Special Situation

Adoption Issues

Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother
Wolff, Jana
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Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother, with honesty and humor, addreses adoption issues no one else dares to: What if I don't like the kid I get, Will my child ever feel like mine? Why am I so sad when I'm supposed to be so happy? Are people staring, or am I paranoid? Will she want him back? What if I want to return him?

 

Children

The Star: A Story to Help Young Children Understand Foster Care
Cynthia Miller Lovell
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Read this book with your foster child and ask him/her lots of questions. For guidance, consult Questions & Activities for the Star: A handbook for foster parents, which accompanies the book. This book focuses on typical situations encountered in foster care.

 

Developmental Disabilities

Transition to Adulthood: A Resource for Assisting Young People with Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties
Hewitt B. Clark
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This handbook delivers practical methods to help young people with emotional or behavioral difficulties pursue their interests and goals as they move into greater career-oriented education, work, independence, and responsibility. This book will inspire and guide mental health and child welfare professionals, educators, counselors, transition specialists, and families in improving the process and outcomes for these young people in transition.

 

Gay & Lesbian

Issues in Gay and Lesbian Adoption
Ann Sullivan
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Extracts from the symposium presentations regarding deispelling myths and disucssing policy making.

 

Lesbian and Gay Fostering and Adoption: Extraordinary Yet Ordinary
Stephen Hicks
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It takes courage to decide to foster or adopt a child, knowing that your life will now be an open book. In addition, if you are a lesbian or gay man, you face the additional hurdles of prejudice and legal obstacles. LESBIAN AND GAY FOSTERING AND ADOPTING presents a collection of personal accounts given by singles and couples in Great Britain who have fostered or adopted children. The book also includes an editorial essay which examines the many issues involved when lesbians or gay men choose this method of building a family.

 

We Are Family: Testimonies of Lesbian and Gay Parents
Turan Ali
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Through interviews with gay and lesbian parents from a wide range of circumstances We Are Family paints a detailed, emotional and enlightening picture. It shows that 'queers' usually make excellent parents and provide a balanced and successful environment for raising children.

 

Infertility

When Empty Arms Become a Heavy Burden: Encouragement for Couples Facing Infertility
Sandra Glahn
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A Christian guide to the practical, moral marital and spiritual challenges of infertility. This book brings solid facts, detailed information, and a message of encouragement to infertile couples, and those who work with them, along with answers to the questions they ask most often.

 

Kinship Adoptions

How It Feels to Be Adopted
Joseph Crumbly
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This book presents policy, program and practice guidelines to assist agencies in developing and implementing quality kinship care programs. It explores the benefits and challenges of kinship care; clinical concepts, assessment and intervention; case management; and the effects of culture, gender roles and hierarchy of authority on practice with kinship families. It examines legal relationships and looks at federal and state policy and program issues with an examination of the philosophy and values related to the provision of financial support to kinship families, state policy directions, the emerging federal role, and permanency planning.

 

Raising Our Childrens Children
Deborah Doucette-Dudman
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It is becoming increasingly common in our culture for grandparents to be in the situation of parenting again. Custody battles, prior mistreatment of the children, legal arrangements, housing issues and the failure of social service systems to protect children are just some of the issues faced by many caregiving grandparents. RAISING OUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN is a hopeful book about families who have weathered the severest storms and emerged ready to help others.

 

Relatives Raising Children: An Overview of Kinship Care

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Open Adoption

Children of Open Adoption
Kathleen Silber
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What are the effects of open adoption on the children involved? Two pioneers in the field examine scores of open adoption relationships where the children involved range in age from infancy to adolescence. The topics in this book include adoption understanding, developing relationships, families with open and closed adoptions, bonding, communication, sibling issues, and more. CHILDREN OF OPEN ADOPTION is a classic book in the field of adoption.

 

Dear Birthmother, Thank You for Our Baby
Kathleen Silber
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This classic book on open adoption has been updated to reflect current practices. It provides specific and practical suggestions about beginning and maintaining an open adoption. It also contains actual letters written between adoptive families and birthparents. DEAR BIRTHMOTHER will help you carefully consider the issues involved in adoption. You'll need two copies of this moving book—one for yourself and one to give to your child's birthmother.

