Baby Brokers, The: The Marketing of White Babies in America. Lynne McTaggart. 1980. 339p. The Dial Press. Adoption has become a lucrative industry in America, primarily due to a diminishing supply of available healthy, white babies, which has enabled attorneys and other entrepeneurs to cash in using sophisticated marketing strategies. Author Lynne McTaggert found out exactly how the baby market works by posing as both an unmarried pregnant student and a prospective adoptive parent; and by interviewing several hundred biological and adoptive parents, law-enforcement officials and the “baby brokers” themselves.

Baby Business, The: How Money, Science & Politics Drive the Commerce of Conception. Debora L Spar. 2006. 302p. Harvard Business Press. Despite legislation that claims to prohibit it, there is a thriving market for babies spreading across the globe. Fueled by rapid advances in reproductive medicine and the desperate desires of millions of would-be parents, the acquisition of children—whether through donated eggs, rented wombs, or cross-border adoption—has become a multi-billion dollar industry that has left science, law, ethics, and commerce deeply at odds. In The Baby Business, Debora Spar argues that it is time to acknowledge the commercial truth about reproduction and to establish a standard that governs its transactions. In this fascinating behind-the-scenes account, she combines pioneering research and interviews with the industry’s top reproductive scientists and trailblazers to provide a first glimpse at how the industry works: who the baby-makers are, who makes money, how prices are set, and what defines the clientele. Fascinating stories illustrate the inner workings of market segments—including stem cell research, surrogacy, egg swapping, “designer babies,” adoption, and human cloning—as Spar explores the moral and legal challenges that industry players must address. The first purely commercial look at an industry that deals in humanity’s most intimate issues, this book challenges us to consider the financial promise and ethical perils we’ll face as the baby business moves inevitably forward. About the Author: Debora Spar is the Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.

Baby James: A Legacy of Love & Family Courage. Thomas & Jayne Miller. 1988. 192p. Harper & Row. On April 26, 1986, the press announced that a 15-month-old California boy named Baby James had undergone a successful heart transplant at Loma Linda University Medical Center. Infant heart transplants had been infrequently attempted, and this was medical history in the making. What few people knew was that Baby James was actually Nicholas L. Miller, a child who had been given up by his birth parents & miraculously united with the Millers on the day of his birth. “This is the bittersweet story of a couple’s courage, a child’s valiant struggle to survive and the spiritual ties that keep the couple together after the death of their adopted child.”

Baby Thief, The: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller Who Corrupted Adoption. Barbara Bisantz Raymond. 2007. 320p. Carroll & Graf. The shocking story of Georgia Tann, a notorious dealer in black-market babies between 1920 and 1950 whose actions ultimately popularized—and corrupted—adoption as we know it today. For almost three decades, renowned baby-seller Georgia Tann ran a children’s home in Memphis, Tennessee—selling her charges to wealthy clients nationwide, Joan Crawford among them. Part social history, part detective story, part expose, The Baby Thief is a riveting investigative narrative that explores themes that continue to reverberate today.

Babyselling: The Scandal of Black-Market Adoption. Nancy C Baker. 1978. 224p. Vanguard. The combination of legalized abortion, changing attitudes toward unwed mothers keeping their babies, and better methods of birth control has severely limited the supply of adoptable babies. It is estimated that each year several thousand couples pay babysellers up to $50,000 for the opportunity to become parents. These black-market adoptions (transactions in which money, not the child’s welfare, is the paramount factor) are estimated to comprise at least one-third of all independent (non-agency) adoptions. The book discusses why babyselling has become commonplace; why babysellers are not very concerned about being arrested and convicted; and why the natural parents, the adoptive parents, and the baby all stand to lose in a black-market adoption. It is pointed out that most black-market adoptions are riddled with fraud; e.g., misrepresentation of the baby’s heriditary background or coercion of the natural mother. It is also noted that babysellers often use interstate transactions to confound state law enforcement officials. The proposal that private adoption be outlawed is analyzed and found wanting as a cure for black-market adoptions. Strong federal legislation, improved state laws, and greater concern and awareness on the part of the courts are concluded to be the components of a more useful approach to eliminating the practice of babyselling. Alternatives to black-market transactions are cited for parents who wish to adopt. A list of adoption agencies is included.

‘Bananas, Bastards & Victims’?: Australian Intercountry Adoptees & Cultural Belonging. Kim Michele Gray. 2009. 256p. VDM Verlag. Intercountry adoption emerged in Australia in the 1970s, at the end of the Vietnam War and with each new decade the adoption community and broader society have become more aware of the challenges and complexities of the adoptee experience. This book addresses the dearth of sociological literature available on the topic and considers the diverse experiences of Australian intercountry adoptees. It offers a fresh approach to the issue of ’cultural identity’, utilizes qualitative research methods and asks questions about how particular discourses about race, culture, adoption and identity have impacted on intercountry adoptees’ lives. The work illustrates how adoptees are managing to (re)define their fluid, hybrid identities within the context of multicultural Australia and by their membership within other diasporic movements. Members of the global adoption community - adoptees, adoptive parents, birth parents and adoption professionals - will find the book of particular interest as will workers and academics in the fields of social work, cultural studies and family studies. The work also makes a signficant contribution to the broader body of literature on transnationalism. About the Author: Kim Gray, B. Soc.Sc.(Hons), Ph.D., teaches sociology at University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. She is the adoptive mother to two Korean-born children.

Banished Babies: The Secret History of Ireland’s Baby Export Business. Mike Milotte. 1998. 224p. Dufour Editions, Inc. Banished Babies is a striking and in some ways chilling snapshot of the system which held sway in Ireland up to the 1970s. The extraordinary story told in this book is full of the hypocrisy of church and state with single mothers and children as the victims. While unemployment forced young people abroad, politicians and churchmen deplored emigration and passed pious resolutions about bringing it to an end. At the same time they were sanctioning the sale of Irish babies to wealthy American couples, exporting the children they deemed “illegitimate.” — Micheal MacDonncha, An Phoblacht/Republican News.

Becoming an Unwed Mother: A Sociological Account. Prudence Mors Rains. 1971. 207p. Aldine-Atherton. This book constitutes one of the few consistent applications of the labeling approach, an influential paradigm in sociology. The result is a set of policy implications that fundamentally contradicted the standard, and largely ineffective, policies then being followed. Thus, for both theoretical and policy reasons, it is an important work. About the Author: Prudence (“Prue”) Mors Rains is an Associate Professor at MsGill University (Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts) and a researcher in Women’s Studies at the McGill Centre for Research and Teaching on Women.

Beggars & Choosers: How the Politics of Choice Shapes Adoption, Abortion, & Welfare in the United States. Rickie Solinger. 2001. 320p. Hill & Wang Publishers. Beggars and Choosers: How the Politics of Choice Shapes Adoption, Abortion, and Welfare in the United States is a thorough feminist history of public policy on abortion since Roe v. Wade, as well as a reconsideration of recent political strategy. Rickie Solinger’s third book on reproductive rights hinges on a crucial semantic shift in the 1970s from “abortion rights” to the softer, less direct “choice” and “pro-choice,” itself an attempt to shake off the awkward “pro-abortion” tag. While “rights” are undeniable, Solinger asserts, “choice” is a market-driven concept. “Historical distinctions between women of color and white women, between poor and middle-class women, have been reproduced and institutionalized in the ‘era of choice,’ ” she continues, “in part by defining some groups of women as good choice makers, some as bad.” Solinger also advances a troubling economic thesis about adoption, defined roughly as “the transfer of babies from women of one social classification to women in a higher social classification or group.” Bracing and well-researched, Solinger’s arguments should be considered by anyone working for women’s and children’s rights. — Regina Marler

Behavioral Characteristics of Children Known to Psychiatric Outpatient Clinics, With Special Attention to Adoption Status, Sex, & Age Groupings. Edgar F. Borgatta & David Fanshel. 1965. 40p. CWLA.

Being Adopted: The Lifelong Search for Self. David M Brodzinsky, Marshall D Schechter & Robin Marantz Henig. 1992. Doubleday. Recent studies have shown that being adopted can affect many aspects of adoptees’ lives, from relationships with adoptive parents to bonds with their own children. Using their combined total of 55 years experience in clinical and research work with adoptees and their families, the authors use the voices of adoptees themselves to trace how adoption is experienced over a lifetime.

