Can adoptive homes be found for non-white children? Will the children and their new families be happy together though of different race? Will they feel like a family? Originally published in 1970, this book is an account of a four-year project in which International Social Service of Great Britain joined with Bedford College, London University, to provide a first-class adoption service for babies born in Britain of diverse racial origins, and to study the outcome of the adoptions. In addition, a survey sought to determine the number of these children needing adoption homes, and a nationwide Adoption Resource Exchange was established to co-ordinate the efforts of the numerous agencies seeking parents for them. The author examines the project's experience of interracial adoption and relates it to all good adoption practice. This title was a welcome addition to the literature on adoption at the time. It would have been indispensable to social work practitioners and to students and lecturers on social work courses, but it was more than a handbook for those professionally involved. The book is well-informed and written with style and compassion: many readers will be fascinated by the way in which children of Asian, African, West-Indian and mixed parentage became integrated into English families in spite of racial differences. It is a success story. Today it can be read in its historical context. This book is a re-issue originally published in 1970. The language used is a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.

Based on field studies and in-depth interviews across rural and urban China, this book presents a socio-legal analysis of non-state organised care for some of China's most vulnerable children. The first full-length book to examine non-state organised care of modern China's 'lonely children' (gu'er), this book describes the context in which abandonment occurs and the care provided to children unlikely to be adopted because of their disability. It also explores the various faith groups and humanitarian workers providing this care in private orphanages and foster homes in response to perceived deficiencies in the state orphanage system, in the context of a broader societal shift from 'welfare statism' to 'welfare pluralism'. Formal law and policy has not always kept pace with this shift. This study demonstrates that, in practice, state regulation of these unauthorised care providers has mostly centred on local-level negotiations, hidden rules, and discretion, with mixed outcomes for children. However there has also been a recent shift towards tighter state control and clearer laws, policies, and standards. This timely research sheds light on the life paths and stories of today's 'lonely children' and the changing terrain of civil society, humanitarianism, policy-making, and state power in modern China. As such, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Asian and Chinese studies, law and society, NGOs, and comparative social and child welfare.

Narrative and Dramatic Approaches to Children's Life Story with Foster, Adoptive and Kinship Families outlines narrative and dramatic approaches to improve vulnerable family relationships. It provides a model which offers new ways for parents to practise communicating with their children and develop positive relationships. The book focuses on the Theatre of Attachment model - a highly innovative approach which draws from a strong theoretical base to demonstrate the importance of narrative and dramatic play for sharing the children's life history in the family home with their adoptive, foster or kinship parents. An emphasis is on having fun ways to work through complex feelings and divided loyalties, so as to secure attachment. This practice model aims to raise children's self-esteem and communication skills and to combat the profound effects of abuse, neglect on trauma on children's development. This book will be of great interest for academics, post-graduate students, universities and Training bodies, service providers and practitioners involved in social work and creative therapies, child psychologists, child psychotherapists and public and private adoption and foster care agencies.

This title was first published in 2001. A systematic study of non-relative adoption in Hong Kong. It examines the changing profile of non-relative adoption between 1987 and 1993, from the author's analysis of 486 case files. Characteristics of the adoptive parents, adopted children and their birth parents are presented in descriptive statistics. Three predictors of adoption stresses are identified. Adjustment in adoption and threat to parental entitlement were positively related to adoption stress; parental education was negatively related to it. Apart from being more stressful, Chinese adopters were found to be significantly different from non-Chinese for having a lower level of acknowledgement of difference. They are more worrisome over the relationship with birth parents, are less ready to reveal adoption, have better adoptive parent-child relationship, and possess higher levels of personal qualities. The findings of the study suggest that a post-legal adoption service is urgently needed.

Just when Casey thinks her foster care duties are done, she's asked to look after Sam, a troubled nine-year-old with a violent streak who drove his previous guardians to release him of their care. It soon unfolds, however, that this is no simple case. Determined to get to the root of Sam's behaviour, Casey is committed to uncover his mysterious past only to find out something far darker than she ever imagined... Having recently said goodbye to their last foster child, Miller, the Watson family are taking a bit of a break. But it's while Casey is having fun catching up with her friends that she receives a call from her new link worker. Social services are desperately trying to find a settled home for nine-year-old Sam, who has Autism and some serious behavioural problems. Removed from his mother less than a week ago, Sam has been staying with respite carers. But with two young children of their own, they now find themselves unable to hold on to the little boy as he is bullying them relentlessly. It's not an isolated situation, either. Apparently Sam's own siblings begged not to be placed with their older brother - they were both adamant that they were too afraid of him. The Watsons agree to accommodate Sam, who, despite his tiny stature, turns out to be quite the whirlwind - destroying anything and everything in his path. In addition to the outward behaviours, it quickly becomes evident that there is a much darker past that has blighted the boy's life. As Casey tries to get to the bottom of it, she discovers there are no files on Sam; only the testament of his previous neighbour. Thankfully, Mrs Gallagher is only too happy to help. And to talk. But it soon transpires that there is a great deal more to Sam's secret history...

