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.

The second book from Sunday Times bestselling author Casey Watson.

Two weeks after saying farewell to her first foster child, Casey is asked to look after Sophia, a troubled 12-year-old with a sad past. Sophia s actions are disturbing and provocative and, before long, Casey and her family find themselves in a dark and dangerous situation.

Two years ago Sophia s mother had a terrible accident. Sophia has been in care ever since.

Right away, Casey feels something isn t right. Sophia s a well-developed girl, who looks more like 18 than 12. She only seems to have eyes and ears for men, and treats all women with contempt and disgust. And she has everyone around her jumping through hoops.

Over time, as more details begin to emerge about Sophia s past, it becomes clear that her behaviour is a front for an early life filled with pain and suffering. But although Casey feels she is gradually breaking through to Sophia and getting her to open up about things she has never spoken about before, her violence is threatening the safety of the whole family, forcing Casey to question whether she can really handle this lost and damaged girl.

Both shocking and inspiring, this true story will shed new light on the extreme and sometimes dangerous nature of foster care."

A heartbreaking, powerful true story from Britain's most-loved foster carer, perfect for fans of Cathy Glass and Casey Watson. When a terrified young girl is discovered hiding in the back of a lorry, she is quickly taken into the care of social services. Arriving on the doorstep of foster carer Maggie Hartley, she is painfully thin, bruised and unable to speak a word of English. What atrocities has she escaped to bring her here? Woken each night by the screams of Halima's nightmares, Maggie is desperate to reach this damaged young girl. But without a shared language, she fears that she may never uncover the truth behind her terror. Can Maggie help Halima recover from the horrors she has endured, and help her build a new life for herself? Or will Halima forever be haunted by the ghosts of her past?

Numerous reasons cause adopted teenagers to reconnect with their birth family via Facebook, creating new challenges for adoption today and tomorrow. Incorporating theory, practice, anecdotes, metaphors, diagrams, models and case studies, this accessible book, written by an experienced adopter, clearly explains these complex issues. It maps connections between trauma, child development, grief, adolescence, contact, truth telling and parenting styles; offering fresh perspectives and strategies for parents and professionals.

In Paris during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the practice of adopting children was strongly discouraged by cultural, religious, and legal authorities on the grounds that it disrupted family blood lines. In fact, historians have assumed that adoption had generally not been practiced in France or in the rest of Europe since late antiquity. Challenging this view, Kristin Gager brings to light evidence showing how married couples and single men and women from the artisan neighborhoods in early modern Paris did manage to adopt children as their legal heirs. In so doing, she offers a new, richly detailed portrait of family life, civil law, and public assistance in Paris, and reveals how citizens forged a wide variety of family forms in defiance of social, cultural, and legal norms.

Gager bases her work on documents ranging from previously unexplored notarized contracts of adoption to court cases, theological treatises, and literary texts. She examines two main patterns of adoption: those privately arranged between households and those of destitute children from the Parisian foundling hospice and the HAtel-Dieu. Gager argues that although customary law rejected adoption and promoted an exclusively biological model of the family, there existed an alternative domestic culture based on a variety of "fictive" ties. Gager connects her arguments to current debates about adoption and the nature of the family in Europe and the United States.

Originally published in 1996.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905."

Practical techniques for guiding parents through the stages of adoption and beyond

"This book makes a significant contribution to both a greater understanding of adoption and its complex dynamic constellations as well as to serving those who are or come across adoption families, many of whom count on us adoption-informed mental health professionals to clarify and facilitate the challenges they face."
--From the Foreword by Henri Parens, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Thomas Jefferson University, Training and Supervising Analyst, Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia

"What most people don't know about adoption could fill a book--and this is the book. Finally sorting myth from science, "Working with Adoptive Parents" will give therapists, and quite a few nonprofessionals considering adoption, the real story of what it means to make this momentous choice. Better yet, it does so without letting the data speak in place of the parents themselves, in all their fear, doubt, and joy."
--Jesse Green, author of "The Velveteen Father: An Unexpected Journey to Parenthood"

Editors Virginia Brabender and April Fallon are clinical psychologists and also adoptive parents whose families are acquainted with both the uncertainty and joy of adoption. In "Working with Adoptive Parents," they offer an in-depth treatment of the distinctive needs, feelings, impulses, expectations, and conflicts that adoptive parents experience through the stages of adoption and beyond. This volume offers a comprehensive picture of adoption through an exploration of the experiences and developmental processes of the adoptive parent.