Beneath the Mask: Understanding Adopted Teens. Debbie Riley & John Meeks, MD. 2005. 262p. CASE Publications. Working with adopted adolescents is complex. The key to successful therapy and healthy development is to help the adolescent discover and accept the person within. Parents will discover: the six most common adoption stuck-spots; the complexities of adoption; the adopted teen’s quest for identity; how therapy may help the adoptive families learn and grow together. Therapists and clinicians will discover: a broad knowledge base on adoption; a step-by-step assessment process; clinical intervention strategies; a wealth of case histories; treatment resources and therapy tools; writing and art therapy samples. About the Authors: Debbie Riley is the Executive Director of the Center for Adoption Support and Education, Inc. She received her master’s degree from the University of Maryland, Department of Family studies. She has been a practicing marriage and family therapist for twenty-three years, focusing on adolescent mental health, and treating teens in outpatient, inpatient, and community mental health settings. She is the co-founder of Operation Runaway—a unique public/private partnership between one of the country’s largest suburban police departments and a community psychiatric hospital. Since 1993, she has focused exclusively on the field of adoption, creating an innovative post-adoption family support center in the Washington metropolitan area. Services include a continuum of comprehensive adoption mental health services, education and support services for the adoption community. Ms. Riley is an accomplished presenter, both locally and nationally, on adoption issues, and writes for various adoption-related publications. John E. Meeks, M.D., has been a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist for more than forty-five years. He received his medical degree from the University of Tennessee. He has taught at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and the Georgetown University Medical School. He has served as director of several child and adolescent divisions in psychiatric hospitals. He is co-founder and has served as the president and medical director of The Foundation Schools since 1975. The foundation Schools operate three K-12 schools for students with emotional disturbance. He has authored several articles on individual and group psychotherapy, behavioral disorders of childhood, treatment of adolescent suicide, adolescent substance abuse, hospitalization and inpatient treatment and adolescent depression. Dr. Meeks is best known for his classic textbook The Fragile Alliance; another book on depression, High Times, Low Times: The Many Faces of Adolescent Depression; and his most recent publication, The Learning Alliance. Dr. Meeks received the prestigious national Schonfeld Award from the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry for his lifetime contributions to child and adolescent psychiatry.

Best Interests of the Child, The: The Least Detrimental Alternative. Joseph Goldstein, ed.; Albert J. Solnit, Sonja Goldstein & Anna Freud, contributors. 1996. Free Press. What principles should guide the courts in deciding the fate of hundreds of thousands of children involved every year in parental divorces and family breakdowns? What should justify state intrusion on the privacy of family relationships? How should professionals—judges, lawyers, social workers, psychiatrists, and psychologists—conduct themselves in pursuing “the best interests” of children who have been abandoned, neglected, or abused? The agonizing dilemmas posed by these three questions were the subject of one of the seminal publishing events in the history of The Free press. The result has been a set of historic guidelines which forms the basis of their landmark trilogy Beyond the Best Interests of the Child, Before the Best Interests of the Child, and In the Best Interests of the Child, published between 1973 and 1986. The authors speak in one voice in concluding that the continuity of care—continuity of a child’s relationship with his or her adult caregiver —is a universal essential to the child’s well-being. To this end, they stress that minimizing intrusions by the law is paramount to safeguarding the child’s growth and development. “The least detrimental alternative”—the authors overarching guideline for assuring the continuity of the psychological parent-child relationship—has been cited in more than a thousand child custody cases since 1973.

Beyond the Foster Care System: The Future For Teens. Betsy Krebs & Paul Pitcoff. 2006. 238p. Rutgers University Press. Each year tens of thousands of teenagers are released from the foster care system in the United States without high school degrees or strong family relationships. Two to four years after discharge, half of these young people still do not have either a high school diploma or equivalency degree, and fewer than ten percent enter college. Nearly a third end up on public assistance within fifteen months, and eventually more than a third will be arrested or convicted of a crime. In this richly detailed and often surprising exploration of the foster care system, Betsy Krebs and Paul Pitcoff argue that the existing structure sets kids up to fail by inadequately preparing them for adult life. Foster care programs traditionally emphasize goals of reuniting children with family or placing children into adoptive homes. But neither of these outcomes is likely for adolescents. Krebs and Pitcoff contend that the primary goal of foster care for teenagers should be rigorous preparation for a fully productive adult life and that the standard life skills curriculum is woefully inadequate for this purpose. The authors, who together cofounded the Youth Advocacy Center in New York City, draw on their fifteen years of experience working with teens and the foster care system to introduce new ways to teach teens to be responsible for themselves and to identify and develop their potential. They also explore what sorts of resources—legal, financial, and human—will need to come from inside and outside the system to more fully humanize the practice of foster care. Ultimately, Krebs and Pitcoff argue that change must involve the participation of caring communities of volunteers who want to see disadvantaged youth succeed as well as developing methods to empower teens to take control of their lives. Bringing together a series of inspiring, real-life accounts, Beyond the Foster Care System introduces readers to a number of dynamic young people who have participated in the Youth Advocacy Center’s programs and who have gone on to apply these lessons to other areas of life. Their stories demonstrate that more successful alternatives to the standard way of providing foster care are not only imaginable, but possible. With the practical improvements Krebs and Pitcoff outline, teens can learn the skills of effective self-advocacy, become better prepared for the transition to full independence, and avoid becoming the statistics that foster care has so often produced in the past. About the Authors: Betsy Krebs and Paul Pitcoff co-founded Youth Advocacy Center in New York City to teach teenagers to be advocates for themselves and take control of their lives. Using their backgrounds in law and higher education, they created a model of using the Socratic case method to teach teens self-advocacy and prepare them for informational interviews in the community. Their Getting Beyond the System(r) model and books, On Your Own as a Young Adult, are used nationally to help teens in and at risk of foster care. For her work at Youth Advocacy Center, Betsy was awarded a fellowship from George Soros’ Open Society Institute, and was elected to the Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, a global organization which identifies and invests in leading social entrepreneurs. Betsy is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was an attorney representing foster care children for four years. Paul is an attorney who previously was a filmmaker and founding chair of the Communications Department at Adelphi University, where he was a tenured professor for 20 years, and where he is now is Professor Emeritus.

Birth Fathers & Their Adoption Experiences. Gary Clapton. 2002. 176p. Jessica Kingsley Publishers (UK). Virtually all literature about birth parents of adopted children has focused on mothers. In this pioneering study, Gary Clapton gives us a fresh perspective: he recounts the experiences of thirty birth fathers separated from their children at birth, and suggests ways of applying this knowledge to work with adopted children, their adoptive families and birth parents. Discussing different notions of fatherhood, such as biological paternity, social fatherhood, sperm donorship and the “father figure,” this informative book gives new light on issues such as the decision to give up a child for adoption, the child’s desire to find his or her birth parents, and the facilitation of contact later in life. Written in an accessible style for busy professional readers, Birth Fathers and their Adoption Experiences offers a new understanding of the causes and consequences of adoption, and makes positive suggestions for working with those whom it affects. About the Author: Gary Clapton is a post-adoption counselor with Birthlink in Edinburgh and a training officer with City of Edinburgh Council Social Work Department.

Birth of an Adoptive, Foster or Stepmother: Beyond Biological Mothering Attachments. Barbara Waterman. 2003. 272p. Jessica Kingsley Publishers (UK). Adoptive, foster and stepmothers, like biological mothers, find their lives completely changed by motherhood although they are not always granted the rights and privileges accorded to those who give birth. Barbara Waterman explores the common experiences that are shared by all those who enter the motherhood portal. She highlights the importance of wider family and professional support for non-biological parents and primary care-givers of both genders, and their children. A stepmother herself and a practicing psychologist, Waterman’s writing is illustrated throughout with vignettes of children and parents from a range of backgrounds. She shows the important ways in which a non-biological attachment is both more similar to and more different from biological attachment than is currently understood. In doing this, Waterman broadens the notion of the “traditional” family, and offers a positive alternative to the myth of the perfect mother. All kinds of step-, adoptive and foster families and those coming into contact with them will find this thoroughly researched and personal book an indispensable guide. About the Author: Barbara Waterman earned her doctorate in Psychology and Social Relations from Harvard University in 1975. After working through not being able to conceive a child herself and several unsuccessful attempts to adopt, Dr. Waterman became a stepmother to twelve-year-old twin daughters. She has a private consultation and psychotherapy practice in Oakland, California.

