The result is "To the End of June," an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children at the critical points in their search for a stable, loving family.The book mirrors the life cycle of a foster child and so begins with the removal of babies and kids from birth families. There's a teenage birth mother in Texas who signs away her parental rights on a napkin only to later reconsider, crushing the hopes of her baby's adoptive parents. Beam then paints an unprecedented portrait of the intricacies of growing up in the system--the back-and-forth with agencies, the shuffling between pre-adoptive homes and group homes, the emotionally charged tug of prospective adoptive parents and the fundamental pull of birth parents. And then what happens as these system-reared kids become adults? Beam closely follows a group of teenagers in New York who are grappling with what aging out will mean for them and meets a woman who has parented eleven kids from the system, almost all over the age of eighteen, and all still in desperate need of a sense of home and belonging.Focusing intensely on a few foster families who are deeply invested in the system's success, "To the End of June" is essential for humanizing and challenging a broken system, while at the same time it is a tribute to resiliency and offers hope for real change.

    All this, in addition to raising her three biological sons and two adopted daughters. What would motivate someone to give herself over to constant, largely uncompensated chaos? For Harrison, the answer is easy.Another Place at the Table is the story of life at our social services' front lines, centered on three children who, when they come together in Harrison's home, nearly destroy it. It is the frank first-person story of a woman whose compassionate best intentions for a child are sometimes all that stand between violence and redemption.

    You must mind the one taking care of you, but she's not your mama." Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes, living by those words. As her mother spirals out of control, Ashley is left clinging to an unpredictable, dissolving relationship, all the while getting pulled deeper and deeper into the foster care system. Painful memories of being taken away from her home quickly become consumed by real-life horrors, where Ashley is juggled between caseworkers, shuffled from school to school, and forced to endure manipulative,humiliating treatment from a very abusive foster family. In this inspiring, unforgettable memoir, Ashley finds the courage to succeed - and in doing so, discovers the power of her own voice.

    From Simon & Schuster, Orphans of the Living by Jennifer Toth takes a look at the stories of America's children in foster care.Toth's work is an important study of the foster care system in America and examines the plight of thousands of children whose parents cannot or will not care for them, revealing the neglect, abuse, and loss of love that affects their lives

    For years, a government agency had made every important decision for them. Suddenly, they are on their own, with no one to count on. What does it mean to be eighteen and on your own, without the family support and personal connections that most young people rely on? For many youth raised in foster care, it means largely unhappy endings, including sudden homelessness, unemployment, dead-end jobs, loneliness, and despair. On Their Own tells the compelling stories of ten young people whose lives are full of promise, but who face economic and social barriers stemming from the disruptions of foster care. This book calls for action to provide youth in foster care the same opportunities on the road to adulthood that most of our youth take for granted-access to higher education, vocational training, medical care, housing, and relationships within their communities. On Their Own is meant to serve as a clarion call not only to policymakers, but to all Americans who care about the futures of our young people.

    Why does an infant die of malnutrition? Why does an eight-year-old hold a knife to his brother's throat? Or a mother push her cherished daughter twenty-three floors to her death? Marc Parent, a city caseworker, searched the streets--and his heart--for the answers, and shares them in this powerful, vivid, beautifully written book.WITH A NEW AFTERWORD BY THE AUTHOR

    Like a diamond in the rough, all of the kids who killed were tough and protected on the outside while hiding a glimmer of promise inside. For many of these children, the Thomases were their last hope. With the guidance of this courageous family, their stories of survival and victory break the unwritten code of silence about children without a conscience. Through therapeutic intervention comes the spellbinding metamorphosis of nine children. Although it stems from the deepest of human suffering, each shining triumph will leave you uplifted and celebrating life.

