Joy Rees

Through words, pictures, photographs, certificates and other 'little treasures', a Life Story Book provides a detailed account of the child's early history and a chronology of their life.

Fully updated, this clear and concise book shows a unique family-friendly way to compile a Life Story Book which promotes a sense of permanency for the child, and encourages attachments within new families. Joy Rees' influential model works chronologically backwards rather than forwards, aiming to reinforce the child's sense of belonging and security before addressing the child's past and early trauma. The book contains simple explanations of complex concepts, practical examples, helpful suggestions and includes some simple checklists. This new edition has been expanded to include fostered children and those living in kinship care or with a special guardian.

Perfect for social workers, adoption agencies, adoptive parents, foster carers and kinship carers, Life Story Books for Adopted and Fostered Children is a refreshing, innovative and common-sense guide.

General Adoption, Domestic Adoption, Foster Care Adoption, Growing Up Adopted, International Adoption, Openness in Adoption, Professionals, Adoption Issues

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Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.

Parenting, Grief & Loss, General Adoption, Foster Care Adoption, Openness in Adoption, Children with Special Needs, Trauma & Brain Development, Professionals, Adoption Issues, Effects of Trauma, Grief & Loss in the Triad

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Ron Deming

Steps in My Shoes is a true account of my journey through the foster care system and beyond. Going through four foster homes, two adoptive homes, five behavioral facilities, and battling with reactive attachment disorder (RAD), and sensory processing sensitivity (SPS) certainly taught me a lot. The abysmal college graduation rate of less than 3% for foster youth did not prevent me from bagging a bachelor’s degree and becoming a licensed teacher. If I could go through all that and still found the courage to become a teacher and author, then I believe other foster youth can too. Reading this book will totally educate you on what an average child in the foster care system passes through on a daily basis. This intriguing book is a must have for teachers, social workers, foster/adoptive parents, people considering being foster/adoptive parents, and current/past foster and adopted youth.

General Adoption, Domestic Adoption, Foster Care Adoption, Growing Up Adopted, Professionals, Adoption Issues, Need for Connections, Transitions Considerations

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Susan M. Johnson

Since its original publication in 1996, this volume has been a helpful guide to therapists in the practice of emotionally focused therapy. This second edition addresses the many changes in the field of couples therapy, including updated research results linked to clinical intervention and new information on using EFT to address depression and PTSD. A new section covers the growth of couples therapy as a field and its overall relevance to the mental health field, accompanied by coverage of how recent research into the nature of marital distress is consonant with EFT. Other new features are a section on EFT and feminism, as well as a section on cultural competence for the EFT therapist.

Written by a leading authority on emotionally focused couples and marital therapy, this second edition is an up-to-date reference on all aspects of EFT and its uses for mental health professionals.

Parenting, Grief & Loss, General Adoption, Domestic Adoption, Foster Care Adoption, Growing Up Adopted, Openness in Adoption, Relative Adoption, Professionals, Adoption Issues, Grief & Loss in the Triad, Need for Connections

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Dr. Sue Johnson

Heralded by the New York Times and Time magazine as the couple therapy with the highest rate of success, Emotionally Focused Therapy works because it views the love relationship as an attachment bond. This idea, once controversial, is now supported by science, and has become widely popular among therapists around the world.

In Hold me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson presents Emotionally Focused Therapy to the general public for the first time. Johnson teaches that the way to save and enrich a relationship is to reestablish safe emotional connection and preserve the attachment bond. With this in mind, she focuses on key moments in a relationship-from Recognizing the Demon Dialogue to Revisiting a Rocky Moment-and uses them as touchpoints for seven healing conversations. Through case studies from her practice, illuminating advice, and practical exercises, couples will learn how to nurture their relationships and ensure a lifetime of love.

Parenting, Grief & Loss, General Adoption, Foster Care Adoption, Openness in Adoption, Relative Adoption, Search and Reunion, Professionals, Adoption Issues, Need for Connections, Transitions Considerations, LGBTQ

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Ken Blanchard and Margret McBride

With his phenomenal bestsellers The One Minute Manager and Raving Fans, Ken Blanchard changed the way we approach management, leadership, and customer service. Now Blanchard, along with coauthor Margret McBride, presents a concept that, when implemented properly, is one of the most powerful actions for improving company and employee morale. This is also a book that can extend well beyond the business realm and can repair relationships that we thought were broken forever.

Using Blanchard's signature breezy style, The One Minute Apology tells the story of a Young Man who wants to help his mentor, a company president, face and deal with some crucial mistakes he has made. For advice, the Young Man turns to a family friend, the One Minute Manager. What begins as a beautiful country weekend turns into an enlightening few days when he discovers what it truly means to apologize effectively when we have done something wrong. Through this engaging parable, Blanchard and McBride teach readers step-by-step how to accept responsibility for their errors and deal with the cause of the damage while maintaining a genuine sense of integrity.

