In a true story of family ties, journalist Mei-Ling Hopgood, one of the first wave of Asian adoptees to arrive in America, comes face to face with her past when her Chinese birth family suddenly requests a reunion after more than two decades.
In 1974, a baby girl from Taiwan arrived in America, the newly adopted child of a loving couple in Michigan. Mei-Ling Hopgood had an all-American upbringing, never really identifying with her Asian roots or harboring a desire to uncover her ancestry. She believed that she was lucky to have escaped a life that was surely one of poverty and misery, to grow up comfortable with her doting parents and brothers.
Then, when she's in her twenties, her birth family comes calling. Not the rural peasants she expected, they are a boisterous, loving, bossy, complicated middle-class family who hound her daily-by phone, fax, and letter, in a language she doesn't understand-until she returns to Taiwan to meet them. As her sisters and parents pull her into their lives, claiming her as one of their own, the devastating secrets that still haunt this family begin to emerge. Spanning cultures and continents, "Lucky Girl" brings home a tale of joy and regret, hilarity, deep sadness, and great discovery as the author untangles the unlikely strands that formed her destiny.

John Sonego and his partner, Michael, had always wanted to start a family. Little did they know they would become the fathers of not one, not two, but three precious boys.

"My Three Sons" shares the heartwarming true story of this incredible family. Born to a drug-addicted mother and taken from her after a string of arrests, the three biological brothers come to their new home to begin a new life. With John and Michael's unconditional love and acceptance, the five became an instant family, learning to lean on each other for the support and devotion only a family can give.

Poignant and funny, heartbreaking and inspiring, "My Three Sons" recounts one family's life and reaffirms the transformative power of love in children's lives.

""This is the story of five very lucky people, three brothers and the two men who raise them. The story of how this family came to be is inspirational but it's more than that. It reminds us of one simple and powerful truth - that in raising children, it is often difficult to determine who is the teacher and who is the student. John's journey is proof that in parenting you get as much as you give.""

-Joan Garry, former executive director of GLAAD, activist, and parent

AUTHOR BIO
John Sonego is an author, adjunct professor, and consultant serving internationally respected health, education, and advocacy organizations. He writes about social, spiritual and family issues as a Midwesterner, progressive Christian, national gay advocate, adoptive parent, and active citizen of the broader community. Sonego received a BA from the University of Michigan and a MA from the University of Santa Monica. He and his family live in Hollywood, California.

In his startling new memoir, Mike Chalek reveals how the adoption practices of the "Baby Scoop Era" led to his fraudulent placement with an adoptive family that had purchased him for $200 from a well-known baby broker. He delves into the details of his highly charged quest to reunite with his family of origin, and we get a first-hand glimpse into the difficulties faced by many adult adoptees in the US today. Mike's quest did not end with reunion, however. After obtaining a court order to unseal his closed adoption record, he set legal precedent by suing to have his fraudulent adoption overturned. As groundbreaking as his victory was, adoptee rights have not experienced the hoped-for boost that he thought might follow. In this book, Mike seeks to set the record straight and tell the story of the one member of the adoption triad whose voice has been broadly ignored to this point: that of the adult adoptee.

Like cowboys turning in the saddle to look at where they came from, Searching for the Castle documents the backtrail of author Barbara Leigh Ohrstrom's adoption. It begins with her urgency as an eighteen-year-old woman initiating her search for her birth parents. Her recollection includes court petitions, letters, Division of Social Service documents, and other original documents usually buried behind the lock and key of the law. In this memoir, she narrates the unearthing of her history and that of her family. Some of her discoveries are filled with pain, while others are joyful, including locating sisters, another brother, and eventually nieces and a nephew. A story of how one woman comes to terms with her identity, Searching for the Castle tells of real people doing the best they can to live and love in the often heartbreaking circumstances of life. As Ohrstrom shares her journey to find her birth parents, she reveals her emotions throughout the process, discovering that her identity is self-created, but also that her being is governed, in part, by her ancestors and family lines. Searching for the Castle communicates the message that love creates families and that the family to which Ohrstrom belonged in foster care gave her a mother, father, and family filled with love and decency.

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.

