A true love story that will touch your heart
~A soulful and heart-filled story that doesn't shy away from the often harsh, heartbreaking realities of adoption; a must for potential parents in preparation for the adoption process.~ Karen H, LSW former adoption counselor and hospice counselor
~It is an absolutely amazing weave of many facets of the adoption journey; raw, honest, and deeply touching. You truly have reached the 'soul'; of the adoption triad. I feel so privileged to be a part of your amazing story!~ Lori Teeter, BSW, Adoption Counselor
~This book offers real feelings and thoughts from an adoptee perspective, but it also offers serious feelings, challenges, questions, and the emotional ups and downs that anyone who is thinking about adopting goes through.~ Sharon Bumbarger, parent and fellow adopter.

This is a personal and touching story of one women's journey to find a child.Tamra spent 8 years pursuing a child through fertility clinics without success. Her body would not cooperate and give her the child she wanted. The need for a child was so overwhelming they turned to adoption. Their adoption journey from start to finish took three years, while reading the story you will learn of the many pitfalls they had to overcome. The story has a happy ending with the adoption of their daughter.

So you've made the decision to adopt. What's next? For starters, how do you know whether domestic or international adoption is right for you? (And what are the real differences between the two?) Adoption insider Elizabeth Swire Falker answers these questions and many more. As an attorney who practices in the area of adoption and has worked with hundreds of families, and as an adoptive parent herself, she offers expert advice on each stage of the process. This comprehensive, accessible guide leads you with confidence through every decision you'll have to make-including the ones that you'd never know to expect. Complete with checklists, tips, sidebars, and plenty of counterintuitive advice, it shows you how to:

• Identify which adoption experts you do and don't need
• Find the right birth mother or choose the right country for your family-and how to spot red flags in potential situations
• Select an attorney or agency and prepare for your home visit
• Finance an adoption on a budget, manage the red tape, and get around the roadblocks
• Navigate all of the complex emotions that surface along the way. .
• .

"Will you take her?" she asks.

When Beth Nonte Russell travels to China to help her friend Alex adopt a baby girl from an orphanage there, she thinks it will be an adventure, a chance to see the world. But her friend, who had prepared for the adoption for many months, panics soon after being presented with the frail baby, and the situation develops into one of the greatest challenges of Russell's life.

Russell, watching in disbelief as Alex distances herself from the child, cares for the baby -- clothing, bathing, and feeding her -- and makes her feel secure in the unfamiliar surroundings. Russell is overwhelmed and disoriented by the unfolding drama and all that she sees in China, and yet amid the emotional turmoil finds herself deeply bonding with the child. She begins to have dreams of an ancient past -- dreams of a young woman who is plucked from the countryside and chosen to be empress, and of the child who is ultimately taken from her. As it becomes clear that her friend -- whose indecisiveness about the adoption has become a torment -- won't be bringing the baby home, Russell is amazed to realize that she cannot leave the baby behind and that her dreams have been telling her something significant, giving her the courage to open her heart and bring the child home against all odds.

Steeped in Chinese culture, "Forever Lily" is an extraordinary account of a life-changing, wholly unexpected love.

"The book chronicles not only the adoption of their three children abroad, but follows each of their children (including their biological son) into young adulthood. It vividly depicts their difficulties in raising teenagers in a cross-cultural, transracial home, and also exposes the frightening conditions facing today's kids in our public schools, including gang issues, drop outs, and culture clashes. It provides valuable insights to parents and non-parents as well. This book was a real eye-opener and awakened me to the harsh realities our teens must face in what I would have thought were quality schools. Although told from a parent's point of view, they very effectively explored the emotions, indeed the angst, of their teenage children."
--Jo-Anne Weaver, adoptive parent of a Chinese daughter placed by Los Ninos International, and Senior Acquisitions Editor of Education and Developmental Psychology for Harcourt Brace.