Blood Ties & Fictive Ties: Adoption & Family Life in Early Modern France. Kristin E Gager. 1996. Princeton University Press. In Paris during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the practice of adopting children was strongly discouraged by cultural, religious, and legal authorities on the grounds that it disrupted family blood lines. In fact, historians have assumed that adoption had generally not been practiced in France or in the rest of Europe since late antiquity. Challenging this view, Kristin Gager brings to light evidence showing how married couples and single men and women from the artisan neighborhoods in early modern Paris did manage to adopt children as their legal heirs. In so doing, she offers a new, richly detailed portrait of family life, civil law, and public assistance in Paris and reveals how citizens forged a wide variety of family forms in defiance of social, cultural, and legal norms.

Blue Ribbon Babies & Labors of Love: Race, Class, & Gender in U.S. Adoption Practice. Christine Ward Gailey. 2009. University of Texas Press. Most Americans assume that shared genes or blood relationships provide the strongest basis for family. What can adoption tell us about this widespread belief and American kinship in general? Blue-Ribbon Babies and Labors of Love examines the ways class, gender, and race shape public and private adoption in the United States. Christine Ward Gailey analyzes the controversies surrounding international, public, and transracial adoption, and how the political and economic dynamics that shape adoption policies and practices affect the lives of people in the adoption nexus: adopters, adoptees, birth parents, and agents within and across borders. Interviews with white and African-American adopters, adoption social workers, and adoption lawyers, combined with her long-term participant-observation in adoptive communities, inform her analysis of how adopters’ beliefs parallel or diverge from the dominant assumptions about kinship and family. Gailey demonstrates that the ways adoptive parents speak about their children vary across hierarchies of race, class, and gender. She shows that adopters’ notions about their children’s backgrounds and early experiences, as well as their own “family values,” influence child rearing practices. Her extensive interviews with 131 adopters reveal profoundly different practices of kinship in the United States today. Moving beyond the ideology of “blood is thicker than water,” Gailey presents a new way of viewing kinship and family formation, suitable to times of rapid social and cultural change. About the Author: Christine Ward Gailey is Professor of Women’s Studies and Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. She is also the author of Kinship to Kingship: Gender Hierarchy and State Formation in the Tongan Islands.

British Social Work in the Nineteenth Century. AF Young & ET Ashton. (International Library of Sociology and Social Reconstruction). 1956. 264p. Routledge & Kegan Paul (UK).

Bromley’s Family Law. PM Bromley, Nigel Lowe, Gillian Douglas, NV Lowe. 1998. 1,006p. LexisNexis UK. This latest edition reflects the general trends in the development of family law, in particular the increasing emphasis upon the parent-child relationship and the diminishing significance of marriage. Therefore substantial changes have been made both to the overall structure and to the content. For example, the chapters on Divorce and Family Protection have been entirely re-written in the light of the Family Law Act 1996.

Brothers & Sisters in Adoption: Helping Children Navigate Relationships When New Kids Join the Family. Arleta M James. 2008. 544p. Perspectives Press. When experienced parents decide to adopt an older child or a sibling group, they jump through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops background checks, interviews, group meetings, reading assignments, classes, etc. But most often the typically developing children these adults are already parenting (whether through birth or adoption) are left out of the process, informed that a new kid is coming, and simply expected to adjust to the addition of a sibling. Adding a child with a history of neglect or trauma cannot be a seamless transition. The expectations of everyone involved parents, new siblings, and, yes, the professionals facilitating the adoption must be realistic, taking into account that the new child will need special attention and services that may take away time and attention from the already resident kids, that family life is likely to be turned topsy-turvy until appropriate counseling and support are in place, that relationships will change. Therapist Arleta James is certainly not the first person to recognize this, but she is the first to do something about it. Brothers and Sisters and Adoption offers insights and examples and sturdy, practical, proven tools for helping newly configured families prepare, accept, react, and mobilize to become a new and different family meeting the practical, physical and emotional needs of all its members. These well prepared and supported families are the ones who thrive! About the Author: Arleta M. James, MS, PCC, has been an adoption professional for a dozen years. She spent several years as a caseworker for the Pennsylvania Statewide Adoption Network placing foster children with adoptive families and then as the statewide Matching Specialist. She now works as a therapist providing services for attachment difficulties, childhood trauma and issues related to adoption. She was the 1999 Pennsylvania Adoption Professional of the Year. She is currently on staff at the Attachment and Bonding Center of Ohio.

Building the Invisible Orphanage: A Prehistory of the American Welfare State. Matthew A Crenson. 1998. 384p. Harvard University Press. In 1996, America abolished its long-standing welfare system in favor of a new and largely untried public assistance program. Welfare as we knew it arose in turn from a previous generation’s rejection of an even earlier system of aid. That generation introduced welfare in order to eliminate orphanages. This book examines the connection between the decline of the orphanage and the rise of welfare. Matthew Crenson argues that the prehistory of the welfare system was played out not on the stage of national politics or class conflict but in the micropolitics of institutional management. New arrangements for child welfare policy emerged gradually as superintendents, visiting agents, and charity officials responded to the difficulties that they encountered in running orphanages or creating systems that served as alternatives to institutional care. Crenson also follows the decades-long debate about the relative merits of family care or institutional care for dependent children. Leaving poor children at home with their mothers emerged as the most generally acceptable alternative to the orphanage, along with an ambitious new conception of social reform. Instead of sheltering vulnerable children in institutions designed to transform them into virtuous citizens, the reformers of the Progressive era tried to integrate poor children into the larger society, while protecting them from its perils.

Butterbox Babies. Bette Cahill. 1992. 256p. McClellan-Bantam (Canada). Stories about the Ideal Maternity Home in East Chester, Nova Scotia have been the subject of public trials and private whisperings for half a century. Now, after three years of research and scores of interviews from coast to coast, author Bette Cahill reveals the truth about the Home, its owners, the babies who were born there, and those who died there. It is a truth that will horrify and enrage, for in these pages Cahill charges that the children of unwed mothers born in the Ideal Maternity Home were offered for adoption in a manner that amounted to little more than baby farming for profit. We also learn that most of the natural parents had no knowledge of these practices. The babies placed in new homes were the lucky ones. Was the high infant mortality rate at the Home coincidence, neglect, accident, or economics? Butterbox Babies is a story of greed, hypocrisy and justice. It is also the moving story of children who survived the Ideal Maternity Home and their search for a past. Bette Cahill traces their lives today as their search leads them from disappointment, to rejection and in some cases the joy of reunion with the parents they never knew. Visit the Author’s Website.

Butterbox Survivors: Life After The Ideal Maternity Home. Robert Hartlen. 1999. 237p. Nimbus Publishing (Canada). Since the 1992 publication of Butterbox Babies (see above), the Ideal Maternity Home in Chester, Nova Scotia has become synonymous with illegal adoptions & suspicious baby deaths. Much attention has been given to the neglect of infants at the Home, exorbitant fees paid by adoptive parents, & secrretive nature of the transactions. But what became of the children who were adopted? What effect did their shaky beginnings have on their later lives? The author is a survivor who has compiled the personal stories of 36 of the adult adoptees who survived the Home. Also included are the stories of some of the mothers who gave up their children for adoption, & some of the adopted mothers who claimed the babies as their own.

Can This Child Be Saved? Solutions For Adoptive & Foster Families. Foster W Cline, MD, & Cathy Helding. 1999. 357p. World Enterprises. Over 200,000 children live in foster homes in America today. Forty to sixty percent of these children have been severely and permanently damaged by their pasts, resulting in behavioral, psychiatric, emotional and neurological disorders. Large numbers of previously adopted children (both domestic and international) suffer from similar problems. In the past, these children would have been cared for in specialized facilities staffed 24 hours a day by professionals. Today they are placed in inadequately prepared adoptive or foster homes where they often become uncontrollable, and forcefully reject those who want only to love and help them. Yet, in the past when families sought understanding and help, they found that there was little or none available. Now there is. Can This Child Be Saved? Solutions for Adoptive and Foster Families offers parents help and hope, encouragement and support. It examines what causes children to act and react the way they do, and why conventional strategies and approaches often fail to reach them. It explores and validates parents’ feelings and offers struggling families clearly detailed and easy to understand parenting techniques and therapeutic approaches that do succeed with disturbed children. About the Authors: Foster W. Cline, M.D., s an internationally renowned adult and child psychiatrist, lecturer, and author of eight books on parenting and working with difficult children. His best selling Love and Logic parenting series, co-authored with Jim Fay, has been translated into several foreign languages. Hope for High Risk and Rage Filled Children has become the classic reference on understanding and treating Reactive Attachment Disorder in children. Dr. Cline is the co-founder of two clinics that specialize in the treatment of severely disturbed children. He is a popular speaker at workshops and seminars throughout the United States and has spoken in eleven foreign countries. Dr. Cline and his wife Hermie have three children by birth, one by adoption and several foster children. They live in the mountains of northern Idaho. Cathy Helding is a nationally known consultant, writer, and speaker in the field of special-needs adoption and parenting of special-needs children. Cathy comes from a background in special education and taught cognitively disabled middle school students in the 1970s. She is a former America Online Community Leader and newsletter editor for the Adoption Forum. She is a sought-after speaker for parent groups, agency trainings, and teacher in-service programs. In 1998 she testified before a State Senate committee on fetal alcohol syndrome and was instrumental in the passage of legislation that recognizes the rights of unborn children of drug-and alcohol-addicted mothers. Cathy and her husband John have four children, three of whom were adopted as a sibling group with special needs. They live in a replica turn-of-the-century farmhouse on eight acres of restored native prairie in southeastern Wisconsin.