This book investigates the experiences of South Koreans adopted into Western families and the complexity of what it means to "feel identity" beyond what is written in official adoption files. Korean Adoptees and Transnational Adoption is based on ethnographic fieldwork in South Korea and interviews with adult Korean adoptees from the United States, Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Sweden. It seeks to probe beneath the surface of what is "known" and examines identity as an embodied process of making that which is "unknown" into something that can be meaningfully grasped and felt. Furthermore, drawing on the author's own experiences as a transnational, transracial Korean adoptee, this book analyses the racial and cultural negotiations of "whiteness" and "Korean-ness" in the lives of adoptees and the blurriness which results in-between. Highlighting the role of memory and the body in the formation of identities, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Korean Studies, Ethnicity Studies and Anthropology as well as Asian culture and society more generally.

Using a socio-legal framework, this book explores the experiences that birth mothers face in state sanctioned adoption proceedings in the UK. Featuring personal, in-depth interviews and conversations with 32 birth mothers, the book highlights perspectives and voices that are seldom the focus in leading discourses of professional practice in this area of law. The book also demands that the statutory rights, support and care of birth mothers are recognised and strengthened. This book delivers a comprehensive insight into many aspects and controversies of legal child adoption, including the development and reform of adoption law over history, giving the reader insight into the deep-rooted political and social tensions around the use of adoption. The uniqueness of birth mothers' subjective stories of adoption contrasts powerfully with the legal theory providing the reader with an intimate paradigm of adoption. The book includes discussion of obiter dicta and authoritative guidance on adoption practice from the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal in Re B (A Child) (Care Proceedings: Appeal) [2013] UKSC 33 and Re B-S (Children) (Adoption: Leave to Oppose) [2013] EWCA Civ 1146. It also considers Court of Appeal's recent ruling on post adoption contact in Re B (A Child) (Post-Adoption Contact) [2019] EWCA Civ 29, the first case to come before the court since section 9 of the Children and Families Act 2014 amended the Adoption and Children Act 2002, with the new insertion of section 51A and 51B providing for court ordered post adoption contact. This book is ideally suited to undergraduate students, as well as a more multi- disciplinary audience.

The experience of adoption-both adopting and being adopted-can stir up deep emotional pain, often related to loss and early trauma. A for Adoption provides insight and support to those families and individuals facing these complex processes and challenges. Drawing on both a psychoanalytic, theoretical framework and first-hand accounts of adopters, adoptees, and professionals within the adoption process, Alison Roy responds to the need for further and consistent support for adoptive parents and children, to help inform and understand the reality of their everyday lives. This book explores both the current and historical context of adoption, as well as its depiction within literature, before addressing issues such as conflict in relationships, the impact of significant trauma and loss, attachment and the importance of early relationships, and contact with birth families. Uniquely, this book addresses the experiences of, and provides support for, both adoptive professionals and families. It focuses on understanding rather than apportioning blame, and responds to a plea from a parent who requested "a book to help me understand my child better".

From the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author comes the poignant and shocking memoir of Cathy s recent relationship with Tayo, a young boy she fosters whose good behaviour and polite manners hide a terrible past.

Tayo arrives at Cathy s with only the clothes he stands up in. He has been brought to her by the police, but he is calm, polite, and very well spoken, and not at all like the children she normally fosters. The social worker gives Cathy the forms which should contain Tayo s history, but apart from his name and age, it is blank. Tayo has no past.

Tayo is an 'invisible' child, kidnapped from his loving father in Nigeria and brought illegally to the UK by his drink and drugs dependent prostitute mother, where he is put to work in a sweat shop in Central London. When he sustains an injury and is no longer earning, he is cast out.