""Parents By Choice" is an excellent guide for researching adoption as a method for building a family. It is informative and enjoyable. I highly recommend this book for any prospective parent or parents wishing to pursue a domestic or international adoption."
--Chriss Barnes, Small Miracles International

"Few books move me to tears and laughter any more, but "Parents By Choice" did. The book is wonderful, so full of humor and warmth."
--Judy Stigger, LCSW, The Cradle Society, Author of "Coping with Infertility" and "Conspicuous Families"

"Parents By Choice" is a user-friendly book with easy to digest chapters, terminology, and questions concerning adoption and parenting of an infant and a toddler. "Parents By Choice" is an invaluable resource for potential parents, explaining the paperwork, financial, and emotional expectations of adoption as a normal, healthy option for creating a family. The authors, adoptive parents, present their story in an honest, engaging dialog full of knowledge and perspectives, which allow for a realistic view of living the process.

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".

The first guide of its kind, covering all stages of the adoption process

Adopting on Your Own addresses the questions and concerns of prospective single parents. Lee Varon, a practicing therapist specializing in adoption counseling and the single mother of two adopted children, helps readers make an evenhanded assessment of whether adoption is right for them, then leads them through the different stages of arranging and financing the adoption. She weighs the advantages of open versus closed and international versus domestic adoption for the single parent, and demystifies potentially daunting steps such as choosing an agency and preparing for the home study.

Adopting on Your Own also offers up-to-date information on the latest developments in interracial adoption policy, the legal rights of gays and lesbians to adopt, and the evolving attitudes of agencies and social workers toward single-parent adoptions. Throughout the book, Varon draws on personal anecdotes and the experiences of her clients to offer honest, insightful advice on every step of the adoption process.

An informed, comprehensive guide to raising a multicultural family.

How many times do you celebrate the New Year at home? Just once? If your family is Jewish, Chinese, and a few other things besides, you might celebrate twice or even three times a year! As the rate of cross-cultural adoption grows in the United States, new traditions are emerging. These are part of a new multiculturalism which, with its attendant joys and challenges, has become a fact of life in urban, suburban and even rural America. Alperson's sourcebook offers families the first complete guide to the tangled questions that surround this important phenomenon. As the adoptive Jewish mother of Sadie, her Chinese-born daughter, Alperson is able to offer personal as well as professional insight into such topics as combining cultures in the home, confronting prejudice, and developing role models. Focusing on adoptive families - international and transracial adoption in the United States has jumped in recent years - she provides guidelines on how families can prepare for their exciting journey toward becoming a multicultural family.

In addition to drawing on extensive interviews with such families, her book includes a wealth of on-line and "conventional" resources to find books, food products, toys, clothing, discussion groups and heritage camps that help families to enhance their lives as they build a multicultural home.

"I'm NOT going to school today!" Riley the Brave is a little bear with big feelings. Some days he wakes up feeling cheerful and ready to brave the day. He has energy to get dressed, eat breakfast and have some fun! But some days he wakes up feeling like a grumpy porcupine. His brow is scrunched and he thinks that it is going to be a terrible day. Today, Riley is having one of those days! What can be done to help him? All children struggle to make it to school some days, and this can be even tougher for children who have had difficult life experiences and extra challenges at school. This book creates a safe space for conversations about big thoughts and feelings, and offers positive tips for families to try. It also features an educational afterword for grown-ups which explains how the book helps children, and how to get the most out of it.

The voice on the other end of the line was soft, yet forthright: "Sarah, my name is Hannah Morgan. I think I'm your birth mother."

The phone call, wholly unexpected, instantly turned Sarah Saffian's world upside-down, threatening her sense of family, identity, self. Adopted as an infant twenty-three years before, living happily in New York, Sarah had been "found" by her biological parents despite her reluctance to embrace them.

In this searing, lyrical memoir, Sarah chronicles her painful journey from confusion and anger to acceptance and, finally, reunion--but not until three soul-searching years had passed. In spare, luminous prose, Sarah Saffian crafts a powerful story of self-discovery and belonging--a deeply personal memoir told with grace, eloquence, and compassion. At once heartbreaking and profoundly uplifting, Ithaka is sure to touch anyone who has grappled with who they are.