Care & Commitment: Foster Parent Adoption Decisions. William Meezan & Joan Shireman, eds. 1985. 247p. SUNY Press. Foster homes have traditionally been considered transitional homes, where children receive good care for a limited time period. However, in recent years, many children have been drifting in foster care. Child welfare agencies are using new criteria for evaluating services, including the 1970s permanency planning idea—asserting the importance of finding permanent homes for children. The incorporation of permanency planning has facilitated a recent acceptance of foster parent adoptions. However, not all foster parents want to adopt the children in their care, nor are all foster parent adoptions successful. This book examines the factors that differentiate foster homes in which adoption succeeds from those in which either the opportunity to adopt is declined or the adoption has failed. The culmination of a 2-year study of those people involved in foster parent adoption decisions, this research focused on a sample of 95 children, 43 workers, and 71 families in Chicago. Findings included indications that the timing of the adoption decision is important to the success of adoption, as well as the quality of the child welfare worker’s relationship with the child. Other important factors are the continuity of the relationship between worker and family, sharing of information, and early planning.

Care of the Mother Grieving a Baby Relinquished for Adoption. Rosemary Mander. 1995. 220p. Avebury. Written by a British social worker as a thesis, this book necessarily has an academic tone, but it remains valuable nonetheless. Birthmother grief and the lifelong implications of relinquishment are accurately portrayed through case studies and interviews. It’s a valuable addition to adoption literature and useful for the serious student of birthmothers. — Heather Lowe

Challenge of Permanency Planning in a Multicultural Society, The. Gary R Anderson, Angela Shen Ryan & Bogart E Leashore, eds. 1997. 215p. Haworth Press. The Challenge of Permanency Planning in a Multicultural Society hits home the importance of cultural knowledge, sensitivity, and skill for putting permanency and stability into the lives of at-risk children. By reading this book, you will gain a better appreciation for the role of culture in a family’s life and learn to translate this understanding into attitudes and practical skills that will enable you to work more effectively with families. You will learn how to prevent unnecessary out-of-home placements, how to judge when the time is right for reunification of parents and children, and how to know when adoption is the best choice for a child’s long-term well-being. The Challenge of Permanency Planning in a Multicultural Society addresses areas of special concern that are often overlooked in research studies and case work itself. These include the roles of fathers, issues related to adolescent sexual orientation, and the experiences of minors left on their own. From this book’s intervention strategies, model case plans, and successful programs, you will reduce the likelihood of hurting children and families through ill-informed plans and actions. You will also learn about: kinship care; the Indian Child Welfare Act; incorporating both parents’viewpoints into permanency planning; recruiting adoptive parents and the MultiEthnic Placement Act; the continuum of child welfare services; and minors who have immigrated to the U. S. without parents or relatives. If you let The Challenge of Permanency Planning in a Multicultural Society help you, you’ll strengthen your ability to conduct culturally sensitive assessments of families and design highly effective case plans. Child welfare workers, supervisors, trainers, and program managers will find that this resource book can help them improve their clinical skill and program development, facilitate family preservation and support, and always keep the child’s interests at the forefront.

Characteristics of Children in New York City’s Foster Care System. Synia Yam-Wong. 1987. 30p. Comm Serv Soc NY.

Characteristics of Children in Substitute & Adoptive Care: A Report on the VCIS Nat’l Child Welfare Datadase. Toshio Tatara. 1992. Amer Public Welfare Association.

Child, The: Custody, Care & Maintenance. Janet Kabeberi. 1990. 61p. Oxford University Press (Nairobi).

Child Abuse & Adoption. C Anderson. 1991. 27p. CUB.

Child Adoption: A Guidebook for Adoptive Parents & Their Advisors. Rene AC Hoksbergen. Translated by Saskia Ton & Esther Van Velzen. 1996. 114p. Taylor & Francis. This guide is aimed at both adoptive parents and professionals. It covers both the practical and emotional issues, and practical problems, which affect child and parents in adoption, such as preparation of the family and the child, adopting from other races or cultures, helping the child adjust, and discussing the adoptive status with the child. The text aims to help everyone involved in the adoption process make educated and fully thought-out decisions.

Child Adoption: A Medical Dictionary, Bibliography, & Annotated Research Guide to Internet References. Icon Health Publications. 2004. 48p. Icon Health Publications. In March 2001, the National Institutes of Health issued the following warning: “The number of Web sites offering health-related resources grows every day. Many sites provide valuable information, while others may have information that is unreliable or misleading.” Furthermore, because of the rapid increase in Internet-based information, many hours can be wasted searching, selecting, and printing.This book was created for medical professionals, students, and members of the general public who want to conduct medical research using the most advanced tools available and spending the least amount of time doing so. This is a 3-in-1 reference book. It gives a complete medical dictionary covering hundreds of terms and expressions relating to child adoption. It also gives extensive lists of bibliographic citations. Finally, it provides information to users on how to update their knowledge using various Internet resources. The book is designed for physicians, medical students preparing for Board examinations, medical researchers, and patients who want to become familiar with research dedicated to child adoption. If your time is valuable, this book is for you. First, you will not waste time searching the Internet while missing a lot of relevant information. Second, the book also saves you time indexing and defining entries. Finally, you will not waste time and money printing hundreds of web pages.

Child Adoption in the Modern World. Margaret Kornitzer. 1952. 403p. Putnam & Co (UK). Innumerable people nowadays adopt children. For most of them—particularly if they come to the task with love—the decision is likely to be a source of happiness; but many adopters find themselves running into difficulties which they had never foreseen, and almost all find adoption more complicated than they had expected. How should I set about adopting a child? That is the first and simplest of the problems on which this book endeavours to throw light.

Child Care & Adoption Law: A Practical Guide. Andrew McFarlane & Madeleine Reardon. 2006. 414p. Jordan Publishing Ltd (UK). This invaluable new work is a public child law companion to the successful title “Children Act Private Law Proceedings: A Handbook” by John Mitchell. The focus is on providing a clear, practical text with an examination of the key cases and an emphasis on fact-based examples. There are bullet-points at the beginning of each chapter summarising its content, procedural flowcharts and checklists. This book is not simply a court work, it is set to become an essential companion for all legal practitioners and other related professionals, whether new to this important area of law, or more experienced.

Child Custody: The Foster Care System & Adoption. Joseph R Carrieri. 1991. 352p. New Lexington Press (UK). Discussing every facet of the foster care system, this text defines and explains in layman’s terms the law of custody and adoptions. It covers such situations as abandonment, permanent neglect, abuse, mental illness and mental retardation of the birth parents.

Child Development Research. Bettye Caldwell  & H Ricciuti. 1973. (Vol. 3). University of Chicago Press. Child development and social policy.

Child for Keeps, A: The History of Adoption in England, 1918-45. Jenny Keating. 2009. 256p. Palgrave Macmillan (UK). A Child for Keeps considers the background to the growth in popularity of adoption in Britain in the early twentieth century and analyzes the campaign for adoption legislation. It discusses the wholesale growth of unregulated adoption after the first law was passed and the gradual pressure for safeguards and secrecy in adoption. About the Author: Jenny Keating has degrees from Sussex University, UK, and Monash University, Australia. She has been a museum curator, teacher, advice worker and journalist, and while living in Australia, worked as a commissioned historian. Since returning to the UK, she has completed a D.Phil. and is currently researching the history of history-teaching in schools.