When Cathy takes Tayo to school he points out a dozen different addresses where he has stayed in the last six months, often being left alone. Tayo lies, and manipulates situations to his own advantage and Cathy has to be continually on guard. Tayo s social worker searches all computer databases but there is no record of Tayo he has only attended school for 3 terms and has never seen a doctor. He and his mother have been evading the authorities by living underground .

With his mother recently released from prison, Tayo is desperate to live with his father in Nigeria, but no one can track him down or even prove that he exists."

Narrative and Dramatic Approaches to Children's Life Story with Foster, Adoptive and Kinship Families outlines narrative and dramatic approaches to improve vulnerable family relationships. It provides a model which offers new ways for parents to practise communicating with their children and develop positive relationships. The book focuses on the Theatre of Attachment model - a highly innovative approach which draws from a strong theoretical base to demonstrate the importance of narrative and dramatic play for sharing the children's life history in the family home with their adoptive, foster or kinship parents. An emphasis is on having fun ways to work through complex feelings and divided loyalties, so as to secure attachment. This practice model aims to raise children's self-esteem and communication skills and to combat the profound effects of abuse, neglect on trauma on children's development. This book will be of great interest for academics, post-graduate students, universities and Training bodies, service providers and practitioners involved in social work and creative therapies, child psychologists, child psychotherapists and public and private adoption and foster care agencies.

'The best piece of nature writing since H is for Hawk, and the most powerful work of biography I have read in years' Neil Gaiman 'Wonderful - I can't recommend it too highly' Helen Macdonald 'One of those rare, enchanted books' Isabella Tree 'Beautiful - it made me cry' Simon Amstell 'I was entranced' Cathy Rentzenbrink This is a story about birds and fathers. About the young magpie that fell from its nest in a Bermondsey junkyard into Charlie Gilmour's life - and swiftly changed it. Demanding worms around the clock, riffling through his wallet, sharing his baths and roosting in his hair... About the jackdaw kept at a Cornish stately home by Heathcote Williams, anarchist, poet, magician, stealer of Christmas, and Charlie's biological father who vanished from his life in the dead of night. It is a story about repetition across generations and birds that run in the blood; about a terror of repeating the sins of the father and a desire to build a nest of one's own. It is a story about change - from wild to tame; from sanity to madness; from life to death to birth; from freedom to captivity and back again, via an insane asylum, a prison and a magpie's nest. And ultimately, it is the story of a love affair between a man and a magpie.

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.

This book investigates the experiences of South Koreans adopted into Western families and the complexity of what it means to "feel identity" beyond what is written in official adoption files. Korean Adoptees and Transnational Adoption is based on ethnographic fieldwork in South Korea and interviews with adult Korean adoptees from the United States, Australia, Canada, Switzerland and Sweden. It seeks to probe beneath the surface of what is "known" and examines identity as an embodied process of making that which is "unknown" into something that can be meaningfully grasped and felt. Furthermore, drawing on the author's own experiences as a transnational, transracial Korean adoptee, this book analyses the racial and cultural negotiations of "whiteness" and "Korean-ness" in the lives of adoptees and the blurriness which results in-between. Highlighting the role of memory and the body in the formation of identities, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Korean Studies, Ethnicity Studies and Anthropology as well as Asian culture and society more generally.

Representing an often overlooked population in social work literature, this book explores the experiences of LGBTQ youth as they navigate the child welfare system. Adam McCormick examines the entirety of a youth's experience, from referral into care and challenges to obtaining permanency to aging out or leaving care. Included throughout the book are stories from LGBTQ youth that address personal issues such as abuse, bullying and harassment, and double standards. Filled with resources to foster resilience and empower youth, this book is ideal for professionals who are hoping to create a more inclusive and affirming system of care for LGBTQ youth.

The heartbreaking true story of a young, troubled mother who needed help. The sixteenth fostering memoir by Cathy Glass. It is the first time Laura has been out since the birth of her baby when Cathy sees her in the school playground. A joyful occasion but Cathy has the feeling something is wrong. By the time she discovers what it is, it is too late. This is the true story of Laura whose life touches Cathy's in a way she could never have foreseen. It is also the true stories of little Darrel, Samson and Hayley who she fosters when their parents need help. Some stories can have a happy ending and others cannot, but as a foster carer Cathy can only do her best.

In her latest paperback, the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of Damaged tells the story of the Dawn, a sweet and seemingly well-balanced girl whose outward appearance masks a traumatic childhood of suffering at the hands of the very people who should have cared for her.

Dawn was the first girl Cathy Glass ever fostered. Sweet and seemingly well balanced girl, Dawn s outward appearance masked a traumatic childhood so awful, that even she could not remember it.