From 1870 until after World War I, reformers led an effort to place children from orphanages, asylums, and children's homes with farming families. The farmers received free labor in return for providing room and board. Reformers, meanwhile, believed children learned lessons in family life, citizenry, and work habits that institutions simply could not provide. Drawing on institution records, correspondence from children and placement families, and state reports, Megan Birk scrutinizes how the farm system developed--and how the children involved may have become some of America's last indentured laborers. Between 1850 and 1900, up to one-third of farm homes contained children from outside the family. Birk reveals how the nostalgia attached to misplaced perceptions about healthy, family-based labor masked the realities of abuse, overwork, and loveless upbringings endemic in the system. She also considers how rural people cared for their own children while being bombarded with dependents from elsewhere. Finally, Birk traces how the ills associated with rural placement eventually forced reformers to transition to a system of paid foster care, adoptions, and family preservation.

In recent years, the number of adopted children from abroad has grown dramatically in United States. As open adoption laws and increased competition for adoptable children have made adoption more complicated in this country, international adoptions offer an easier, faster, and less expensive alternative. A comprehensive guide, Adopt International provides step-by-step advice on everything from selecting an adoption agency to traveling abroad to pick up your child to adjusting to a new life at home. The book walks you through the myriad government regulations and complicated forms (both American and foreign) as well as the financial issues involved. Finally, it includes the stories of people who have successfully adopted one or more children from across the world.

An absolutely heartbreaking and gripping historical novel based on a true story, for fans of Suzanne Goldring, Bridgerton and The Girl Behind the Gates. ***FROM THE 4-MILLION COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR*** ***RATED 5 STARS BY REAL READERS*** "A wonderfully romantic novel that will capitvate you instantly" -Hart, 5* Amazon reviewer "A fantastic story - I can't wait to read the next volume!" -Michele, 5* Amazon reviewer October 1886. Catherine and Guillaume Duquesne set off to New York with their six-year-old daughter Elisabeth. But the young couple's dreams of freedom and independence soon turn into a nightmare when Catherine dies during the journey and Guillaume is assaulted and left for dead soon after their arrival on American soil. A wealthy family adopts Elisabeth, who grows up spoiled and happy. But when she turns 16, she learns the truth about her origins and decides to return to France to meet her real family. Upon her arrival she realises that her grandfather's house, too, is seething with secrets... What readers think "The author is hugely talented." -Julie, 5* Amazon reviewer "Very attaching characters ... I'm impatient to read the next installment!" -5* Babelio reviewer "I just have to read the rest of the series." -Jean-Pierre, 5* fnac.com reviewer "Reads very well - wait until you read the ending!" -Francoise, 5* Amazon reviewer "An extraordinary author. I strongly recommend!" -Nathalie, 5* Amazon reviewer "I didn't know the author - it's an excellent novel. -Mimi, 5* Amazon reviewer

Finding Stevie is a dark and poignant true story that highlights the dangers lurking online. When Stevie's social worker tells Cathy, an experienced foster carer, that Stevie, 14, is gender fluid she isn't sure what that term means and looks it up. Stevie, together with his younger brother and sister, have been brought up by their grandparents as their mother is in prison. But the grandparents can no longer cope with Stevie's behaviour so they place him in care. Stevie is exploring his gender identity, and like many young people he spends time online. Cathy warns him about the dangers of talking to strangers online and advises him how to stay safe. When his younger siblings tell their grandmother that they have a secret they can't tell, Cathy is worried. However, nothing could have prepared her for the truth when Stevie finally breaks down and confesses what he's done.