Child, Family & State. Stephen Macedo & Iris Marion Young, eds. 2002. 417p. (NOMOS Series XLIV). New York University Press. In an era in which our conception of what constitutes a “normal” family has undergone remarkable changes, questions have arisen regarding the role of the state in “normalizing” families through public policy. In what ways should the law seek to facilitate, or oppose, parenting and child-rearing practices that depart from the “nuclear family” with two heterosexual parents? What should the state’s stance be on single parent families, unwed motherhood, or the adoption of children by gay and lesbian parents? How should authority over child rearing and education be divided between parents and the state? And how should the state deal with the inequalities that arise from birthright citizenship?Through critical essays divided into four parts—Adoption, Race, and Public Policy; Education and Parental Authority; Same Sex Families; and Birthright Citizenship—Child, Family, and State considers the philosophical, political, and legal dilemmas that surround these difficult and divisive questions. An invaluable resource in these contentious debates, Child, Family, and State illuminates the moral questions that lie before policymakers and citizens when contemplating the future of children and families. About the Editors: Stephen Macedo is Laurence S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values, and Director of the University Center for Human Values, at Princeton University. Iris Marion Young is Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

Child of Rage. Glenn Hester & Bruce Nygren. 1981. 191p. Thomas Nelson.

Child Placement: Principles & Practice. June Thoburn. 1988. 123p. (1994. 187p. 2nd ed. Ashgate Pub Co). Wildwood House Ltd (UK). This practice handbook has proved popular with those who work with children and families or are training to do so. The author is an acknowledged expert of international standing on child protection and family placement. She was a member of Department of Health advisory groups on the Guidance which accompanied the Children Act 1989 and has substantially amended this second edition to encompass the research which informed the new legislation and the changes in practice necessitated by it. Dr Thoburn writes with conviction about the importance of balancing the duty to safeguard the child’s welfare with the duty to enhance the ability of parents to fulfil their parental responsibilities. She endorses the partnership philosophy of the Children Act, and provides practical guidance on how this principle can be put into practice whether the child remains at home, lives in residential care, or moves to permanent foster or adoptive family. A particular strength of the book is the way in which research findings, case material, values, and practice wisdom are combined to provide a coherent base from which to practice. The book is clearly written; its contents and emphasis reflect the author’s experience of teaching social workers, lawyers and health professionals on qualifying and post-qualifying courses.

Child Placement Through Clinically Oriented Casework. Esther Glickman. 1957. 448p. Columbia U Press.

Child-Placing in Families: Manual For Students & Social Workers. William Henry Slingerland. 1974. 267p. (Reprint of 1919 edition). Ayer Co Pubs.

Child Psychology for Professional Workers. Florence M Teagarden. 1940. 641p. Prentice-Hall.

Child Welfare Case Records. Wilma Walker. 1937. University of Chicago.

Children Act in Practice, The. Richard White, AP Carr & Nigel Lowe. 2002. (Thid Edition). 747p. Butterworths Tolley. The Children Act in Practice is the best selling, one volume guide to the Children Act 1989. The Act is produced in full and annotated in a straightforward and helpful way to assist in interpretation together with a detailed commentary, which considers the legislation as it operates today.Building on the success of the Second Edition the new edition is brought fully up to date with all relevant legislative and case law developments since 1995. In addition, the work includes the following coverage: Challenging the decisions of authorities and courts; The Child and Family Court Advisory and Support Service and representation of children; The impact of the Human Rights Act 1998, considered where appropriate; Care Leavers legislation; The impact of the forthcoming Adoption and Children legislation; The impact of the House of Lords Judgement in Re W and B. This text will prove invaluable to all those who deal with the day to day application of the legislation.

Children Act Private Law Proceedings: A Handbook. J Mitchell. 2003. Jordan Publishing Ltd (UK). This work has become an invaluable companion for all practitioners involved in private law proceedings under the Children Act 1989. It provides both a detailed, widely researched analysis of substantive law and a clear guide to the relevant procedure. The new edition has been thoroughly revised throughout and takes account of all recent case-law in respect of contact orders and shared residence orders and important procedural developments, such as the introduction of the Private Law Programme, and the joinder of children as parties to proceedings. The extensive text is supplemented by fully updated appendices containing essential statutory and other materials.

Children Adopted From Care: An Examination of Agency Adoptions in England, 1996. Gilles Ivaldi. 1998. 56p. British Agencies for Adoption & Fostering. Here is a unique study which, for the first time, presents an accurate picture of the pattern of local authority adoptions and raises important questions for policy makers, elected members, managers and practitioners. The research reports on the first detailed analysis of the Department of Health’s Children Looked After database. The information is revealing, and in some cases, shocking. It also provides a benchmark against which local authorities can evaluate the performance of their child placement practice as well as reflect on how to improve their services.

Children & the Law: An Account of the Laws Concerning Children—On Adoption, Guardianship, Cruelty, Juvenile Delinquency—of Their Results In Practice & Probable Development. FT Giles. Foreword by The Rt. Hon. Lord Goddard, PC. 1959. 156p. Pelican Books (UK). Account of the laws concerning children, on adoption, guardianship, cruelty, juvenile deliquency.

Children & Youth in Adoption, Orphanages, & Foster Care: A Historical Handbook & Guide. Lori Askeland, ed. 2005. 240p. (Children and Youth: History and Culture). Greenwood Press. Adoption and foster care is a new and burgeoning area of historical and interdisciplinary research. Too often, however, birth parents, adoptive parents, foster parents, social workers, and the children themselves have either been ignored or demonized. This comprehensive introductory resource provides an authoritative, yet accessible, examination of adoption and foster care as it has been practiced in the United States. Within the pages of this volume, the reader will find a complete view of the many individuals and groups involved, as well as a thorough understanding of the various social and economic forces that have contributed to the perceptions of what children are in need of care. Also discussed is the role of orphanages, once the primary institution for children without parents as well as a stopgap measure for poor children needing temporary care. Divided into three major sections, original essays review the practice of adoption, orphanage placement and foster care from the colonial period to the present day. Selected primary documents, including materials by children, as well as an in-depth bibliographic section, provide crucial information and insight for high school and college students. Social workers, journalists, and others will also find much value in this historical overview and guide. Contributors include Elizabeth Bartholet, Marilyn Irvin Holt, Martha Satz, and Claudia Nelson. About the Author: Lori Askeland is Associate Professor, Department of English, Wittenberg University, Ohio. She is the author of numerous articles on adoption and foster care, children and literature.

Children & Youth in America, 1866-1932. Robert Bremner, ed. 1971. Harvard University Press.

Children & Youth in America, 1933-1973. Robert Bremner, ed. 1974. Harvard University Press.

Children at Health Risk. Michael S Clement. 2002. 144p. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. The face of the child seen by heath care providers today is changing. Children at Health Risk provides a unique resource for clinicians and residents to learn of these new health care challenges. Due to increased diversity in the population, international adoptions and immigration, there are now several groups of children in the United States that have access to healthcare with problems different from those of the usual group of children seen on a regular basis by practitioners. These children may have problems or conditions that could be easily corrected even without regular, routine care. The clinician only needs to be aware of these potential problems in specific childhood populations. Children at Health Risk:
•   Alerts healthcare providers to needs of special populations that do not have on-going healthcare;
•   Highlights the diseases and conditions that may go untreated in specific child populations;
•   Includes clinical vignettes of real-life cases to illustrate specific health problems;
•   Offers residents and clinicians a specialty guide book for this pediatric/family medicine topic; and
•   Provides discussion of possible interventions

Children for Adoption. Pearl S Buck. 1964. 243p. Random House. Popular novelist’s challenge to aid unwanted children of the world.

Children for the Childless: A Concise Explanation of the Medical, Scientific, & Legal Facts about Conception, Fertility, Sterility, Heredity, & Adoption. . Morris Fishbein. 1954. 223p. Doubleday.

Children in Care Revisited. Pamela Mann. 1984. 194p. Trafalgar Square Publishing (UK).

Children in Foster Care & Adoption: A Guide to Bibliotherapy. John T Pardeck & Jean A Pardeck. 1998. Greenwood Publishing Group. Bibliotherapy, which literally means treatment through books, is an approach that helps children to more clearly understand the problems facing them and to develop solutions for solving problems through reading. It is an approach for professionals helping children deal with foster care placement and adoption. This book will be a useful resource for foster and adoptive parents, clergy, and librarians.

