Showing titles in Adoption & Fostering

50 Things to Know About Being a Stepparent gives you practical ideas on how to successfully blend your new family. Just remember that it is not going to happen overnight. Blending your new family is going to take lots of time and patience.

Embarking on an adoption journey can be daunting, but now you are not alone! This collection of true, beautiful accounts takes an honest look at the process, the struggles, and the undeniable joy that comes with adoption. With insights from all three adoption triad viewpoints, Adopting Hope shares a wealth of lessons learned and tips for every person contemplating an adoption journey.

In this practical guide, adoptive parent Helen Oakwater helps you to understand the ins and outs of adoption. Using Helen’s insights and tips, you will become better at understanding what makes you tick, and learn how to become calmer, kinder to yourself, and identify what helps or hinders. Only when you have learned how to look after yourself can you nurture a hurt child.

How does a woman go from a normal Midwestern mom to sitting across the table from a bounty hunter? That's what Kathleen English Cadmus wondered as she took one more surreal step in her quest to find and save her teenage daughter, Laura. The beautiful baby Kathleen had adopted from Korea was on the run again, fueled by another manic episode brought on by her bipolar disorder. Having already lost her son Shawn to a tragic accident, Kathleen couldn't bear the thought that she had failed to protect another one of her children.

From the sterile isolation of infertility and its treatments to the emotional rollercoaster of adoption and foster care, Rachel McCracken gets it! She gets the heartache and the sorrow of the desolate valley called Infertility. She gets the dedication and work that it takes to blend a family. She gets the commitment and purpose one needs to help children rise from the ashes of abandonment and fear. Rachel's new book, Chasing Kites: One Mother's Unexpected Journey Through Infertility, Adoption, and Foster Care weaves her real-life experiences of struggle, heartache, and loss into a wonderful narrative of faith, hope, and the joy that can come through it all.

Experienced foster carer Rosie Lewis is used to looking after children from difficult home situations, but she finds herself struggling when she agrees to take in Taylor and her younger brother, Reece, for a short while. Taylor tries desperately not to fit in, to be the tough young teen that she has had to become, making it clear that she cares about nothing and no one, while Reece is just desperate for someone to love him.

Faith to Foster is a candid look into the life of ordinary foster parents T.J. and Jenn Menn. It is a journey chronicling their decision-making process, how the children arrived, the birth parents struggle to rehabilitate, help from friends and family, emotional goodbyes, and how faith in Jesus empowered them through it all. TJ and Jenn share their experiences and feelings in a way that encourages any listener to serve their neighbors, not just foster parents. Faith to Foster reminds Christians how God can use them to make a difference in their community.

Alexandra Fisher is a passionate advocate for social justice and a champion of the rights of vulnerable youth. With a background in social work and community development, Alexandra has dedicated her career to understanding and addressing the challenges faced by homeless teens in the United States. Through her book on the homeless epidemic among teens, Alexandra aspires to ignite a movement that transcends the pages of this work and sparks real-world action. Her hope is that readers will be inspired to join the cause, foster compassion, and work together to ensure that no young individual is...

How would you like to be given a new identity to live by and then removed from your sisters and brothers—never to be legally permitted to contact them again—even upon your deathbed? This is just one of many examples of red tape adoptees are forced to contend with. This book reveals the making of the current child welfare system. The pioneers who built and profited from the industry continue to deny adoptees access to documents that could lead them back to their families. This book protects you against adoption profiteers and traffickers who profess God is on their side.

Foster children are society's throwaway kids, the children no one wants—until someone finally does. Saving Michael provides an inside look at Keri Vellis's struggle to secure the best possible services for two severely abused and traumatized siblings. Listeners 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.

Belonging Matters is meant to support the adoption community, while creating a conversation with those not directly touched by adoption.

Ashley Blaker has six children, three of whom have an SEN diagnosis. Between endless meetings, countless therapists, public humiliations, failed playdates, surreal monologues and occasional violence, it’s certainly not what anyone would call a ‘normal’ household – but would he want it any other way? Normal Schmormal is part-memoir, part how-to guide, highlighting the many challenges, as well as the hugely rewarding elements, of parenting children with additional needs.

Disruptors, entrepreneurs, and unconventional do-gooders, Drs. Jodi and Garry Vermaas are not the people you would expect to parent 12 children. From the child-trafficking slums of Manila to the barren corners of China to the baggage compartment of a long-distance train to Mumbai, each of their children has a tale to tell - if only they could find the words.

When The Risk of Us opens, we meet a 40-something woman who deeply wants to become a mother. The path that opens up to her and her husband takes them through the foster care system, with the goal of adoption. And when seven-year-old Maresa - with inch-deep dimples and a voice that can beam to the moon - comes into their lives, their hearts fill with love. But her rages and troubles threaten to crack open their marriage. Over the course of a year, the couple must decide if they can be the parents this child needs and finalize the adoption - or give her up.

One bright summer afternoon on weekend errands with his mother, 10-year-old Ronald's faint suspicions that he is adopted are confirmed by his mother's careful, well-practiced announcement of the truth. As a child whose appearance is close enough to that of his extended African American adoptive family, he has always felt a part of them, but now things make a little more sense, and a 40-year odyssey of seeking his genetic truth is triggered.

Filled with real-life stories and practical advice, Called to Care starts by helping you honestly assess your motivation to help - sometimes the wrong motivation sets the stage for an unsuccessful experience. From there, the book shows what adoption and foster care really look like in a variety of situations, from domestic and international adoptions to short-term foster care and foster-to-adopt arrangements. Also included is how churches and individuals can minister to refugees.

At only five years old, Saroo Brierley got lost on a train in India. Unable to read or write or recall the name of his hometown or even his own last name, he survived alone for weeks on the rough streets of Calcutta before ultimately being transferred to an agency and adopted by a couple in Australia. Despite his gratitude, Brierley always wondered about his origins.

Robert Tickner had always known he was adopted but had rarely felt much curiosity about his origins. Serving in the Hawke and Keating governments, he held the portfolio of minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs, and while there he was instrumental in instigating the national inquiry into the Stolen Generations. When, in his 40s, Robert at last turned his attention to the question of his own birth, he had some sense of the potentially life-changing course that lay ahead of him.

There are hundreds of thousands of children throughout the world who need forever families. Loving families provide the best conditions for the development and happiness of all children. Every child deserves a loving family. Gathering Israel's Children is a collection of personal experiences of individuals and families who have gathered children into their families through adopting them, mentoring them, and simply loving these children in need.

Have you ever considered adoption? Have you tried very hard to conceive and yet have not been blessed with children? Do you want more children, but your doctors tell you cannot physically have more? Are you a single who sincerely wants to adopt children for your own? Do you have adopted children now and are encountering challenges in raising them?