Featuring contributions from mental health professionals whose careers have focused on work with families through the adoption process, this unique book: Covers the theory, research, and practice of adoptive parenting throughout the life cycleExplores the issues unique to the adoptive mother and adoptive father as they traverse the stages of parentingOffers a close look at families with special needs childrenAcknowledges and explores the great diversity among adoptive families and the kinship networks in which they are embeddedExamines attachment issues between adoptive parent and child

Providing a framework for therapists to conceptualize their work with adoptive parents, "Working with Adoptive Parents "clarifies and facilitates the journey that many of these families face.

Life isn't all fairytales and glass slippers... 'Cinderella', I wish! is the powerful true story of Dominique DeVeraux's life. Beginning with her early childhood as a young black child living with loving white foster parents, Dominique is content and adored. But when Nanny dies suddenly, Dominique is taken away from the loving home that she knew and thrust into a world of trouble. Dumped in a new home with strangers, Dominique's life turns to one of difficulty and misery. In her fight for happiness she faces more and more abusers, domestic violence, rape and murder. Ploughing on regardless, Dominique chooses love as her weapon and shield. In this story of courage, our protagonist rises above the challenges she faces to celebrate life and to love herself indubitably.

Zara H. Phillips seemed to live a charmed life - backing singer to the stars with an incredible career here and across the Atlantic - but her smile masked a difficult childhood and the reality that she was adopted as a baby in the 60s. Her life soon spiralled and as a teenager she suffered from drug and alcohol addiction, as she struggled to find her birth parents and her true identity. Somebody's Daughter is a fascinating and revealing account of how a beautiful woman's life has been dominated by her adoption and how it has affected her and those around her. Hard-hitting and emotional, Zara's memoir explores the needs of adopted children, with her characteristic warmth and wit, and the true journey it takes to find where you belong.

Describes what being a foster mom is really like, the effects of foster care on the whole family, and how the foster care system fails severely abused children. Foster children are society's throwaway kids, the children no one wants-until someone finally does. Saving Michael provides an inside look Keri Vellis' struggle to secure the best possible services for two severely abused and traumatized siblings. Some doors opened, but too many closed during her ten-year journey as the voice for children in her care who have no voice of their own within the current system. Readers get a glimpse of Keri and her family's day-to-day life as she went from mother of three to adoptive mother of three more children and then the temporary caregiver of another seventeen. Saving Michael delves into issues bigger than one family's experiences and determination. Now an author and child advocate, Vellis provides a profoundly personal look into what it takes to get the best for each of the children she's had in her care. Her journey started from the first day of her first foster care situation and the urgent need for diagnoses and treatment. It continued despite the many obstacles thrown in her path to securing services for the vulnerable children in her family's care. Along the way, she details the many ups and downs, challenges and triumphs, her whole family experienced as part of the foster care system. All children deserve permanent, safe homes. The effort to obtain those for every child is a tremendous one not for the faint-hearted. But the rewards reverberate for everyone when it works. Follow Keri and her family on this heartfelt journey of love and persistence.

All families of children affected by trauma are on a journey, and this book will help to guide you and your family on your journey from trauma to trust. Sarah Naish shares her own experiences of adopting five siblings. She describes how to use therapeutic parenting - a deeply nurturing parenting style - to overcome common challenges when raising children who have experienced trauma. The book describes a series of difficult episodes for her family, exploring both parent's and child's experiences of the same events - with the child's experience written by a former fostered child - and in doing so reveals the very good reasons why traumatized children behave as they do. The book explores the misunderstandings that grow between parents and their children, and provides comfort to the reader - you are not the only family going through this! Full of insights from a family and others who have really been there, this book gives you advice and strategies to help you and your family thrive.

In 1990, disturbing television footage emerged showing the inhumane conditions in which children in Romanian institutions were living. Viewers were shocked that the babies were silent. The so-called 'Romanian orphans' became subjects of several international research studies. In parallel, Romania had to reform its child protection system in order to become a member of the European Union. This book sheds light on the lived experiences of these children, who had become adults by the time the country joined the EU. Uniquely, the book brings together the accounts of those who stayed in institutions, those who grew up in foster care and those who were adopted, both in Romania and internationally. Their narratives challenge stereotypes about these types of care.