Children in the Muslim Middle East. Elizabeth Warnock Fernea. 1995. 495p. University of Texas Press. Today nearly half of all people in the Middle East are under the age of fifteen. Yet little is known about the new generation of boys and girls who are growing up in a world vastly different from that of their parents, a generation who will be the leaders of tomorrow. This groundbreaking anthology is an attempt to look at the current situation of children by presenting materials by both Middle Eastern and Western scholars. Many of the works have been translated from Arabic, Persian, and French. The forty-one pieces are organized into sections on the history of childhood, growing up, health, work, education, politics and war, and play and the arts. They are presented in many forms: essays in history and social science, poems, proverbs, lullabies, games, and short stories. Countries represented are Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia, Israel/West Bank, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Lebanon, Turkey, Yemen, and Afghanistan. This book complements Elizabeth Fernea’s earlier works, Women and the Family in the Middle East and Middle Eastern Muslim Women Speak (coedited with Basima Bezirgan). Like them, it will be important reading for everyone interested in the Middle East and in women’s and children’s issues.

Children of Hope: Some Stories of the New York Foundling Hospital. Elsie E Vignec. 1964. 213p. Dodd, Mead & Co. True stories of abandoned children, starting with the 1869 opening of this charitable institution. From her experience as a volunteer and a staff member at the hospital, the other gives a dramatic and tender picture of the children and the nuns.

Children of Separation: An Annotated Bibliography for Professionals. Greta W Stanton. 1994. 369p. Scarecrow Press. Contains almost 1,000 annotated references spanning a period of 20 years. A resource for students and professionals in child development, foster care, adoption, divorce, and stepfamily living. About the Author: Greta W. Stanton (BA, Hunter College; MSW, Columbia University, Diplomate in Clinical Social Work), Professor Emerita, Rutgers University, has developed courses in child welfare and stepfamilies and has also been on the faculties of schools of social work at Columbia, Hunter College, and Fordham University. She has also headed national grants in child welfare and school social work, given workshops, and done family counseling.

Children on the Move: How to Implement Their Right to Family Life. Jaap E. Doek, Hans van Loon & P. Vlaardingerbroek, eds. 1996. 294p. Martinus Niijhof Publishers. This volume contains the texts of the speeches given and the papers presented at the international study conference “Children on the Move. How to Implement Their Right to Family Life.” This conference took place at The Hague in the Netherlands from 23-26 October 1994 and was one of the major contributions by the Netherlands to the celebration of the United Nations’ International Year of the Family. The conference was convened by the Netherlands Committee for the International Year of the Family in collaboration with the Hague Conference on Private International Law. Children on the Move provides the reader with an in-depth analysis of the various legal aspects (problems and remedies) of intercountry adoption, international child abduction and children as international refugees.

Children Who Wait: A Study of Children Needing Substitute Families (Extracts). Jane Rowe & L Lambert. Foreword by RA Parker. 1975. British Agencies for Adoption & Fostering (UK).

Children With Special Needs: A Resource Guide for Parents, Educators, Social Workers, & Other Caregivers. Karen L Lungu. 1999. 212p. Charles C Thomas, Publisher Ltd. Writing from her own experience as a parent of a special needs child and with the background of both a therapist and educator, the author presents a most readable text discussing developmental disabilities; emotional and intellectual challenges; neurological disabilities; viral, bacterial, and infectious diseases; premature birth and other newborn complications; genetic and physical impairments; communication and learning disorders; attention deficit disorders; movement disorders; affective disorders; and choosing to adopt a child with special needs. Another area of emphasis is in seeking help and resources for children with special needs, including who to go to in the school setting, how the Individuals with Disabilities Act works, how IEPs are developed, and how inclusional school settings work for the child with special needs. Special features include stories and personal accounts throughout the text from parents who have dealt with special needs of differently-abled children. Many helpful resources are provided, including state-by-state listings of support groups and private agencies assisting families of children with special needs, national organizations, special education resources, reading resources for both adults and children, software and media resources, resources for adaptive equipment and toys, and adoption resources. The primary audience for the book includes parents, educators, social workers, healthcare and mental health professionals, and others who work with children who have special needs and challenges.

Children Without Homes: An Examination of Public Responsibility to Children in Out-of-Home Care. Jane Knitzer, Mary Lee Allen & Brenda McGowan. 1978. 282p. Children’s Defense Fund.

Children’s Adjustment to Adoption: Developmental & Clinical Issues. David Brodzinsky, Daniel W Smith & Anne B Brodzinsky. 1998. 142p. Sage Publications, Inc. This volume offers extensive coverage of theory and research on children and families and the contextual issues pertinent to the adoption process, with clinical vignettes punctuating key points. The authors close with a discussion of intervention and assessment issues that commonly arise when working with adoptees and their families. Children’s Adjustment to Adoption is a welcome addition to the current literature on the psychological issues associated with adoption. It will be valuable for professionals in the fields of clinical and counseling psychology, developmental psychology, nursing, social work, health services, and family studies.

Child’s Attorney, The: A Guide to Representing Children in Custody, Adoption, & Protection Cases. Ann M Haralambie. 1993. 338p. American Bar Association Chicago. Written by one of the foremost experts on child custody and abuse, this book is a valuable guide to analyzing and advocating the rights of children in civil cases. Beginning with a discussion of the different types of representation for children, the book outlines the ethical and malpractice issues involved in representing children and advises you on determining the difference between the child’s best interests and the child’s expressed wishes. In addition to sample forms, the book includes a table of over 250 cases and over 400 statutes from all 50 states. Appendices include selected state statutes and guidelines regarding the duties of the child’s attorney and the guardian ad litem, including guidelines for use in criminal court.

Child’s Journey Through Placement, A. Vera Fahlberg. 1991. 432p. Perspectives Press. [This book] describes ways to mitigate the harmful effects of multiple moves on children in the foster care system, but really has much broader applications... Fahlberg, a pediatrician and former medical director at a residential treatment center, begins by describing the bonding and attachment process at length. She then gives a thorough description of the developmental tasks of childhood and how those tasks can be disrupted by separation and loss.... Professionals who work with children in foster care will find in this hefty volume the kind of clear, well-organized, thorough approach to information that characterizes Fahlberg’s workshops. Moreover, this book, like her previous one (Residential Treatment: A Tapestry of Many Therapies), contains such valuable information about the needs of children that it would prove beneficial to anyone—parent or professional—working with children, regardless of whether the children are at risk for psychological problems or not. — From Adopted Child (July, 1992). Dr. Fahlberg’s insightful, empathic, respectful, and nurturant stance toward the children, and toward the addults who are their guides on their journeys enhance the value of her practical and action-oriented suggestions for minimizing the trauma and dealing with the effects. ...ACJTP is a rich compilation of knowledge and techniques for understanding, working with, and planning for children in placement. It’s successful in meeeting its goals of leading readers toward informed decisions and providing a reliable reference to which readers can return when faced with questions or problems... Parents who want to help children build healthy attachments and self-esteem to minimize the risks associated with complex placement experiences will find this an important addition to their resources. — From Ours (now Adoptive Families magazine) (March/April 1992).

Chosen One, The: Succession & Adoption in the Court of Ming Shizong. Carney T Fisher. 1990. 230p. Allen & Unwin Pty, Limited (Australia).

Circulation of Children, The: Kinship, Adoption, & Morality in Andean Peru. Jessaca B Leinaweaver. 2008. 248p. Duke University Press. In this vivid ethnography, Jessaca B. Leinaweaver explores “child circulation,” informal arrangements in which indigenous Andean children are sent by their parents to live in other households. At first glance, child circulation appears tantamount to child abandonment. When seen in that light, the practice is a violation of international norms regarding children’s rights, guidelines that the Peruvian state relies on in regulating legal adoptions. Leinaweaver demonstrates that such an understanding of the practice is simplistic and misleading. Her in-depth ethnographic analysis reveals child circulation to be a meaningful, pragmatic social practice for poor and indigenous Peruvians, a flexible system of kinship that has likely been part of Andean lives for centuries. Child circulation may be initiated because parents cannot care for their children, because a childless elder wants company, or because it gives a young person the opportunity to gain needed skills. Leinaweaver provides insight into the emotional and material factors that bring together and separate indigenous Andean families in the highland city of Ayacucho. She describes how child circulation is intimately linked to survival in the city, which has had to withstand colonialism, economic isolation, and the devastating civil war unleashed by the Shining Path. Leinaweaver examines the practice from the perspective of parents who send their children to live in other households, the adults who receive them, and the children themselves. She relates child circulation to international laws and norms regarding children’s rights, adoptions, and orphans, and to Peru’s history of racial conflict and violence. Given that history, Leinaweaver maintains that it is not surprising that child circulation, a practice associated with Peru’s impoverished indigenous community, is alternately ignored, tolerated, or condemned by the state.

