There are thousands of grandparents raising their grandchildren in the United Kingdom, the majority as a consequence of parental drug use or mental health issues. This book recounts the real-life stories of grandparent carers who chose to put their own lives on hold so that their loved ones can be properly cared for. Whilst most grandparent carers remain as unsupported informal carers, some seek to formalise their position by becoming Social Services Kinship Carers or achieve legal routes to independent care as Special Guardians or with a Child Arrangement Order. Whether formal or informal, full-time grandparent carers face life-changing futures. Immediate concerns are work, child care, the behaviour of the child, contact with the birth parents and financial support, and there is often no clear path to learning their rights and available support. There is also the challenge involved in balancing their bonds with their adult children while protecting their grandchildren. In this book, grandparents talk in detail about these issues and of how professionals and services have at times helped and not helped. These candid stories also explore how moving to live with grandparents can be experienced by both child and carer as simultaneously a gain and a loss. The stories offer support, and the book also includes professional advice to encourage grandparents to acknowledge their value, accept their limitations, develop realistic expectations about what they can and cannot achieve, and recognise that all successes should be celebrated.

The inspirational story of an American woman who moved mountains to secure medical treatments-and eventually a home-for a young Iraqi girl severely burned in a roadside terror attack. This is a story of the astonishing power of self-sacrificial love. On a typical Sunday morning in 2006, Barbara Marlowe saw a photo that changed her life: a photo of four-year-old Teeba Furat Fadhil, whose face, head, and hands had been severely burned during a roadside bombing in the Diyala Province of Iraq. Teeba's eyes captivated Barbara, and she yearned to help this child who had already endured more pain and suffering than anyone should bear. Because surgeons were fleeing the war-torn country, Teeba would be unable to receive much-needed treatments if she stayed in Iraq. With powerful faith and determination, Barbara overcame obstacle after obstacle to bring Teeba from Iraq to the United States for medical treatments. A Brave Face explores the connection forged between Barbara and Teeba's Iraqi mother Dunia over the past decade-a deep bond between two mothers that has flourished despite the distance, the strife of war, and the horrors of Al-Qaeda and ISIS. With chapters written by Teeba, now a young woman, and Dunia, the three women recount the story of courage and sacrifice that bound them together. A Brave Face contains the messages that: Tremendous trust can cross borders and war zones Tragedies can turn into miracles Love can be found in the most unexpected of places In the end, this is a story of hope. A story of building bridges. A story of the always astonishing power of self-sacrificial love.

In this heartwarming and hilarious memoir, Claude Knobler describes how he learned the hard way that the apple actually "can" fall far from the tree--and that's Okay.
Already the biological parents of a seven-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter, Claude Knobler and his wife decided to adopt Nati, a five-year-old Ethiopian boy who seemed different from Knobler in every conceivable way. After more than five years spent trying to turn his wild, silly, adopted African son into a quiet, neurotic, Jewish guy like himself, Knobler realized the importance of having the courage to love, accept, and let go of his children.
In this wonderfully written memoir, Knobler explains how his experiences raising Nati led him to learn a lesson that applied equally well to parenting his biological children: It's essential to spend the time we are given with our children to love them and enjoy them, rather than push and mold them into who we think they should be.

An abused little girl desperate for someone to love her, and the foster carer who refused to give up on her. A heartbreaking true story by Sunday Times bestselling author Maggie Hartley. Perfect for fans of Cathy Glass, Casey Watson, Angela Hart and Rosie Lewis. ***** Abused, starved and neglected. Ruth was a little ghost of a girl when she arrived into foster mother Maggie Hartley's care. As soon as Ruth arrived on her doorstep, it was clear to foster carer Maggie Hartley that Ruth had seen and experienced things that no 11-year-old should have to. Pale, frail and withdrawn, Ruth had been conditioned to 'see no evil, speak no evil'. Raised by a cruel stepmother and father, Ruth had been abused, underfed and ignored, while her half-siblings lived a life of luxury. Ruth is in desperate need of help, but can Maggie get through to her and unlock the harrowing secret she carries? With no one left in the world to love Ruth, it's up to Maggie to help her find her voice; to be a ghost no more, and bring those who've harmed her to justice. An uplifting and ultimately redemptive read, perfect for fans of Cathy Glass, Casey Watson, Angela Hart and Rosie Lewis.

"Impossible to put down, makes you laugh and cry, Sophie's story is inspirational. It gives us so much hope and encouragement. I don't think we would be where we are on our own journey without her advice." OLLIE LOCKE "A read so twisty your heart pounds as you turn the pages." THE SUNDAY TIMES Brave, funny and honest, columnist Sophie Beresiner takes us on her complex journey to parenthood and shows us that there's more than one way to become a mother. Sophie's journey to motherhood began aged 30 with a cancer diagnosis that stole her fertility. Today, Sophie is older, wiser (and agonisingly excellent at hindsight), and somewhat battered. Through interminable cycles of hope and failure, her infertility story spanned three countries, five surrogates and a debt she'd rather not dwell on. Part memoir, part manifesto, The Mother Project is the epic story of Sophie's quest for happiness. Exploring the complexities, expectations and injustices faced by millions of women across the world, it is a book that is both personal and universal.

