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.

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

From Torey Hayden, the number one Sunday Times bestselling author of One Child comes Lost Girl, a poignant and deeply moving account of a lost little girl and an extraordinary educational psychologist's courage and determination.

Jessie is nine years old and looks like the perfect little girl, with red hair, green eyes and a beguiling smile. She even has a talent for drawing gorgeous and intricate pictures. But Jessie also knows how to get her own way and will lie, scream, shout and hurt to get just exactly what she wants.

Her parents say they can't take her back, and her social workers struggle to deal with her destructive behaviour and wild mood swings. After her chaotic passage through numerous foster placements, Jessie has finally received a diagnosis of an attachment disorder. Attachment disorders arise when children are deprived of the all-important close bonds with trustworthy adults that allow them to develop emotionally and thrive. Finally educational psychologist Torey Hayden is called in to help. Torey agrees to weekly meetings with Jessie to try and uncover why she is acting out. Torey's gentle care and attention reveal shocking truths behind Jessie's lies. Can Torey and the other social workers help to provide the consistent loving care that has so far been missing in Jessie’s life, or will she push them away too?

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 Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of Damaged tells the true story of Donna, who came into foster care aged ten, having been abused, victimised and rejected by her family.

Donna had been in foster care with her two young brothers for three weeks when she is abruptly moved to Cathy s. When Donna arrives she is silent, withdrawn and walks with her shoulders hunched forward and her head down. Donna is clearly a very haunted child and refuses to interact with Cathy s children Adrian and Paula.

After patience and encouragement from Cathy, Donna slowly starts to talk and tells Cathy that she blames herself for her and her brothers being placed in care. The social services were aware that Donna and her brothers had been neglected by their alcoholic mother, but no one realised the extent of the abuse they were forced to suffer. The truth of the physical torment she was put through slowly emerges, and as Donna grows to trust Cathy she tells her how her mother used to make her wash herself with wire wool so that she could get rid of her skin colour as her mother was so ashamed that Donna was mixed race.

The psychological wounds caused by the bullying she received also start to resurface when Donna starts reenacting the ways she was treated at home by hitting and bullying Paula, so much so that Cathy can t let Donna out of her sight.

As the pressure begins to mount on Cathy to help this child, things start to get worse and Donna begins behaving in erratic ways, trashing her bedroom and being regularly abusive towards Cathy s children. Cathy begins to wonder if she can find a way to help this child or if Donna s scars run too deep."

Adopted children who have suffered trauma and neglect have structural brain change, as well as specific developmental and emotional needs. They need particular care to build attachment and overcome trauma. This book provides professionals with the knowledge and advice they need to help adoptive families build positive relationships and help children heal. It explains how neglect, trauma and prenatal exposure to drugs or alcohol affect brain and emotional development, and explains how to recognise these effects and attachment issues in children. It also provides ways to help children settle into new families and home and school approaches that encourage children to flourish. The book also includes practical resources such as checklists, questionnaires, assessments and tools for professionals including social workers, child welfare workers and mental health workers. This book will be an invaluable resource for professionals working with adoptive families and will support them in nurturing positive family relationships and resilient, happy children. It is ideal as a child welfare text or reference book and will also be of interest to parents.

When Maggie's latest placement arrives on her doorstep, it is clear that Sean, Dougie and their big sister Mary have been through unspeakable traumas in their short?lives. Violent and malnourished,?the siblings have been left to fend for themselves by their drug-addicted parents. Maggie must use all of her skills and experience as a foster carer to help these damaged siblings to learn to be children again. With much love, care and patience, their behaviour gradually starts to improve and social services start looking for a forever family for them. But alarm bells start to ring when Maggie meets the couple who have been matched to adopt the siblings. It is clear that they're looking for the perfect, ready-made family, and they're not going to get it with these vulnerable brothers and sister. Despite raising her concerns with social services, Maggie is powerless to prevent the adoption from going ahead and she must put aside her own fears to help the siblings settle in with their new parents. But she can't shake the feeling of dread as she waves them goodbye. A few months later, Maggie's worst nightmares come true when she learns that the children have been handed back to the care of social services following the breakdown of the adoption. Maggie must fight to get the children returned to her, but is it too late to undo the damage that has been done?

