This series of six picture books guides children through a range of issues relating to fostering and adoption by focusing on the experiences of a five-year-old girl called Kirsty and her magic doll Billy. Billy talks to Kirsty, explains what is happening to her and explores Kirsty's feelings during her journey from an abusive home to a loving adoptive family. In the series, Billy says... * Book 1 "It's not your fault" explores children's feelings when they are living in neglectful families. * Book 2 "You should be taken care of" covers fears around moving into foster care. * Book 3 "Foster carers can help" explains what happens when children move into foster care. * Book 4 "What you think matters" covers courts and the planning process. * Book 5 "Waiting can be hard" focuses on waiting for an adoptive family. * Book 6 "Living as a new family takes practice" explores living with an adoptive family. This set is ideal for use by social workers, foster carers, adoptive parents and counsellors to help children aged 3-8 to understand the fostering and adoption process and to cope with the complex feelings that can arise.

Trauma can have a significant impact on the stability of a child's development and can put additional pressures on the education staff working with them. Showing you how you can best support children who have experienced adverse childhood experiences, this guide is full of practical guidance on how you can adapt your teaching with this group. Covering a range of issues a child may have, such as foetal alcohol spectrum disorder, pathological demand avoidance, attachment difficulties and many more, this book provides the trauma-informed tools you need to care for these children and to give the best possible opportunities from their education. It also addresses the difference children may experience in learning, how they behave, how teachers can ensure home--school cooperation, and how teachers can act in a trauma-informed manner.

Many adopted or foster children have complex, troubling, often painful pasts. This book provides parents and professionals with sound advice on how to communicate effectively about difficult and sensitive topics, providing concrete strategies for helping adopted and foster children make sense of the past so they can enjoy a healthy, well-adjusted future. Approximately one of every four adopted children will have adjustment challenges related to their separation from the birth family, earlier trauma, attachment difficulties, and/or issues stemming from the adoption process. Common complicating issues of adopted children are feelings of rejection, abandonment, or confusion about their origins. While many foster and adoptive parents and even many professionals are reluctant to communicate openly about birth histories, silence only adds to the child's confusion and pain. This revised and significantly expanded edition of the award-winning Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child equips parents with the knowledge and tools they need to communicate with their adopted or foster child about their past. Revisions include coverage of significant new research and information regarding the importance of understanding the child's trauma history to his or her well-being and successful adjustment in his foster or adoptive family. The authors answer such questions as: How do I share difficult information about my child's adoption in a sensitive manner? When is the right time to tell my child the whole truth? How do I obtain more information on my child's history? Detailed descriptions of actual cases help the parent or caregiver find ways to discover the truth (particularly in closed and international adoption cases), organize the information, and explain the details of the past gently to a toddler, child, or young adult who may find it frightening or confusing. Presents age-appropriate, specific guidelines that make an intimidating and potentially uncomfortable task straightforward, organized, and manageable Serves to remove the fear of how to make sense of the past for foster and adopted children of all ages, allowing parents, teachers, counselors, and other caregivers to have open, honest, and beneficial dialogues with children and teens with tough pasts Explains how children's development is impacted by separation from their birth families and identifies the issues generated by the trauma occurring before, during, and after the separation Reveals powerful insights gained from the story of one of the first African American children to be adopted in the United States by a white family-an individual who is now middle-aged

From Torey Hayden, the number one Sunday Times bestselling author of One Child comes The Invisible Girl, a deeply moving true account of a young teen with a troubling obsession and an extraordinary educational psychologist's sympathy and determination to help. Eloise is a vibrant and charming young teen with a deeply caring nature, but she also struggles with a worrying delusion. She's been moved from home to home, and her social workers have difficulty dealing with her habit of running away. After experiencing violence, neglect and sexual abuse from people she should have been able to trust, Eloise has developed complex behavioural needs. She struggles to separate fact from fiction, leading to confusion for the social workers trying to help her. After Torey learns of Eloise's background she hopes that some gentle care and attention can help Eloise gain some sense of security in her life. Can Torey and the other social workers provide the loving attention that has so far been missing in Eloise's life, or will she run away from them too?

"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.

After her adoptive mother's death, Lori Jakiela, at the age of forty, begins to seek the identity of her birth parents. In the midst of this loss, Jakiela also finds herself with a need to uncover her family's medical history to gather answers for her daughter's newly revealed medical ailments. This memoir brings together these parallel searches while chronicling intergenerational questions of family. Through her work, Jakiela examines both the lives we are born with and the lives we create for ourselves. Desires for emotional resolution comingle with concerns of medical inheritance and loss in this honest, humorous, and heartbreaking memoir.

When I am ready, I need you to talk to me and help me understand my feelings...' This reassuring story helps children aged 5+ with attachment issues to understand their feelings, open up to a caring adult and learn how to choose positive behaviours. Ben is made up of lots of different 'parts' - to name a few, he has happy, caring, angry, excited, hugging and yelling parts. Ben explains how all these parts are okay, and that a caring adult can help you to understand and manage them more easily. This book also features activities to help children talk about their feelings, and a simple introduction to attachment theory for adults.

Adult adoptee and family therapist Katie Naftzger shares her personal and professional wisdom in this guide to help adoptive parents remain a calm parental influence in the midst of stormy and erratic teen behavior. This guide describes the essential skills you need to help your adopted teen confidently face the challenges of growing up and outlines four key goals for adoptive parents: * To move from rescuing to responding * To set adoption-sensitive limits and ground rules * To have connecting conversations * To help your teen envision their future Parenting in the Eye of the Storm contains invaluable insights for adoptive parents and simple strategies you can use to prepare your adopted teen for the journey ahead and strengthen the family bond in the process. It provides answers, guidance and understanding - working as a road-map through the tempestuous teenage years.

Through words, pictures, photographs, certificates and other 'little treasures', a Life Story Book provides a detailed account of the child's early history and a chronology of their life. Fully updated, this clear and concise book shows a unique family-friendly way to compile a Life Story Book which promotes a sense of permanency for the child, and encourages attachments within new families. Joy Rees' influential model works chronologically backwards rather than forwards, aiming to reinforce the child's sense of belonging and security before addressing the child's past and early trauma. The book contains simple explanations of complex concepts, practical examples, helpful suggestions and includes some simple checklists. This new edition has been expanded to include fostered children and those living in kinship care or with a special guardian. Perfect for social workers, adoption agencies, adoptive parents, foster carers and kinship carers, Life Story Books for Adopted and Fostered Children is a refreshing, innovative and common-sense guide.