 

Open Adoption Book: A Guide to Making Adoption Work for You
Bruce Rappaport
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In an open adoption, both the birthparents and adoptive parents are actively involved in all phases of the process. The successes of open adoption--now considered to the the healthiest (and fastest) form of adoption--have lifted it into the mainstream. Interweaving personal stories with answers to the questions most frequently asked about the process, this informative book is designed to help all parties overcome the anxieties often associated with adoption.

 

Open Adoption Experience: A Complete Guide for Adoptive and Birth Families
Lois Melina
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Two leading adoption experts provide an authoritative and reassuring guide to the issues and concerns of adoptive and birth families through all stages of the open adoption relationship. This book covers the steps from initial preparation, through placement and the first year, to the challenges of adolescence. THE OPEN ADOPTION EXPERIENCE is a timely and authoritative book that helps all involved in an open adoption to understand and nurture their relationship as it grows.

 

Openness in Adoption: Exploring Family Connections
Harold Grotevant
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All too often, the discussion of OPENNESS IN ADOPTION is based on anecdotal evidence instead of scientific research. Some adoption professionals argue that openness is still experimental while others maintain that the secrecy of confidential adoptions is harmful. Who's right? This book presents the result of a nationwide study about open adoption, involving 720 individuals and conducted over the course of a five-year period. It should be required reading for everyone involved in the adoption process.

 

Single

Adopting On Your Own
Lee Varon
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Are you a single man or woman who would like to be a daddy or mommy? Then you need ADOPTING ON YOUR OWN. From making the decision about adoption to learning about the different methods, from understanding the logistics to raising your child alone, this book covers it all. With its easy-to-read style, it covers both the practical and emotional aspects unique to single-parent adopters.

 

Handbook for Single Adoptive Parents
Hope Marindin
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This book provides much-needed information of particular interest to single adopters. It is divided into six sections: the mechanics of adoption; managing single parenthood; coping with challenges; personal adoption experiences; frequently asked questions; and studies by professional social scientists showing the success of single parent adoption. THE HANDBOOK FOR SINGLE ADOPTIVE PARENTS is an indispensable guide for singles who are considering adoption.

 

Single Parenting

Single Mother's Survival Guide
Patrice Karst
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In this engaging journey of self-discovery, Patrice Karst, a single mother, shares her practical yet witty advice with single moms everywhere. She covers a wide range of topics that concern the modern woman struggling without a mate, showing how it's possible not only to survive but to triumph. The book features dozens of quick "survival checklists" on topics such as dealing with exhaustion and reasons to be happy about being a single mom. Karst's "Ten Commandments for Single Mothers" begins with "Thou shalt not be afraid to ask for help from anyone at any time (because the offers sure as hell won't come in by themselves)." The Single Mother's Survival Guide also includes wisdom and inspiration for the single mother, touching on goals and dreams, affirmations, and gratitude.

 

Teens

Blending of Foster and Adopted Children into the Family, The
Heather Lehr Wagner
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This book is a guide for teens seeking a greater understanding of what it means to be adopted or living in a foster family. Each chapter leads the reader through the many challenges facing foster and adopted children, including the struggles to establish a clear identity, the issues a child faces when he or she is of a different race or ethnic background the the rest of the family, the decision to search for a birth parent, and the best way to manage emotions.

 

Fighting Invisible Tigers: A Stress Management Guide for Teens
Earl Hipp
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Fighting Invisible Tigers is more than a survival guide to life under demanding conditions. It's a mini-course in becoming the best person you can be, written with help from hundreds of young people like you.

 

pictures of hollis woods
Patricia Reilly Giff
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Hollis Woods is the place where a baby was abandoned, is the baby's name, is an artist, is now a twelve-year old girl who's been in so many foster homes she can hardly remember them all. Hollis Woods is a mountain of trouble. She runs away even from the Regans, the one family who offers her a home. When Hollis is sent to Josie, an elderly artist who is quirky and affectionate, she wants to stay. But Josie is growing more forgetful every day. If Social Services finds out, they'll take Hollis away and move Josie into a home. Well, Hollis Woods won't let anyone separate them. She's escaped the system before; this time, she's taking Josie with her.

 

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