A new challenge faces foster carer Maggie Hartley: this time it's not a child that's at risk, it's her mother. Can Maggie help Hailey to escape her abusive husband, and reunite her with her baby daughter? A heartbreaking true story perfect for fans of Cathy Glass, Casey Watson, Angela Hart and Rosie Lewis. ***** A TRUE STORY BY THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR MAGGIE HARTLEY When six-week-old Jasmine is placed in her care, foster mother Maggie Hartley is delighted to have a baby in the house again. Maggie's been given temporary custody of Jasmine after social services were concerned that the baby was failing to thrive and develop. With Maggie's love and care, Jasmine soon flourishes into a healthy, happy baby - but it is clear that all is not quite as it seems with her mum, Hailey. Timid, pale and withdrawn, Hailey looks as though she is carrying the weight of the world onher shoulders. Maggie fears she may be suffering from postnatal depression until late one night she discovers Hailey on her doorstep, her body battered and broken, her spirit crushed. Hailey admits that her husband has been abusing her for years, but this revelation places Maggie in an awful situation: there's no way Hailey can regain custody of Jasmine until her husband is off the scene. But after years of physical and emotional abuse, can Hailey find the strength to leave him? An uplifting and ultimately redemptive story by Sunday Times bestselling foster carer Maggie Hartley. Perfect for fans of Cathy Glass, Casey Watson, Angela Hart and Rosie Lewis.

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

This book, which updates and expands the third edition published by Springer in 2015, explains, compares and evaluates the social and legal functions of adoption within a range of selected jurisdictions and on an international basis. From the standpoint of the development of adoption in England & Wales, and the changes currently taking place there, it considers the process as it has evolved in other countries. It also identifies themes of commonality and difference in the experience of adoption in a common law context, comparing and contrasting this with the experience under civil law and in Islamic countries and with that of indigenous people. This book includes new chapters examining adoption in Russia, Korea and Romania. Further, it uses the international conventions and the associated ECtHR case law to benchmark developments in national law, policy and practice and to facilitate a cross-cultural comparative analysis.

A tiny puppy, neglected and abused, and the foster carer determined to heal her. When tiny puppy Princess is dumped at the doors of the Barby Keel Animal Sanctuary by her owners, the brown and white boxer is suffering from horrendous injuries resulting from a car accident. Having been operated on by an incompetent vet, her front leg has been amputated in a botched surgery, leaving her weak and barely able to stand. With gentle love and care, Barby and her team at the Sanctuary work hard to give this brave little dog a second lease of life. Playful and loving, despite her difficult start in life, Princess is desperate for a forever family to call her own. But Barby is heartbroken as she watches Princess get rejected over and over again by potential owners who are put off by her terrible injury. Will Princess ever find someone to love her?

A sensitive picture book to help ease the anxieties of foster children aged 4 to 10 entering placement. In A Different Home, Jessie tells us her story of being placed in foster care. At first she is worried and has lots of questions. The new home is not like her old home -- she has a different bedroom, different clothes, and there's different food for breakfast. She also misses her family. When Jim and Debbie, her foster parents, answer her questions she begins to feel better and see that this different home is kind of nice. Written in simple language and fully illustrated in color, this storybook is designed to help children in care, or moving into care, to settle in and answer some of the questions they may have. Accompanied by notes for adults on how to use the story with children, it will be a useful book for foster parents and caseworkers, as well as social workers, teachers and anyone else working with children in foster care.

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.

Designed as a professional complement to Sarah Naish's bestselling A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting, this tried and tested resource offers practical tools for all professionals supporting therapeutic families. Based on the latest research, and with photocopiable worksheets, pro formas and charts to use with parents, these tools will help you to build supportive and stable relationships with families and reduce family breakdown. The resource is structured into three parts: 1. The Trauma Tracker Tool - designed to support the stability of the family and to predict possible incidents by providing an understanding of the presenting behaviours in the context of the child's history 2. The Developmental Foundation Planner - to help professionals to identify and address unmet developmental needs in a structured way as soon as a child is placed with a family and thereby help reduce instances of family breakdown 3. The Behaviour - Assessment of Impact and Resolution Tool (BAIRT) - which enables practitioners of most levels to engage in a step by step intervention, breaking down the most complex behaviours with a problem solving supportive process, thereby reducing the effects of blocked care and enabling engagement with parents in an honest, positive process. Simple to use, and easy to implement, these tools will enable you to create therapeutic, trauma-informed assessments, intervention and support.

When I am ready, I need you to talk to me and help me understand my feelings...' This reassuring story helps children aged 5+ with attachment issues to understand their feelings, open up to a caring adult and learn how to choose positive behaviours. Ben is made up of lots of different 'parts' - to name a few, he has happy, caring, angry, excited, hugging and yelling parts. Ben explains how all these parts are okay, and that a caring adult can help you to understand and manage them more easily. This book also features activities to help children talk about their feelings, and a simple introduction to attachment theory for adults.