    No one in the system can help him. No one can tell him if he has a family. No one can tell him why, with obvious African-American features, he has the last name of Klakowicz.Along the way, a single faint light comes only from a neighbor’s small acts of kindness and caring—and a box of books. From one of those books he learns that he has to fight in any way he can—for victory is in the battle. His victory is to excel in school.Against all odds, the author succeeded. He attended college, graduated, became a successful corporate executive, and married a wonderful woman with whom he established a loving family of his own. Through it, he dug voraciously through records and files and found his history, his birth family—and the ultimate disappointment as some family members embrace him, but others reject him.Readers won’t be the same after reading this powerful story. They will share in the hurts and despair but also in the triumph against daunting obstacles. They will share this story with their family, with their friends, with their neighbors.

    It provides an intimate look at the lives of the parents and children whose fate it decides. A must for social workers and social work students, attorneys, judges, foster parents, law students, child advocates, teachers, journalists and anyone who cares about our nation's children.

    Writing with incisive wit and honesty, Sally Donovan movingly describes the difficulties of living with infertility when friends and family have no idea, and the emotional process of arriving at a decision to adopt. She recounts the bewildering logistics of adoption and, after finally Sally and Rob are joyfully matched with siblings Jaymee and Harlee, how their joy is followed by shock as they discover disturbing details of their children's past. Determined to heal their children, Sally and Rob realise they will need to go 'beyond parenting' to give them with the help they need. By turns heart-rending, inspiring and hilarious, Sally and Rob's story offers a rare insight into the world of adoptive parents and just what it takes to bring love to the lives of traumatised children.

    Some adoptions, though, present unique challenges. Welcoming these children into your family--and addressing their special needs--requires care, consideration, and compassion.Written by two research psychologists specializing in adoption and attachment, "The Connected Child" will help you: Build bonds of affection and trust with your adopted child Effectively deal with any learning or behavioral disorders Discipline your child with love without making him or her feel threatened

    Trapped in desperate poverty and confronted with unthinkable tragedies, all Andrew ever wanted was to be with his mom. But as her mental health steadily declined, and with no one else left to care for him, authorities arrived and tore Andrew from his screaming mother's arms. In that moment, the life he knew came crashing down around him. He was only seven years old. Hope was institutionalized, and Andrew was placed in what would be his devastating reality for the next eleven years--foster care. After surviving one of our country's most notorious children's facilities, Andrew was thrust into a savagely loveless foster family that refused to accept him as one of their own. Deprived of the nurturing he needed, Andrew clung to academics and the kindness of teachers. All the while, he refused to surrender the love he held for his mother in his heart. Ultimately, Andrew earned a scholarship to Wesleyan, went on to Harvard Law School, and became a Fulbright Scholar. Andrew has dedicated his life's work to helping children living in poverty and in the foster care system. He defied the staggering odds set against him, and here in this heartwrenching, brutally honest, and inspirational memoir, he reveals who Hope's boy really is.

    She writes of the way the "unwanted" feeling was erased with devoted love and understanding and how the children united into one happy family. Her account reads like a novel, with scenes of hard times and triumphs described in vivid prose. The Family Nobody Wanted, which inspired two films, opened doors for other adoptive families and was a popular favorite among parents, young adults, and children for more than thirty years. Now this edition will introduce the classic to a new generation of readers. An epilogue by Helen Doss that updates the family's progress since 1954 will delight the book's loyal legion of fans around the world.

    This is the story of how he grew up and gained the courage to reach out for love.

    Crystal was only fourteen. She was living with a boyfriend whom she was too young to marry, and her mother was addicted to heroin and cocaine. So under the law, Crystal and Daquan became wards of New York State’s foster-care system—a sprawling, often slipshod web of boarding facilities, halfway houses, and paid surrogates that cares for almost 60,000 children.Life for Me Ain’t Been No Crystal Stair is the story of what happened to Crystal and Daquan, as well as to Crystal’s mother, who herself had grown up in various foster homes. It is a story of three generations of poverty, addiction, and abuse—and also a story of astonishing human resilience. And Susan Sheehan tells it with the same flawless observation, humor, and compassion that she brought to her classic Is There No Place on Earth for Me?