Breakthrough Treatment Offers New Hope for Recovery
Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition with 3 new chapters on adolescents
"Gentling" represents a new paradigm in the therapeutic approach to children who have experienced physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and have acquired Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result. This text redefines PTSD in child abuse survivors by identifying child-specific behavioral signs commonly seen, and offers a means to individualize treatment and measure therapeutic outcomes through understanding each suffering child's unique symptom profile. The practical and easily understood Gentling approaches and techniques can be easily learned by clinicians, parents, foster parents, teachers and all other care givers of these children to effect real and lasting healing. With this book, you will: Learn child-specific signs of PTSD in abused children Learn how to manage the often intense reactivity seen in stress episodes Gain the practical, gentle, and effective treatment tools that really help these children Use the Child Stress Profile (CSP) to guide treatment and measure outcomes Deploy handy 'Quick Teach Sheets' that can be copied and handed to foster parents, teachers, and social workers
Clinicians Acclaim for "Gentling"
"In this world where children are often disenfranchised in trauma care--and all too often treated with the same techniques as adults--Krill makes a compelling case for how to adapt proven post-trauma treatment to the world of a child."
--Michele Rosenthal, HealMyPTSD.com
"Congratulations to Krill when he says that 'being gentle' cannot be over-emphasized in work with the abused."
--Andrew D. Gibson, PhD Author of "Got an Angry Kid? Parenting Spike, A Seriously Difficult Child"
"William Krill's book is greatly needed. PTSD is the most common aftermath of child abuse and often domestic abuse as well. There is a critical scarcity of mental-health professionals who know how to recognize child abuse, let alone treat it."
--Fr. Heyward B. Ewart, III, Ph.D., St. James the Elder Theological Seminary, author of "AM I BAD? Recovering From Abuse"w
Cover photo by W.A. Krill/ Fighting Chance Photography
Learn more at www.Gentling.org
From the New Horizons in Therapy Series at Loving Healing Press www.LovingHealing.com
Available in hardcover, trade paper, and eBook editions
FAM001010 Family & Relationships: Abuse - Child Abuse
PSY022040 Psychology: Psychopathology - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
FAM004000 Family & Relationships: Adoption & Fostering

Riley the Brave is a little bear with big feelings. He really wants to have fun at the fair, but sometimes he struggles just making it to school, especially on the STINKY, BUMPY, NOISY bus! It is hard for Riley to focus and have fun when he is feeling so many confusing sensations! He has porcupine moments and grumps at his friends, or turtle moments when he just wants to be alone. He even had a tiger moment, roaring at his teacher. With all these big feelings, how can he ever go to the fair? Riley the Brave's Sensational Senses teaches children about their senses through a playful story with real-life strategies for emotion regulation. It also features an educational afterword for grown-ups that explains our eight senses and includes tips for getting the most out of the book.

Therapeutic parenting is a deeply nurturing parenting style, and is especially effective for children with attachment difficulties, or who experienced childhood trauma. This book provides everything you need to know in order to be able to effectively therapeutically parent. Providing a model of intervention, The A-Z of Therapeutic Parenting gives parents or caregivers an easy to follow process to use when responding to issues with their children. The following A-Z covers 60 common problems parents face, from acting aggressively to difficulties with sleep, with advice on what might trigger these issues, and how to respond. Easy to navigate and written in a straightforward style, this book is a 'must have' for all therapeutic parents.

This practice-focused guide introduces The SmartStart Toolbox as a remedial program to help mental health professionals and adoptive parents promote the educational and social development of internationally adopted children aged 4-8. Recognizing the cultural, emotional, and cognitive needs of children who have experienced a fundamental change in their social situation of development following international adoption, The SmartStart Toolbox provides a range of family-based remedial activities which stimulate children's thinking and learning while creating scaffolded attachment opportunities during early interactions with their adoptive families. The volume details the notions of "psychological tools" (Vygotsky) and "mediated learning experience" (Feuerstein) which form the theoretical foundations for The SmartStart Toolbox and offers step-by-step guidance on conducting activities and adapting them to the individual child. The SmartStart methodology can also be used by professionals for diagnostic purposes. This text will benefit researchers in child psychology, as well as clinicians, family therapists, social workers, and educators with an interest in child development, cognitive and language enhancement, and adoption and fostering more broadly. Adoptive parents will also benefit from this book and its focus on themes of attachment, parenting, and the development of social cognition.