Sharing the daily struggles of children and families residing in transitional situations (homelessness or because of risk of homelessness, being connected with the child welfare system, or being new immigrants in temporary housing), this text recommends strategies for delivering mental health and intensive case-management services that maintain family integrity and stability. Based on work undertaken at the Center for the Vulnerable Child in Oakland, California, which has provided mental health and intensive case management to children and families living in transition for more than two decades, this volume outlines culturally sensitive practices to engage families that feel disrespected by the assistance of helping professionals or betrayed by their forgotten promises. Chapters discuss the Center's staffers' attempt to trace the influence of power, privilege, and beliefs on their education and their approach to treatment. Many U.S. children living in impoverished transitional situations are of color and come from generations of poverty, and the professionals they encounter are white, middle-class, and college-educated. The Center's work to identify the influences or obstacles interfering with services for this target population is therefore critical to formulating more effective treatment, interaction, and care.

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.

While many proponents of transracial adoption claim that American society is increasingly becoming "color-blind," a growing body of research reveals that for transracial adoptees of all backgrounds, racial identity does matter. Rhonda M. Roorda elaborates significantly on that finding, specifically studying the effects of the adoption of black and biracial children by white parents. She incorporates diverse perspectives on transracial adoption by concerned black Americans of various ages, including those who lived through Jim Crow and the Civil Rights era. All her interviewees have been involved either personally or professionally in the lives of transracial adoptees, and they offer strategies for navigating systemic racial inequalities while affirming the importance of black communities in the lives of transracial adoptive families. In Their Voices is for parents, child-welfare providers, social workers, psychologists, educators, therapists, and adoptees from all backgrounds who seek clarity about this phenomenon. The author examines how social attitudes and federal policies concerning transracial adoption have changed over the last several decades. She also includes suggestions on how to revise transracial adoption policy to better reflect the needs of transracial adoptive families. Perhaps most important, In Their Voices is packed with advice for parents who are invested in nurturing a positive self-image in their adopted children of color and the crucial perspectives those parents should consider when raising their children. It offers adoptees of color encouragement in overcoming discrimination and explains why a "race-neutral" environment, maintained by so many white parents, is not ideal for adoptees or their families.

A pause. 'Ah, Herr Fergusson. It's Frau Schwenk.' Our social worker, I now understood. 'Thank you for getting back to me. I'm calling because we have a little boy, four weeks old, who needs a family.' In 2018, after the introduction of marriage equality in Germany, Ben Fergusson and his German husband Tom became one of the first same-sex married couples to adopt in the country. In Tales from the Fatherland Fergusson reflects on his long journey to fatherhood and the social changes that enabled it. He uses his outsider status as both a gay father and a parent adopting in a foreign country to explore the history and sociology of fatherhood and motherhood around the world, queer parenting and adoption and, ultimately, the meaning of family and love. Tales from the Fatherland makes an impassioned case for the value of diversity in family life, arguing that diverse families are good for all families and that misogyny lies at the heart of many of the struggles of straight and queer families alike.

Adoption in the Digital Age explores the transformation of adoption due to social and digital media technologies. The most prolific of these changes can be seen within contact arrangements, particularly those that are not managed by an intermediary, between adopted minors and their biological kin. Within this shift, it becomes clear that this often-breached contact arrangement lends itself towards discussions about further openness within adoption. At the same time these technologies continue to document the way adopted individuals and their biological kin feel about themselves and each other. It is for these reasons that the Internet remains both a promise and threat. Samuels explores this in detail, highlighting that what it means to be adopted continues to evolve in the context of networked media cultures. Combining both theoretical discussions with the human experience of adoption, Adoption in the Digital Age will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including sociology, social work and cultural studies, as well as practitioners working with adoptive families and other members of the adoption triad connected and disconnected by adoption.

This book illuminates the hidden history of South Korean birth mothers involved in the 60-year-long practice of transnational adoption. The author presents a performance-based ethnography of maternity homes, a television search show, an internet forum, and an oral history collection to develop the concept of virtual mothering, a theoretical framework in which the birth mothers' experiences of separating from, and then reconnecting with, the child, as well as their painful,ambivalent narratives of adoption losses, are rendered, felt and registered. In this, the author refuses a universal notion of motherhood. Her critique of transnational adoption and its relentless effects on birth mothers' lives points to the everyday, normalized, gendered violence against working-class, poor, single mothers in South Korea's modern nation-state development and illuminates the biopolitical functions of transnational adoption in managing an "excess" population. Simultaneously, her creative analysis reveals a counter-public, and counter-history, proposing the collective grievances of birth mothers.

Life story work is an approach designed to enable traumatized children to explore, question and understand the past events of their lives. It aims to secure their future by strengthening attachment with their carers and providing the opportunity to develop a healthy sense of self and a feeling of wellbeing. This new edited volume documents innovative ways in which life story work has been developed. It draws on the work of nine life story centres based around the world and provides understanding and guidance for those working with children who have experienced trauma. The book illustrates current theory and practice and looks at how the approach is being used in a variety of settings including schools, intensive services, youth justice, and post-adoption support, highlighting its versatility. The importance of trauma-informed practice when working with vulnerable children is emphasised throughout, to help practitioners provide the best for the children in their care.