The powerfully moving new novel from Sunday Times bestselling author, Maggie Hartley. Fourteen-year-old Shazia has been taken into care after a conversation at school leads her teacher to suspect that the teenager's family are planning to send her to Pakistan for an arranged marriage. To her family's fury, Shazia is sent to live with foster carer Maggie Hartley whilst social services investigate. But with Shazia denying everything and social services unable to find any evidence to support the teacher's fears, Shazia is allowed to return home. But a few weeks later, Maggie is woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call from a terrified Shazia, who has managed to escape the family home through a window. Sobbing, she confesses to Maggie that her parents are planning to send her to Pakistan to be married in a few days, and have threatened to kill her if she speaks out again. Returned to Maggie's care, Shazia is petrified that her parents will track her down and kill her, and Maggie must be on constant alert. But the worst is yet to come when it emerges that Shazia is the victim of FGM. Can Maggie help this damaged and traumatised young girl understand what has happened to her and to find a way to heal? In this new book, Maggie Hartley taps into the highly topical issues of FGM and arranged marriage, and presents a sensitive and unique insight into the effect these practices have on their young victims.

A burgeoning evidence base supports that arts, play and other creative therapies have potential to help children in foster care, kinship care or adoptive families to recover from complex trauma. Written by contributors working at the cutting edge of delivering effective therapeutic interventions, this innovative book describes models for working with children in foster care, kinship care or adoption. Covering how to assess needs and contextual considerations for working with children and families, this book presents a range of creative therapeutic approaches spanning art psychotherapy, music therapy and dance therapy. It emphasizes the necessity of working with caregivers and other significant adults, as well as the child, to facilitate recovery. The theoretical foundations of attachment, developmental psychology and neurobiology are embedded in each chapter showing how they underpin each of the recommended creative therapies. This book will be suitable for professionals directly employing creative approaches in their practice, such as arts therapists and play therapists, as well as those working with children who are interested in creative alternate approaches, such as psychologists, counsellors, therapists and social workers.

The true story of runaway child with a secret. A devastating discovery that changes everything.

Melissa is a sweet-natured girl with a disturbing habit of running away and mixing with the wrong crowd. After she’s picked up by the police, and with nowhere else to go, she is locked in a secure unit with young offenders. Social Services beg specialist foster carer Angela to take her in, but can she keep the testing twelve-year-old safe? And will Angela ever learn what, or who, drove Melissa to run and hide, sometimes in the dead of night?

The Girl in the Dark is the sixth 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.

Little has been written previously about adopting a child beyond infancy. Carney's book is a warm, down-to-earth, and at times humorous, account of an older child who grows up in her family. Her understanding and advice are based on the knowledge of deep involvement. As she draws attention to the dilemmas of the child who is meeting the many forced adjustments, she also recognizes the problems and feelings that are imposed on the parents.
Originally published in 1976.
A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Creole Son is the compelling memoir of a single white mother searching to understand why her adopted biracial son grew from a happy child into a troubled young adult who struggled with addiction for decades. The answers, E. Kay Trimberger finds, lie in both nature and nurture. When five-A day-A old Marco is flown from Louisiana to California and placed in Trimberger's arms, she assumes her values and example will be the determining influences upon her new son's life. Twenty-A six years later, when she helps him make contact with his Cajun and Creole biological relatives, she discovers that many of his cognitive and psychological strengths and difficulties mirror theirs. Using her training as a sociologist, Trimberger explores behavioral genetics research on adoptive families. To her relief as well as distress, she learns that both biological heritage and the environment- and their interaction- shape adult outcomes. Trimberger shares deeply personal reflections about raising Marco in Berkeley in the 1980s and 1990s, with its easy access to drugs and a culture that condoned their use. She examines her own ignorance about substance abuse, and also a failed experiment in an alternative family lifestyle. In an afterword, Marc Trimberger contributes his perspective, noting a better understanding of his life journey gained through his mother's research. By telling her story, Trimberger provides knowledge and support to all parents- biological and adoptive- with troubled offspring. She ends by suggesting a new adoption model, one that creates an extended, integrated family of both biological and adoptive kin.

What should you expect when you're expecting to foster? This book is a guide to taking the first critical steps of your fostering journey, explaining what fostering is, how to become a foster carer and what it takes to thrive. Combining invaluable advice from veteran foster carers, the expertise of the professionals who support them, and priceless experiences of foster children themselves, this book explains the fostering process step by step. It tackles all the questions that you've ever asked yourself about fostering: What is fostering really like? What are the challenges? What kind of difference could I make? Comprehensive and accessible, this is the companion for first-time fosterers or those considering foster care.