From the 1940s through the 1960s, young pregnant women entered the front door of a clinic in a small North Georgia town. Sometimes their babies exited out the back, sold to northern couples who were desperate to hold a newborn in their arms. But these weren't adoptions--they were transactions. And one unethical doctor was exploiting other people's tragedies. Jane Blasio was one of those babies. At six, she learned she was adopted. At fourteen, she first saw her birth certificate, which led her to begin piecing together details of her past. Jane undertook a decades-long personal investigation to not only discover her own origins but identify and reunite other victims of the Hicks Clinic human trafficking scheme. Along the way she became an expert in illicit adoptions, serving as an investigator and telling her story on every major news network. Taken at Birth is the remarkable account of her tireless quest for truth, justice, and resolution. Perfect for book clubs, as well as those interested in inspirational stories of adoption, human trafficking, and true crime.

A family built, a family lost. Truth Has a Different Shape is a story of the power of compassion, of love and loss, revelations and relationship, and the evolution of self. Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, Kari O'Driscoll was taught that strength and stoicism were one and the same. She was also taught that a girl's job was to take care of everyone else. For decades, she believed these ideas, doing everything she could to try and keep the remaining parts of her family together, systematically anticipating disaster and fixing catastrophes one by one. Truth Has a Different Shape is one woman's meditation on how societal and familial expectations of mothering influenced her sense of self and purpose, as well as her ideas about caretaking. As an adult, finding herself a caretaker both to her own children and to her aging parents, O'Driscoll finally reckons with the childhood trauma that shaped her world. Adoption, loss, and divorce defined her approach to motherhood, but in Truth Has a Different Shape, O'Driscoll finally pushes back. This memoir tracks her progress as she discovers how to truly care for those she loves without putting herself at risk, using mindfulness and compassion as tools for healing both herself and her difficult relationships.

The children of The Adoption Club have lots of different feelings about adoption. Michael was scared when he first met this adopted family, and was worried his adoptive family might not keep him. Other children talk about feeling happy, sad and angry, and how feeling can make them behave strangely. This workbook gives children a way to sort out feelings, discuss them and feel better. Written for counsellors and therapists working with children aged 5-11, as well as adoptive parents, this workbook is designed to help children to explore their feelings and behavior. It is one of a set of five interactive therapeutic workbooks featuring The Adoption Club written to address the key emotional and psychological challenges adopted children often experience. Together, they provide an approachable, interactive and playful way to help children to learn about themselves and have fun at the same time.

2019 High Plains Book Award (Creative Nonfiction and Indigenous Writer categories) 2021 Barbara Sudler Award from History Colorado In Bitterroot Susan Devan Harness traces her journey to understand the complexities and struggles of being an American Indian child adopted by a white couple and living in the rural American West. When Harness was fifteen years old, she questioned her adoptive father about her "real" parents. He replied that they had died in a car accident not long after she was born-except they hadn't, as Harness would learn in a conversation with a social worker a few years later. Harness's search for answers revolved around her need to ascertain why she was the target of racist remarks and why she seemed always to be on the outside looking in. New questions followed her through college and into her twenties when she started her own family. Meeting her biological family in her early thirties generated even more questions. In her forties Harness decided to get serious about finding answers when, conducting oral histories, she talked with other transracial adoptees. In her fifties she realized that the concept of "home" she had attributed to the reservation existed only in her imagination. Making sense of her family, the American Indian history of assimilation, and the very real-but culturally constructed-concept of race helped Harness answer the often puzzling questions of stereotypes, a sense of nonbelonging, the meaning of family, and the importance of forgiveness and self-acceptance. In the process Bitterroot also provides a deep and rich context in which to experience life.

The Foster Parenting Manual is a comprehensive guide offering proven, friendly advice for novice and experienced parents alike. Distilling many years' experience into one book, John DeGarmo combines his own wisdom with that of fellow foster parents. He describes what to expect from the process, how to access help and how to ensure the best care for your child. He tackles thorny issues such as children's use of the Internet and social media, managing contact with birth parents and how to support your child at school. Most importantly, he provides advice designed to help your child feel safe, secure and loved. The Foster Parenting Manual offers seasoned, sympathetic advice that will be valued by foster parents and the professionals who support them.

Inspiring the film starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan, and directed by Stephen Frears, Philomena is the tale of a mother and a son whose lives were scarred by the forces of hypocrisy on both sides of the Atlantic and of the secrets they were forced to keep. With a foreword by Judi Dench, Martin Sixsmith's book is a compelling and deeply moving narrative of human love and loss, both heartbreaking yet ultimately redemptive. When she fell pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to the convent at Roscrea in Co. Tipperary to be looked after as a fallen woman. She cared for her baby for three years until the Church took him from her and sold him, like countless others, to America for adoption. Coerced into signing a document promising never to attempt to see her child again, she nonetheless spent the next fifty years secretly searching for him, unaware that he was searching for her from across the Atlantic. Philomena's son, renamed Michael Hess, grew up to be a top Washington lawyer and a leading Republican official in the Reagan and Bush administrations. But he was a gay man in a homophobic party where he had to conceal not only his sexuality but, eventually, the fact that he had AIDS. With little time left, he returned to Ireland and the convent where he was born: his desperate quest to find his mother before he died left a legacy that was to unfold with unexpected consequences for all involved.