have questioned whether the inequality inherent in international adoption renders the entire system suspect. In the face of such concerns, international adoption has not only become more difficult, but also more politically and ethically fraught. The mothers interviewed for this book found themselves navigating contemporary American family life in an unexpected way, caught between the double-bind of work-family life and a new paradigm of thinking about the method-international adoption-that they used to create those families.

An exploration of how ordinary U.S. Christians create global connections through the multibillion-dollar child sponsorship industry Child sponsorship emerged from nineteenth-century Protestant missions to become one of today's most profitable private fund-raising tools in organizations including World Vision, Compassion International, and ChildFund. Investigating two centuries of sponsorship and its related practices in American living rooms, churches, and shopping malls, Christian Globalism at Home reveals the myriad ways that Christians who don't travel outside of the United States cultivate global sensibilities. Kaell traces the movement of money, letters, and images, along with a wide array of sponsorship's lesser-known embodied and aesthetic techniques, such as playacting, hymn singing, eating, and fasting. She shows how, through this process, U.S. Christians attempt to hone globalism of a particular sort by oscillating between the sensory experiences of a God's eye view and the intimacy of human relatedness. These global aspirations are buoyed by grand hopes and subject to intractable limitations, since they so often rely on the inequities they claim to redress. Based on extensive interviews, archival research, and fieldwork, Christian Globalism at Home explores how U.S. Christians imagine and experience the world without ever leaving home.

What could cause a mother to believe that giving away her newborn baby is her only option? Cathy Glass is about to find out. From author of Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller Damaged comes a harrowing and moving memoir about tiny Harrison, left in Cathy s care, and the potentially fatal family secret of his beginnings.

When Cathy is first asked to foster one-day old Harrison her only concern is if she will remember how to look after a baby. But upon collecting Harrison from the hospital, Cathy realises she has more to worry than she thought when she discovers that his background is shrouded in secrecy.

She isn t told why Harrison is in foster care and his social worker says only a few are aware of his very existence, and if his whereabouts became known his life, and that of his parents, could be in danger. Cathy tries to put her worries aside as she looks after Harrison, a beautiful baby, who is alert and engaging. Cathy and her children quickly bond with Harrison although they know that, inevitably, he will eventually be adopted.

But when a woman Cathy doesn t know starts appearing in the street outside her house acting suspiciously, Cathy fears for her own family s safety and demands some answers from Harrison s social worker. The social worker tells Cathy a little but what she says is very disturbing . How is this woman connected to Harrison and can she answer the questions that will affect Harrison s whole life?"

This book presents an innovative relational and community based therapeutic model to ensure children's essential attachment needs are catered for in intensive mental health care. The text combines an overview of theory relating to attachment and trauma before laying out a model for working with children and adolescents in an attachment-informed way. The approach applies to a diverse range of settings - from in-patient psychiatric settings, through to schools-based programs, and provides the reader with the knowledge and guidance they need to introduce the approach in their own service. It also addresses the complexities of working with specific clinical populations, including children with ADHD, ASD, RAD and psychosis. Accessible for entry level clinical caretakers, yet sophisticated enough for clinical supervisors, this book is essential reading for professionals looking to improve the effectiveness of child and adolescent treatment programs.

Written by experienced clinicians, this book provides an exploration of how educators can easily use Dyadic Developmental Practice (DDP) to help vulnerable pupils to thrive. DDP is an intervention model for children and young people who have experienced trauma in past relationships. Safety and security is increased through offering emotional connection in a variety of ways, helped by the attitude of PACE (playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy). The model gives children the opportunity to experience the relationships necessary for healthy development, emotional regulation and resilience. This book gives educators all the tools they need to embed DDP into their practice, including building connections with students, partnerships with parents, understanding the theory behind DDP, and overcoming the challenges of implementing it in practice. These principles can be adapted to support pupils at all levels.

Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece is the first book to study the biopolitics of the mass adoption movement of children and youngsters from Greece to the U.S. starting in the 1950s. The children of Greece were caught in the crossfire of a tumultuous civil war, as both sides of the conflict effected the forced removal of children to internment camps and schools of various kinds. The book presents a committed quest to unravel and document the postwar adoption networks that placed more than 3,000 Greek children in the U.S.United States, in a movement accelerated by the aftermath of the Greek Civil War and by the new conditions of the global Cold War. Greek-to-American adoptions and, regrettably, their transgressions, provided the blueprint for the first large-scale international adoptions, before a mass phenomenon typically associated with Asian children. The story of these Greek postwar and Cold War adoptions, whose procedures ranged from legal to highly irregular, has never been told or analyzed before. This book aims to fill that gap, also for the uncounted adoptees and their descendants whose lives are still affected today.