Destined to join Ken Blanchard's other groundbreaking classics, The One Minute Apology offers businesspeople -- and just about anyone -- a cogent and clear-headed way of approaching one of life's most perplexing dilemmas: how to accept that we have made a wrong decision and how to correct it by making a meaningful apology. The techniques described in this simple but profound story will have significant results at work and at home.

Parenting, Grief & Loss, Parenting Teens, General Adoption, Growing Up Adopted, Search and Reunion, Professionals, Adoption Issues

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Stephen R. Covey, A. Roger Merrill, Rebecca R. Merrill

I'm getting more done in less time, but where are the rich relationships, the inner peace, the balance, the confidence that I'm doing what matters most and doing it well?

Does this nagging question haunt you, even when you feel you are being your most efficient? If so, First Things First can help you understand why so often our first things aren't first. Rather than offering you another clock, First Things First provides you with a compass, because where you're headed is more important than how fast you're going.

Parenting, Discipline, Parenting Teens, School Challenges, General Adoption, Professionals, Adoption Issues

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Stephen R. Covey

From Stephen R. Covey comes a profound, compelling, and groundbreaking book of next-level thinking that gives a clear way to finally tap the limitless value-creation promise of the “Knowledge Worker Age.”
In the more than twenty-five years since its publication, the classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has become an international phenomenon with more than twenty-five million copies sold. Tens of millions of people in business, government, schools, and families, and, most importantly, as individuals, have dramatically improved their lives and organizations by applying the principles of Stephen R. Covey’s classic book. The world, however, is a vastly changed place. Being effective as individuals and organizations is no longer merely an option—survival in today’s world requires it. But in order to thrive, innovate, excel, and lead in what Covey calls the “New Knowledge Worker Age,” we must build on and move beyond effectiveness. The call of this new era in human history is for greatness; it’s for fulfillment, passionate execution, and significant contribution.
Accessing the higher levels of human genius and motivation in today’s new reality requires a change in thinking: a new mindset, a new skill-set, a new tool-set—in short, a whole new habit. The crucial challenge of our world today is this: to find our voice and inspire others to find theirs. It is what Covey calls the 8th Habit. So many people feel frustrated, discouraged, unappreciated, and undervalued—with little or no sense of voice or unique contribution. The 8th Habit is the answer to the soul’s yearning for greatness, the organization’s imperative for significance and superior results, and humanity’s search for its “voice.”
Covey’s new book will transform the way we think about ourselves, our purpose in life, our organizations, and about humankind. Just as The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People helped us focus on effectiveness, The 8th Habit shows us the way to greatness.

Parenting, Discipline, Parenting Teens, School Challenges, Professionals, Adoption Issues

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Amir Levine, MD, and Rachel S.F. Heller, MA

We rely on science to tell us everything from what to eat to when and how long to exercise, but what about relationships? Is there a scientific explanation for why some people seem to navigate relationships effortlessly, while others struggle? According to psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, the answer is a resounding "yes."

In Attached, Levine and Heller reveal how an understanding of adult attachment-the most advanced relationship science in existence today-can help us find and sustain love. Pioneered by psychologist John Bowlby in the 1950s, the field of attachment posits that each of us behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways:

Anxious people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back
Avoidant people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.
Secure people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving.

In this book Levine and Heller guide readers in determining what attachment style they and their mate (or potential mate) follow, offering a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections with the people they love.

Parenting, Discipline, General Adoption, Growing Up Adopted, Children with Special Needs, Attachment, Professionals, Adoption Issues

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Donna Jackson Nakazawa

A groundbreaking book showing the link between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and adult illnesses such as heart disease, autoimmune disease, and cancer—Childhood Disrupted also explains how to cope with these emotional traumas and even heal from them.

Your biography becomes your biology. The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall wellbeing. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly how parents’ chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical “fingerprints” on our brains.

When we as children encounter sudden or chronic adversity, excessive stress hormones cause powerful changes in the body, altering our body chemistry. The developing immune system and brain react to this chemical barrage by permanently resetting our stress response to “high,” which in turn can have a devastating impact on our mental and physical health.

Donna Jackson Nakazawa shares stories from people who have recognized and overcome their adverse experiences, shows why some children are more immune to stress than others, and explains why women are at particular risk. Groundbreaking in its research, inspiring in its clarity, Childhood Disrupted explains how you can reset your biology—and help your loved ones find ways to heal.

Parenting, Discipline, Children with Special Needs, Attachment, Trauma & Brain Development, Professionals, Adoption Issues, Effects of Trauma

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