Clinical & Practice Issues in Adoption: Bridging the Gap Between Adoptees Placed as Infants & as Older Children. Victor F Groza & Karen Rosenberg, eds. 1998. 192p. Praeger. Experts representing practitioners, researchers, advocates, and triad members, explore the similarities and differences between adoptees placed as infants and as older children. The book promotes better integration of theory, practice, policy, and research in working with clients who are members of the adoption triad: adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive families. For the first time, the separate practice areas are bridged, pointing out the significant overlap between the two populations and the similar interventions that can be used when working with adoptees regardless of their age at placement.

Closed Adoption Policy in the 1960s: Exploring the Construction of Motive Through Fiction. Carol Major. 2009. 380p. Lambert Academic Publishing (Germany). The closed adoption policy that saw hundreds of thousands of white babies relinquished by their unmarried mothers in many western countries was among a range of seemingly humane social engineering projects popular during the 1950s and ’60s. The policy was abandoned in the 1970s with subsequent investigations of the practice revealing human rights abuse. Yet so many acts are undertaken in the context of a time’s context that blinkers society to the pain inflicted, until the context mutates. This book explores the social construction of individual motivation and the uses of fiction in exposing that construction. In doing so it opens up a dialogue between psychology and literary theory. Connections are made between the closed-adoption policy, the removal of Aboriginal children from their families in Australia, and the conscription and later shaming of soldiers sent to fight the War in Vietnam. The work includes an exegesis and a work of fiction titled, “A Certain Kindness.” About the Author: Carol A. Major, DCA, studied creative writing at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia; Principal at Advanced Narrative, Sydney; and is writing mentor at Varuna the Writers House, Katoomba, Australia.

Colors of Grief: Understanding a Child’s Journey Through Loss from Birth to Adulthood. Janis A Di Ciacco, PhD. 2008. 174p. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Following a life shattering experience, a child enters upon a confusing emotional journey that can be likened to a prism of many colors of dark feelings like sadness and fear, but also warm feelings of love and courage. The way they deal with these feelings has a lasting impact on their life as they grow. The Colors of Grief explores strategies for supporting a grieving child to ensure a healthy growth into adulthood. Drawing on the latest research in neurology and psychology, Janis Di Ciacco illustrates the child’s grieving process using a model of development that employs a "key stages." These range from preverbal infancy (0-2 years) through to early adulthood (about 25 years). She shows how a child’s progress through these stages can be impaired by an early encounter with loss, which can contribute to cognitive, emotional and social difficulties. Drawing connections between bereavement, attachment issues and social dysfunction, the author suggests easy-to-use activities for intervention at each key stage, including infant massage, aromatherapy and storytelling. This is a revealing and accessible book for both parents and professionals working with, or caring for, bereaved infants, children or young adults. About the Author: Janis Di Ciacco, Ph.D. has a Master’s Degree in Special Education, a Diplome Linguistique from the Université de Besançon and a Doctorate in Psychology from the University of Denver. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and a certified school psychologist. For the past 30 years, Dr. Di Ciacco has worked with children and their families around issues of attachment and loss, death and dying, foster placement and adoption, post-traumatic stress disorder, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, autism / Asperger’s, and pediatric brain injury. She is also founder of Mindful Moods, LLC, dedicated to the creation of preverbal emotional tools for children and adults and is the creator of the Mood Patch. Dr. Di Ciacco regularly gives seminars and presentations for parents and professionals throughout the U.S.

Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: Article 21: Adoption. Sylvain Vite & Herve Boechat. 2008. 62p. (Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Volume 21). Martinus Nijhoff Publishers / Brill Academic. This volume constitutes a commentary on Article 21 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, dealing with adoption. It is part of the series, A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which provides an article-by-article analysis of all substantive, organizational and procedural provisions of the CRC and its two Optional Protocols. For every article, a comparison with related human rights provisions is made, followed by an in-depth exploration of the nature and scope of State obligations deriving from that article. The series constitutes an essential tool for actors in the field of children’s rights, including academics, students, judges, grassroots workers, governmental, non-governmental and international officers. The series is sponsored by the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office. About the Authors: Sylvain Vite is Programme Manager, International Social Service/International Reference Centre for the Rights of Children Deprived of their Family; and Herve Boechat is Co-ordinator, International Social Service/International Reference Centre for the Rights of Children Deprived of their Family.

Commitment: The Reality of Adoption. Grace Sandness. Illustrated by Dolores Pacileo. 1984. 160p. Mini-World Pubns.

Communicating with the Adopted Child. Miriam Komar, DSW. 1991. 282p. Walker & Co. Communicating With the Adopted Child focuses on the importance of family conversation and the power of speech in providing both information and emotional support to the adopted child. Using examples drawn from interviews, case studies, and extensive correspondence, as well as from leading studies in the fields of psychology, sociology, and social work, Dr. Komar gives a reassuring perspective on some of the most troubling issues of adoption. This is specific, proven advice on how to overcome common obstacles to parent-child communication. About the Author: Miriam Komar, D.S.W., has a private practice in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis in New York City. Formerly a lecturer at Adelphi University and an infant therapist at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, Komar coordinated the Adoption Resources Program at The Postgraduate Center for Mental Health. She was also a faculty member of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York.

Complex Adoption & Assisted Reproductive Technology: A Developmental Approach to Clinical Practice. Vivian B Shapiro, Janet R Shapiro, & Isabel H Paret. 2001. 338p. The Guilford Press. An important resource for social workers, family therapists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and other professionals working with children and families, as well as researchers and students in these fields. It will serve as a text in advanced undergraduate and graduate-level courses.

Connecting With Kids Through Stories: Using Narratives to Facilitate Attachment in Adopted Children. Denise B Lacher, Todd Nichols & Joanne C May. 2005. 144p. Jessica Kingsley Publishers (UK). Connecting with Kids through Stories is an accessible guide to Family Attachment Narrative Therapy for the parents of adopted or fostered children, and for the professionals who work with them. Providing a thorough theoretical grounding, and detailed information on therapeutic techniques and how to assess progress, this book shows parents how to create their own therapeutic stories to promote increased attachment and improved behavior in their child. The authors describe how different kinds of narratives can help with specific difficulties and illustrate their techniques with the story of a fictional family who develop their own narratives to help their adopted child heal.

Contested Adoptions: Research, Law, Policy & Practice. Murray Ryburn, ed. 1994. 220p. Arena (UK). This work considers adoption made after court proceedings which have been contested by birth families or guardians. Such adoptions are growing as a percentage of all adoption orders. Key recommendations of the White Paper on adoption are included, and considered in the context of adoption practice.

Costs & Outcomes of Non-Infant Adoptions. Julie Selwyn, Wendy Sturgess, David Quinton & Catherine Baxter. 2006. 208p. British Association for Adoption & Fostering (UK). Adoption is now at the heart of government policy to secure permanent, stable family lives for children who are no longer able to remain with their own birth families. Most children are placed with their new adoptive families after infancy and following very poor early parenting experiences, but surprisingly little is known about the long-term outcomes of these adoptions. What emotional impact do they have on both the adopted children and the adopters? What are the financial costs to social services of placing and supporting these children and their new families? This book reports the findings of a Department of Health-funded study of a complete sample of 130 older children, from one geographical area in England, for whom an “adoption in best interests” decision was made during a defined period in the 1990s. The study tracked the progress of all the children through the care system until 2002, with 80 children moving into permanent adoptive placements, 34 into long-term foster care and 16 having unstable experiences of being “looked after”. It examined the children’s early lives, the decisions made about them before the best interests recommendation, the costs involved, and any delays in the process. Adopters and foster carers give their accounts of caring for the children, the financial and emotional costs to themselves and their families, and the support they received. This study provides a unique opportunity to compare the outcomes for both the adopted and the fostered children. It allows an accurate assessment of the success of adoption as a placement choice to be made, and makes recommendations for policy and practice based on this complete sample. It will be of interest to all those involved in making placement decisions for “looked after” children.

Counseling Multiracial Families. Bea Wehrly, Kelley R Kenney, & Mark E Kenney. 1999. 208p. Sage Publications, Inc. Multiracial families (families in which one member of the family has a different racial heritage than the other member(s) of the family) comprise a rapidly growing U.S. population. Counseling Multiracial Families addresses this population that has been neglected in the counseling literature. In the first chapter, readers are given a comprehensive history of racial mixing in the United States special needs and issues of multiracial families as well as special strengths of multiracial families are addressed. Challenges of interracially married couples are explored as are the social and cultural issues related to parenting and child rearing of multiracial children in today’s society. The results of biracial identity development research are translated into counseling practice with the children, adolescents, and adults in multiracial families.