A new memoir from Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author Cathy Glass.

Eight-year-old Aimee was on the child protection register at birth. Her five older siblings were taken into care many years ago. So no one can understand why she was left at home to suffer for so long. It seems Aimee was forgotten.

The social services are looking for a very experienced foster carer to look after Aimee and, when she reads the referral, Cathy understands why. Despite her reservations, Cathy agrees to Aimee on there is something about her that reminds Cathy of Jodie (the subject of Damaged and the most disturbed child Cathy has cared for), and reading the report instantly tugs at her heart strings.

When she arrives, Aimee is angry. And she has every right to be. She has spent the first eight years of her life living with her drug-dependent mother in a flat that the social worker described as not fit for human habitation . Aimee is so grateful as she snuggles into her bed at Cathy s house on the first night that it brings Cathy to tears.

Aimee s aggressive mother is constantly causing trouble at contact, and makes sweeping allegations against Cathy and her family in front of her daughter as well. It is a trying time for Cathy, and it makes it difficult for Aimee to settle. But as Aimee begins to trust Cathy, she starts to open up. And the more Cathy learns about Aimee s life before she came into care, the more horrified she becomes.

It s clear that Aimee should have been rescued much sooner and as her journey seems to be coming to a happy end, Cathy can t help but reflect on all the other forgotten children that are still suffering "

Get your family talking about adoption with the ultimate collection of films to help the whole family to explore their feelings in a fun and safe way. With a film for each week of the year, Addison Cooper has compiled the best movies, new and old, for family-friendly viewing. Among those featured are Finding Dory, Frozen, Paddington, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Kung Fu Panda, Star Wars, Divergent, The Blind Side and I am Sam. Carefully selected, the movies included will help families to comfortably talk about important adoption-related topics. They are accompanied by descriptions of the themes and ideas to get the conversations started. Helping all members of the family to explore both the pain and joy of adoption, they cover a range of issues which can arise such as culture, identity, control, and reunification. With something for everyone - from kids, to teens, to grown-ups - this is a must-have for all adoptive families.

This colourful pack of jumbo cards is the ideal resource for anyone who wants a fresh and creative way to explore what therapeutic parenting involves. Designed to help parents of children who have experienced trauma, as well as the range of professionals who support them, this pack offers simple summaries of the key principles of therapeutic parenting. Each card features a cartoon and quote taken from the author's bestselling book The Quick Guide to Therapeutic Parenting. Each explains a different element of therapeutic parenting, accompanied by a concise explanation on the back. Over 40 different issues are covered, from dysregulation and fear, to setting boundaries and parenting in the midst of trauma, and the cards are accompanied by a booklet which explains more about therapeutic parenting and how the pack can be used. The resource has been designed to be used flexibly, so get creative! You may want to use as a playful conversation starter for talking about parenting, a learning tool for those wanting to develop their skills, or simply a source of inspiration - pinned to the wall for when things get tough!

When Deborah Gold and her husband signed up to foster parent in their rural mountain community, they did not foresee that it would lead to a roller-coaster fifteen years of involvement with a traumatized yet resilient birth family. They fell in love with Michael (a toddler when he came to them), yet they had to reckon with the knowledge that he could leave their lives at any time. In Counting Down, Gold tells the story of forging a family within a confounding system. We meet social workers, a birth mother with the courage to give her children the childhood she never had herself, and a father parenting from prison. We also encounter members of a remarkable fellowship of Appalachian foster parents-gay, straight, right, left, evangelical, and atheist-united by love, loss, and quality hand-me-downs. Gold's memoir is one of the few books to deliver a foster parent's perspective (and, through Michael's own poetry and essays, that of a former foster child). In it, she shakes up common assumptions and offers a powerfully frank and hopeful look at an experience often portrayed as bleak.