This innovative book brings together a wide range of therapeutic approaches, techniques and models to outline recent developments in the practice of supporting children in out-of-home care. It sheds light on the significance of schools, sports and peer relationships in the lives of traumatized children. It also draws particular attention to the vital importance of taking into account children's cultural heritage, and to the growing prevalence of relative care. Each chapter is set out by acclaimed and world-renowned contributors' specific approach, such as Dan Hughes and his work on conceptual maps and Cathy Malchiodi and her research on creative interventions, and gives practical ways to support children and carers. It also includes contributions from Bruce Perry, Allan Schore and Martin Teicher. This comprehensive volume will open new avenues for understanding how the relationship between child and carer can create opportunities for change and healing.

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?

Officially supported and endorsed by the Theraplay Institute, this handbook provides concrete assistance from international experts on deepening Theraplay knowledge and skills in much-needed and requested areas of practice. With up-to-date information on Theraplay theory, applications and implementation, the chapters cover Theraplay with infants, toddlers, school aged children and adolescents. Home, school, and out-patient mental health settings are all covered in detail, as well as dyadic and group forms of Theraplay. Client issues include interpersonal violence, LGBTQ families, anxiety, child sexual abuse, transitioning from foster care to adoption, and deaf and hard of hearing. Additionally, extensive information is provided about working with caregivers including discussion of their own attachment history, practice sessions before including the child, and regular caregiver-only sessions to process and strengthen Theraplay treatment. This book is essential for any Theraplay practitioner wanting to ensure their approach is fully informed and carefully tailored to meet their client's needs.

This brief examines the U.S. foster care system and seeks to explain why the foster care system functions as it does and how it can be improved to serve the best interest of children. It defines and evaluates key challenges that undermine child safety and well-being in the current foster care system. Chapters highlight the competing values and priorities of the system as well as the pros and cons for the use of foster care. In addition, chapters assess whether the performance objectives in which states are evaluated by the federal government are sufficient to achieve positive health and well-being outcomes for children who experience foster care. Finally, it offers recommendations for improving the system and maximizing positive outcomes. Topics featured in this brief include: Legal aspects of removal and placement of children in foster care. The effectiveness of prior efforts to reform foster care. The regulation and quality of foster homes. Support for youth aging out of the foster care system. Racial and ethnic disparities in the foster care system. Foster Care and the Best Interests of the Child is a must-have resource for policy makers and related professionals, graduate students, and researchers in child and school psychology, family studies, public health, social work, law/criminal justice, and sociology.

In "Somebody's Children," Laura Briggs examines the social and cultural forces--poverty, racism, economic inequality, and political violence--that have shaped transracial and transnational adoption in the United States during the second half of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first. Focusing particularly on the experiences of those who have lost their children to adoption, Briggs analyzes the circumstances under which African American and Native mothers in the United States and indigenous and poor women in Latin America have felt pressed to give up their children for adoption or have lost them involuntarily.

The dramatic expansion of transracial and transnational adoption since the 1950s, Briggs argues, was the result of specific and profound political and social changes, including the large-scale removal of Native children from their parents, the condemnation of single African American mothers in the context of the civil rights struggle, and the largely invented "crack babies" scare that inaugurated the dramatic withdrawal of benefits to poor mothers in the United States. In Guatemala, El Salvador, and Argentina, governments disappeared children during the Cold War and then imposed neoliberal economic regimes with U.S. support, making the circulation of children across national borders easy and often profitable. Concluding with an assessment of present-day controversies surrounding gay and lesbian adoptions and the struggles of immigrants fearful of losing their children to foster care, Briggs challenges celebratory or otherwise simplistic accounts of transracial and transnational adoption by revealing some of their unacknowledged causes and costs.

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?

Based on a hugely successful US model, the Seven Core Issues in Adoption is the first conceptual framework of its kind to offer a unifying lens that was inclusive of all individuals touched by the adoption experience. The Seven Core Issues are Loss, Rejection, Shame/Guilt, Grief, Identity, Intimacy, and Mastery/Control. The book expands the model to be inclusive of adoption and all forms of permanency: adoption, foster care, kinship care, donor insemination and surrogacy. Attachment and trauma are integrated with the Seven Core Issues model to address and normalize the additional tasks individuals and families will encounter. The book views the Seven Core Issues from a range of perspectives including: multi-racial, LGBTQ, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, African-American, International, openness, search and reunion, and others. This essential guide introduces each Core Issue, its impact on individuals, offering techniques for growth and healing.