Creating New Families: Therapeutic Approaches to Fostering & Adoption. Caroline Lindsey, Jenny Kendricks & Lorraine Tollemache, eds. 2007. 250p. (The Tavistock Clinic Series). Karnac Books. Written for a professional readership, Creating New Families will be of interest to those directly involved in the fields of fostering and adoption. It represents best practice from the multidisciplinary Fostering and Adoption Team at the Tavistock Clinic Children and Families Department. Contents include: Theoretical Considerations; Treatment which focuses on the Child; Treatment which focuses on Parents and Families; Consultation; Work in different settings; Last word from a parent. Contributors: Professor Lionel Hersov, Rita Harris, Sally Hodges, Sara Barratt, Miriam Steele, Hamish Canham, Laverne Antrobus, Juliet Hopkins, Margaret Rustin, Julia Granville, Louise Emanuel, Graham Music. About the Editors: Lorraine Tollemache is an adoptive parent. She is trained as a teacher, a social worker and a psychotherapist. Until recently she worked as a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Social Work in the Child and Family department at the Tavistock where she established trainings for social workers in this field of work under the umbrella title of “Children in Transition.” Caroline Lindsey is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Systemic Family Psychotherapist. She worked full-time until recently at the Tavistock Clinic, London, where she previously chaired the Child and Family Department. She worked as Consultant to Camden Social Services for many years. Jenny Kendricks was until recently a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and Clinical Tutor for the clinical training in child psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic. She has developed a particular interest in, and has written about, children in transition.

Creative Arts Therapies Approaches in Adoption & Foster Care: Contemporary Strategies for Working with Individuals & Families. Donna J Betts. 2003. 342p. Charles C Thomas Publisher, Ltd.This volume presents perspectives of creative arts therapies approaches in adoption and foster care. Creative arts therapists will find this collection to be of particular relevance, but the intention is to also introduce this subject to a wide range of clinicians, including those in the associated professions of social work, counseling, psychology, psychiatry, nursing, teaching, and related fields. The chapters refer specifically to the development and contemporary application of creative arts therapies approaches in adoption and foster care. The chapters reflect the ways in which creative arts therapies can be applied in different settings, and represent the spectrum of ideas in current practice. The first seven chapters focus on adoption and present theoretical perspectives on adoption adjustment that include psychodynamic, attachment, social role, family systems, stress and coping, object relations, trauma, cognitive-behavioral, and biological perspectives. A variety of psychological constructs are explored, such as trust attachment, abandonment, rejection, self-esteem, identity integration, grief, and loss. These chapters also reflect types of work with specific adoption populations, including international and transracial. Individual, group, and family therapy formats are outlined. Approaches to treatment including art, drama, music, play, and sand tray therapy are presented predominantly in case study format. In some cases, diagnosis and assessment are discussed. In Part Two, the five chapters that focus on foster care explore the creative arts therapist’s role in the social system; attachment and foster care research; issues such as self-esteem, boundaries, guilt, shame, loss, ambivalence, aggression, splitting, rejection, trauma; themes of abuse and neglect, resilience. and behavioral and emotional disturbances. Five chapters exploring transcultural and transracial issues are the focus of Part Three. This book will help meet a demand for ideas and practical information about this topic on the part of an audience reaching beyond the creative arts therapies.

Creative Therapy for Children in New Families. Angela Hobday, Angela Kirby, & Kate Ollier. 2002. 152p. British Psychological Society (UK). This book encourages creativity in therapy with children who have moved to new families through fostering or adoption. It contains a broad range of activities designed to help these children overcome emotional and behavioural difficulties in a gentle and positive atmosphere. Guidelines are included about how, when, where and at what age to use the activities. Activities such as “Family Web,” “Pick up a Privilege,” “The Anger Debugging Kit” and “I Can Do It (Now)” can be used by therapists or caregivers as part of, or to supplement, many different therapeutic approaches. Although most are appropriate for use where children are in long-term care, or when the plan is that they should not return to their birth family, some will help build resilience in children who will undergo multiple moves. All are suitable for both boys and girls. Although it stands as a text on its own, the book builds on the information and activities already published in two previous books by Angela Hobday and Kate Ollier, Creative Therapy: Activities with Children and Adolescents and Creative Therapy 2: Working with Parents.

Cross-Cultural Approaches to Adoption. Fiona Bowie, ed. 2004. 204p. Routledge. Looking at examples from Africa, Oceania, Asia, and Central America, this edited collection explores the cross-cultural contexts that affect adoption today and provides valuable analysis of global adoption practices. Adoption is currently subject to a great deal of media scrutiny. High-profile cases of international adoption via the Internet and other unofficial routes, have brought about legislation which regulates the exchange of children between countries. However a lack of understanding of cultural difference in adoption and child-rearing practices still exists between the West and other non-Western cultures, and the assumptions behind Western childcare policy are rarely examined. Looking at examples from Africa, Oceania, Asia and Central America, this edited collection explores the cross-cultural contexts that affect adoption today and provides valuable analysis of global adoption practices.

Culture Keeping: White Mothers, International Adoption, & the Negotiation of Family Difference. Heather Jacobson. 2008. 216p. Vanderbilt University Press. Since the early 1990s, close to 250,000 children born abroad have been adopted into the United States. Nearly half of these children have come from China or Russia. Culture Keeping: White Mothers, International Adoption, and the Negotiation of Family Difference offers the first comparative analysis of these two popular adoption programs. Heather Jacobson examines these adoptions by focusing on a relatively new social phenomenon, the practice by international adoptive parents, mothers in particular, of incorporating aspects of their children’s cultures of origin into their families’ lives. “Culture keeping” is now standard in the adoption world, though few adoptive parents, the majority of whom are white and native-born, have experience with the ethnic practices of their children’s homelands prior to adopting. Jacobson follows white adoptive mothers as they navigate culture keeping: from their motivations, to the pressures and constraints they face, to the content of their actual practices concerning names, food, toys, travel, cultural events, and communities of belonging. Through her interviews, she explores how women think about their children, their families, and themselves as mothers as they labor to construct or resist ethnic identities for their children, who may be perceived as birth children (because they are white) or who may be perceived as adopted (because of racial difference). The choices these women make about culture, Jacobson argues, offer a window into dominant ideas of race and the “American Family,” and into how social differences are conceived and negotiated in the United States. About the Author: Heather Jacobson is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Cultures of Transnational Adoption. Toby Alice Volkman. 2005. 232p. Duke University Press. Durng the 1990s, the number of children adopted from poorer countries to the more affluent West grew exponentially. Close to 140,000 transnational adoptions occurred in the United States alone. While in an earlier era, adoption across borders was assumed to be straightforward—a child traveled to a new country and stayed there—by the late twentieth century, adoptees were expected to acquaint themselves with the countries of their birth and explore their multiple identities. Listservs, websites, and organizations creating international communities of adoptive parents and adoptees proliferated. With contributors including several adoptive parents, this unique collection looks at how transnational adoption creates and transforms cultures.  The cultural experiences considered in this volume raise important questions about race and nation; about kinship, biology, and belonging; and about the politics of the sending and receiving nations. Several essayists explore the images and narratives related to transnational adoption. Others examine the recent preoccupation with “roots” and “birth cultures.” They describe a trip during which a group of Chilean adoptees and their Swedish parents traveled “home” to Chile, the “culture camps” attended by thousands of young-adult Korean adoptees whom South Korea is now eager to reclaim as “overseas Koreans,” and adopted children from China and their North American parents grappling with the question of what “Chinese” or “Chinese American” identity might mean. Essays on Korean birth mothers, Chinese parents who adopt children within China, and the circulation of children in Brazilian families reveal the complexities surrounding adoption within the so-called sending countries. Together, the contributors trace the new geographies of kinship and belonging created by transnational adoption. Contributors: Lisa Cartwright, Claudia Fonseca, Elizabeth Alice Honig, Kay Johnson, Laurel Kendall, Eleana Kim, Toby Alice Volkman, Barbara Yngvesson. About the Author: Toby Alice Volkman is Deputy Provost at New School University. She is the author of Feasts of Honor: Ritual and Change in the Toraja Highlands.