During the first night, Cathy awoke to see Dawn looming above Cathy s baby s cot, her eyes staring and blank. She sleepwalks which Cathy learns is often a manifestation in disturbed children. It becomes a regular and frightening occurrence, and Cathy is horrified to find Dawn lighting a match whilst mumbling it s not my fault in her sleep one night.

Cathy discovers Dawn is playing truant from school, and struggling to make friends. More worryingly she finds her room empty one night, and her pillow covered in blood. Dawn has been self-harming in order to release the pain of her past.

When Dawn attempts suicide, Cathy realises that she needs more help than she can give. Dawn s mother eventually confides in her that Dawn was sent away to live with relatives in Ireland between the ages of 5 and 9, and Cathy soon realises that the horrors Dawn was exposed to during this time have left her a very disturbed little girl."

Currently, there are over 400,000 youth living in foster care in the United States, with over 20,000 aging out of the child welfare system each year. Foster youth are more prone to experience short- and long-term adverse developmental outcomes including diminished academic achievement and career opportunities, poor mental and overall health, financial struggles, homelessness, early sexual intercourse, and substance abuse, many of these outcomes are risk factors for involvement in the juvenile justice system. Despite their challenges, foster youth have numerous strengths and positive assets that carry them through their journeys, helping them to overcome obstacles and build resilience. The Handbook of Foster Youth brings together a prominent group of multidisciplinary experts to provide nuanced insights on the complex dynamics of the foster care system, its impact on youth's lives, and the roles of institutions and policies in the foster system. It discusses current gaps and future directions as well as recommendations to advance the field. This book provides an opportunity to reflect on the many challenges and strengths of foster youth and the child welfare system, and the combined efforts of caregivers, community volunteers, policy makers, and the professionals and researchers who work with them.

Children who have experienced trauma, loss or separation early in life need more than just special care and attention; they need to be parented with love and security in a way that allows them to heal and rebuild emotional bonds. This comprehensive book provides parents and carers with crucial advice and guidance on how to strengthen attachment and trust. Based on Dan Hughes' proven 'PACE' model of therapeutic parenting, this book explains how to implement PACE techniques to overcome the challenges faced by children who struggle to connect emotionally. Barriers to stable relationships such as a lack of trust, fear of emotional intimacy, and high levels of shame are all explained. It explores techniques to overcome these barriers by teaching how to support the child's behaviour at the same time as building empathy and trust. The practical parenting guidance offered throughout is essential for carers or parents of troubled children, and will help build safe, secure emotional relationships.

Betsy de Thierry's best-selling Simple Guides tell you what you really need to know about child trauma and attachment. This five-book library covers: * Attachment disorders * Child trauma * Collective trauma * Complex trauma and dissociation * Shame Providing easy routes to understanding difficult and complex concepts, these books give you an understanding of what trauma is and most importantly, how to help children and young people who have experienced it.

Will You Open Your Heart and Home to Children in Need? As a teenager, Kristin Berry had heard all the horror stories surrounding foster care and adoption-abuse, neglect, rejection, anger, and misunderstandings. But instead of closing her heart, God opened it wide. This is Kristin's honest, unvarnished story of some of her experiences as a foster parent of twenty-three children over the course of nine years. What she learned is that living in a foster home is like living with a revolving door. You never know who will arrive or who you will have to say goodbye to. Leaving the door open means there will be heartache and pain, but also adventure and unexpected joy. Kristin and her husband, Mike, have been through it all in their unique parenting journey. If you have ever wondered what it's really like to be a foster parent, this book will help you gain a true understanding of the everyday trials and triumphs these moms and dads face. It will also inspire you to consider opening your door...and to leave it wide open.

Adopted Women and Biological Fathers offers a critical and deconstructive challenge to the dominant notions of adoptive identity. The author explores adoptive women's experiences of meeting their biological fathers and reflects on personal narratives to give an authoritative overview of both the field of adoption and the specific history of adoption reunion. This book takes as its focus the narratives of 14 adopted women, as well as the partly fictionalised story of the author and examines their experiences of birth father reunion in an attempt to dissect the ways in which we understand adoptive female subjectivity through a psychosocial lens. Opening a space for thinking about the role of the discursively neglected biological father, this book exposes the enigmatic dimensions of this figure and how telling the relational story of 'reconciliation' might be used to complicate wider categories of subjective completeness, belonging, and truth. This book attempts to subvert the culturally normative unifying system of the mother-child bond, and prompts the reader to think about what the biological father might represent and how his role in relation to adoptive female subjects may be understood. This book will be essential reading for those in critical psychology, gender studies, narrative work, sociology and psychosocial studies, as well as appealing to anyone interested in adoption issues and female subjectivity.