In Paris during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the practice of adopting children was strongly discouraged by cultural, religious, and legal authorities on the grounds that it disrupted family blood lines. In fact, historians have assumed that adoption had generally not been practiced in France or in the rest of Europe since late antiquity. Challenging this view, Kristin Gager brings to light evidence showing how married couples and single men and women from the artisan neighborhoods in early modern Paris did manage to adopt children as their legal heirs. In so doing, she offers a new, richly detailed portrait of family life, civil law, and public assistance in Paris, and reveals how citizens forged a wide variety of family forms in defiance of social, cultural, and legal norms. Gager bases her work on documents ranging from previously unexplored notarized contracts of adoption to court cases, theological treatises, and literary texts. She examines two main patterns of adoption: those privately arranged between households and those of destitute children from the Parisian foundling hospice and the Hotel-Dieu. Gager argues that although customary law rejected adoption and promoted an exclusively biological model of the family, there existed an alternative domestic culture based on a variety of "fictive" ties. Gager connects her arguments to current debates about adoption and the nature of the family in Europe and the United States. Originally published in 1996. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Why will nobody give little Grace a home? Foster carer Angela is determined to find the answer.

Shunned by her mother, ten-year-old Grace has spent most of her childhood in care, moving from one foster home to the next. Each placement breaks down due to her ‘disruptive' behaviour, yet Grace seems such a friendly and well-meaning little girl. Specialist foster carer Angela is determined to help end her heartbreak, but what is the key to saving Grace?

The Girl with the Suitcase is the seventh book from well-loved foster carer and Sunday Times bestselling author Angela Hart. This is a true story that shares the tale of one of the many children she has fostered over the years. Angela's stories show the difference that quiet care, a watchful eye and sympathetic ear can make to children who have had more difficult upbringings than most.

Barby Keel is used to all manner of creatures arriving at the door of the Barby Keel Animal Sanctuary where she lives and works, deep within the Sussex countryside. Nothing can prepare her for the arrival of Teddy, however, a neglected, traumatised puppy who is dumped at the gates of the sanctuary in a filthy box, terrified and desperate for someone to love. Despite his scruffy appearance, Barby can't help but feel a spark of affection for the overgrown puppy. But with Barby living in a caravan along with her four other dogs, she knows in her heart of hearts that Teddy deserves a more stable forever home. Wiping away tears, she waves Teddy away to his new life with a young couple, knowing that she's done what's best for the animal. But barely a few days later, Teddy is returned to the sanctuary, his new family unable to cope with his boisterous behaviour and his ever-growing size. Barby tries desperately to re-home him, but Teddy is rejected over and over again by his new foster families. Anxious and terrified of being separated from her, Barby is now faced with the impossible task of working through the traumas of Teddy's past to help the young dog. But when she receives the devastating news that her beloved younger brother has received a shocking diagnosis, Barby's life as she knows it is thrown into disarray. Can the love of a gentle giant help Barby through the unimaginable? And will Barby's unwavering devotion set Teddy free from the suffering he has endured?

No matter how positive the intent of prospective parents, international adoption is fraught with emotional, medical, administrative, linguistic, and geopolitical issues. And while a wide range of professionals supports adopted children and their families in adjusting to the inherent changes and disruptions, the pediatrician's tasks--identifying and treating existing health problems and preventing numerous others--are particularly complex. International Adoption and Clinical Practice equips pediatricians with a comprehensive set of tools for establishing a long-term care plan and creating interventions to promote healthy development. This concise guide overviews the intricacies of the international adoption process and how they can affect the pediatrician's job, from potential pitfalls in collecting medical data from a child's birth country to tracking health concerns into adolescence and young adulthood. Developmental and behavioral issues including attachment, language acquisition, identity development, and consequences of abuse and neglect are also examined in this context. Figures, tables, and reference lists complement current information on topics such as: Epidemiology and demographics of international adoption. Pre-adoption evaluation of medical records. Guidelines for diagnostic testing, screening, laboratory evaluations, and immunizations. Common mental health issues faced by adopted children and their families. Long-term and adult outcomes of international adoption. Relevant policy issues and areas for future study. Every child deserves a safe and healthy home, and International Adoption and Clinical Practice gives pediatricians an in-depth framework for helping to make this possible as children make the transition to a new country and the next stage of their lives.