How can we help heal children who have been abused or neglected? Healing Child Trauma Through Restorative Parenting details how children can be helped to recover with the use of Restorative Parenting, an innovative model informed by psychological and neurological understanding of trauma and its effects. It explains the critical role that people, relationships and the environment play in a child's recovery. It shows what constitutes a therapeutic environment, whereby a child experiences therapy not as one-to-one sessions but as a lived experience. The authors show how other components of the model - building therapeutic relationships, promoting positive education and encouraging clinically informed life style choices - are intimately linked, each critical to the re-parenting which the child undergoes. This book will be welcomed by professionals working with children, including those in residential, health and foster care, psychology, education and health, as well as those commissioning services. The models, concepts and practices are transferable to public, private and charitable agencies.

Caleb invites you on a journey to learn about attachment and trauma in this interactive story and workbook intended for children and the adults who support them. Caleb shares his own story about healing from his difficult early experiences, and encourages readers to join him in sharing their stories and completing the healing activities included in the book. Caleb's Healing Story identifies the common challenges that children who have experienced attachment or trauma issues will encounter and offers easy to use interventions in the form of activities and worksheets. Fully illustrated, it is suitable for children aged 5-14, as well as their family, friends and those working with children who present with these issues. It is the ideal companion to A Safe Place for Caleb, by the same author, which outlines theories, definitions and strategies for addressing attachment and trauma-related disorders.

In the much-anticipated follow-up to Sunday Times bestseller Trapped, foster carer Rosie Lewis tells the heartbreaking true story of 13-year-old Zadie. When the young teenage girl runs away from home and is discovered hiding on the city streets by the police, it is clear that all is not as it should be. Taught to believe that Westerners should not be trusted, when Zadie is initially delivered into the experienced hands of foster carer Rosie she is polite and well-behaved, but understandably suspicious of the family around her. Through Rosie's support and understanding, gradually Zadie begins to settle into her new surroundings, but loyalty to her relatives, and fear of bringing shame on those around her, prevents her from confessing the horrifying truth about her troubled past. When the shocking truth finally emerges, Rosie and her family can hardly believe that Zadie had managed to keep the shocking secrets to herself for so long.

This series of six picture books guides children through a range of issues relating to fostering and adoption by focusing on the experiences of a five-year-old girl called Kirsty and her magic doll Billy. Billy talks to Kirsty, explains what is happening to her and explores Kirsty's feelings during her journey from an abusive home to a loving adoptive family. In the series, Billy says... * Book 1 "It's not your fault" explores children's feelings when they are living in neglectful families. * Book 2 "You should be taken care of" covers fears around moving into foster care. * Book 3 "Foster carers can help" explains what happens when children move into foster care. * Book 4 "What you think matters" covers courts and the planning process. * Book 5 "Waiting can be hard" focuses on waiting for an adoptive family. * Book 6 "Living as a new family takes practice" explores living with an adoptive family. This set is ideal for use by social workers, foster carers, adoptive parents and counsellors to help children aged 3-8 to understand the fostering and adoption process and to cope with the complex feelings that can arise.

Many adopted or foster children have complex, troubling, often painful pasts. This book provides parents and professionals with sound advice on how to communicate effectively about difficult and sensitive topics, providing concrete strategies for helping adopted and foster children make sense of the past so they can enjoy a healthy, well-adjusted future. Approximately one of every four adopted children will have adjustment challenges related to their separation from the birth family, earlier trauma, attachment difficulties, and/or issues stemming from the adoption process. Common complicating issues of adopted children are feelings of rejection, abandonment, or confusion about their origins. While many foster and adoptive parents and even many professionals are reluctant to communicate openly about birth histories, silence only adds to the child's confusion and pain. This revised and significantly expanded edition of the award-winning Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child equips parents with the knowledge and tools they need to communicate with their adopted or foster child about their past. Revisions include coverage of significant new research and information regarding the importance of understanding the child's trauma history to his or her well-being and successful adjustment in his foster or adoptive family. The authors answer such questions as: How do I share difficult information about my child's adoption in a sensitive manner? When is the right time to tell my child the whole truth? How do I obtain more information on my child's history? Detailed descriptions of actual cases help the parent or caregiver find ways to discover the truth (particularly in closed and international adoption cases), organize the information, and explain the details of the past gently to a toddler, child, or young adult who may find it frightening or confusing. Presents age-appropriate, specific guidelines that make an intimidating and potentially uncomfortable task straightforward, organized, and manageable Serves to remove the fear of how to make sense of the past for foster and adopted children of all ages, allowing parents, teachers, counselors, and other caregivers to have open, honest, and beneficial dialogues with children and teens with tough pasts Explains how children's development is impacted by separation from their birth families and identifies the issues generated by the trauma occurring before, during, and after the separation Reveals powerful insights gained from the story of one of the first African American children to be adopted in the United States by a white family-an individual who is now middle-aged

She doesn't want this baby. She can't look after this baby. She will never be able to love this baby. Little Abby's life begins badly, then just gets worse. Now foster mum Louise and her family must help her deal with the truth of her past to give her the chance of a future. Abby's Story is the latest book in the series THROWN AWAY CHILDREN by author and foster mum Louise Allen.