Jane Hall Fitz-Gibbon and Andrew Fitz-Gibbon have cared for more than 100 children in a foster care career spanning more than three decades. They developed a method, "loving nonviolent re-parenting," to best care for foster children. "Re-parenting" represents the complex task of caring for children who have been parented already, often inadequately, and mostly involving physical, emotional, and/or systemic violence. Welcoming Strangers analyses the violence foster children suffer and raises ethical questions-why violence is morally problematic, what philosophers have said about human nature and violence, and what moral good should be pursued in childcare. Drawing on an ancient form of ethics, sometimes known as "virtue ethics," this book focuses on the traits required to become a loving, nonviolent re-parent. The Fitz-Gibbons tell of their journey in the foster care system with candour, humour, and grace. Covering subjects as diverse as teens, sex, discipline, and the carer's own well-being, they describe the difficulties of foster care and the sometimes impossible task of restoring dignity and joy to young lives deeply damaged by violence. This book will be of immense help to foster carers, adopters, caseworkers, case managers, policymakers, and any parent who wants to integrate nonviolent practices into the way they care for children.

Jane Hall Fitz-Gibbon and Andrew Fitz-Gibbon have cared for more than 100 children in a foster care career spanning more than three decades. They developed a method, "loving nonviolent re-parenting," to best care for foster children. "Re-parenting" represents the complex task of caring for children who have been parented already, often inadequately, and mostly involving physical, emotional, and/or systemic violence. Welcoming Strangers analyses the violence foster children suffer and raises ethical questions-why violence is morally problematic, what philosophers have said about human nature and violence, and what moral good should be pursued in childcare. Drawing on an ancient form of ethics, sometimes known as "virtue ethics," this book focuses on the traits required to become a loving, nonviolent re-parent. The Fitz-Gibbons tell of their journey in the foster care system with candour, humour, and grace. Covering subjects as diverse as teens, sex, discipline, and the carer's own well-being, they describe the difficulties of foster care and the sometimes impossible task of restoring dignity and joy to young lives deeply damaged by violence. This book will be of immense help to foster carers, adopters, caseworkers, case managers, policymakers, and any parent who wants to integrate nonviolent practices into the way they care for children.

This exploration of the experiences of adopting parents and children offers unusual insight into adoption's complexity and its profound impact on family life. Based on the author's research in Germany, where she lived and taught, The Adopted Child has a great deal to say about child rearing and identity, as well as offering insights into similarities and differences in family life and adoption in Germany and the United States. Hoffmann-Reim takes the reader through the decision to adopt, the adoption placement procedure, and the transition from "applicant" to "mother and father." She explores differences between emotions experienced in adopting a baby, a toddler, and an older child, and how these emotions can affect relations with the world outside the nuclear family. A central concern is secrecy and disclosure with regard to the adopted child's origins. Based on case studies and extensive interviews, The Adopted Child has fascinated American readers as it did those in Germany. Professionals as well as those interested in adoption and family life in general will find it significant. Sociologists will find it solidly grounded in concepts and traditions from a diversity of related disciplines. And anyone interested in Germans and German society will find the materials revealing, and the author's interpretation insightful and wise.

Children and young people in care who have been traumatized need a therapeutic environment where they can heal and which meets their emotional and developmental needs. This book provides a model of care for traumatized children and young people, based on theory and practice experience pioneered at the Lighthouse Foundation, Australia. The authors explain the impact of trauma on child development, drawing on psychodynamic, attachment and neurobiological trauma theories. The practical aspects of undertaking therapeutic care are then outlined, covering everything from forming therapeutic relationships to the importance of the home environment and daily routines. The book considers the totality of the child's experience at the individual, group, organization and community levels and argues that attention to all of these is essential if the child is to achieve wellness. Case material from both children and carers are used throughout to illustrate both the impact of trauma and how children have been helped to recovery through therapeutic care. This book will provide anyone caring for traumatized children and young people in a residential setting with both the understanding and the practical knowledge to help children recover. It will be essential reading for managers and decision-makers responsible for looked after children, child care workers such as residential and foster carers, youth workers, social workers, mental health workers and child welfare academics.