Finally, a parenting book which demystifies the latest thinking on neurobiology, physiology and trauma and explains what the research means for the everyday life of parents of children who hurt. As experts on adoption and fostering who are adoptive parents themselves, Caroline Archer and Christine Gordon explain how this knowledge can help parents to better understand and care for their child. They explain why conventional parenting techniques are often not helpful for the child who has experienced early trauma and explore why therapeutic reparenting is the only way to help repair the unhealthy neurobiological and behavioural patterns which affect the child's development. They do not shy away from how difficult reparenting is, acknowledging how hard it can be to recognise our own fallibility as parents and to change our own parenting patterns. The authors also offer hard-won advice on a range of common parenting flashpoints - from defusing arguments and aggression to negotiating bedtimes and breaks in routine, and making sure that special occasions are remembered for all the right reasons. Reparenting the Child Who Hurts is a humane, no-nonsense survival guide for any parent caring for a child with developmental trauma or attachment difficulties, and will also provide information and insights for social workers, teachers, counsellors and other professionals involved in supporting adoptive and foster families.

How do you teach a mother to love her child, when she's still a child herself? Jeanie Doyle nurtures, teaches and cares for young and dysfunctional mums, showing them how to care for their newborn babies, sometimes even taking the mother into foster care before the baby is born. The first in a brand-new series of books by the 'foster super-gran', Wicked Girl is the shocking true story of the very first case Jeanie dealt with: a baby girl who was found abandoned on the steps of a church just before Christmas. While the 14-year-old mother was tracked down, Jeanie took her little daughter into her own care. But while she tried to help the two of them heal and bond, the terrible truth about the baby's father was revealed... A twist on the standard Cathy Glass books, Wicked Girl offers Jeanie's rare perspective of fostering young women alongside their babies. Will mother and daughter be reunited for good, or will the vulnerable young mother make the heartbreaking decision that they are both better off apart?

How do you create an adoption portfolio that will show prospective birth families why you are the perfect adoptive parent for their child? Do you know which pictures to include and which to leave out? Do you really understand what prospective birth parents care about? This is a step-by-step guide to creating a portfolio which will reflect your personality, make a strong positive impact and encourage the right birth family to choose you. Madeleine Melcher shares the secrets she has discovered over years of creating successful portfolios, profiles and prospective birth parent letters. She combines simple and effective design ideas and tips for writing and layout with a deep understanding of how portfolios work. Importantly, this book also draws extensively on the experiences of birth mothers and the professionals who support them to examine what they are really looking for, featuring questions which prospective birth mothers will want to see answered in your portfolio. From text to design, this guide will give you the confidence to create a portfolio that sets you apart. It is essential reading for prospective adoptive parents, as well as adoption attorneys and adoption agencies advising those hoping to adopt.

'The authentic inside track... Gripping' Lemn Sissay 'An important and hugely powerful book... So inspiring, I loved The State of It' Neil Morrissey 'Incredibly compelling' Denise Welch CAN WE FIX HOW WE LOOK AFTER CHILDREN IN CARE? Government cuts, unregulated care homes, inadequate staff training - campaigner and care home consultant Chris Wild has seen it all. The low standards and frequent abuse of children in care has long been a focal point of his loud message: we are failing our young people and something needs to change. Chris delves deep into the lives of care home kids, from experiences with county lines, drugs, trafficking, knife crime, gang violence to child exploitation and sexual abuse. He tells the stories of the voiceless, the children who have been left behind, compounded by his own experiences of growing up in care. How is the care system failing our young people and controlling just who and what they can become? What help do we really give children after their time in care is over, left to fend for themselves? Is it too late to fix the state of it? URGENT AND CRITICAL, THE STATE OF IT WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK YOU READ THIS YEAR. In support of Become, the charity for children in care and young care leavers, a charity registered in England and Wales, charity number 1010518.

What constitutes a family? Tracing the dramatic evolution of Americans' answer to this question over the past century, "Kinship by Design" provides the fullest account to date of modern adoption's history.
Beginning in the early 1900s, when children were still transferred between households by a variety of unregulated private arrangements, Ellen Herman details efforts by the U.S. Children's Bureau and the Child Welfare League of America to establish adoption standards in law and practice. She goes on to trace Americans' shifting ideas about matching children with physically or intellectually similar parents, revealing how research in developmental science and technology shaped adoption as it navigated the nature-nurture debate.
Concluding with an insightful analysis of the revolution that ushered in special needs, transracial, and international adoptions, "Kinship by Design" ultimately situates the practice as both a different way to make a family and a universal story about love, loss, identity, and belonging. In doing so, this volume provides a new vantage point from which to view twentieth-century America, revealing as much about social welfare, statecraft, and science as it does about childhood, family, and private life.