Beyond The Foster Care System

Beyond The Foster Care System PDF Author: Betsy Krebs
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813540153
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Each year tens of thousands of teenagers are released from the foster care system in the United States without high school degrees, homes, 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 foster care system sets teens up to fail by inadequately preparing them for adult life. They contend that the primary goal of foster care for teenagers should be preparation for a fully productive adult life, and that current policies and practice are misguided. The authors draw on their fifteen years of experience working with teens and the foster care system to introduce new ways to empower 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 ensure that more teens reach successful independence. Ultimately, Krebs and Pitcoff argue that change must include the participation of caring communities of volunteers who want to see disadvantaged youth succeed, as well as the use of creative approaches such as the Socratic Method to help 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. Their stories demonstrate that 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 independence, and avoid becoming the statistics that foster care has so often produced in the past.

Beyond The Foster Care System

Beyond The Foster Care System PDF Author: Betsy Krebs
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813540153
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Each year tens of thousands of teenagers are released from the foster care system in the United States without high school degrees, homes, 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 foster care system sets teens up to fail by inadequately preparing them for adult life. They contend that the primary goal of foster care for teenagers should be preparation for a fully productive adult life, and that current policies and practice are misguided. The authors draw on their fifteen years of experience working with teens and the foster care system to introduce new ways to empower 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 ensure that more teens reach successful independence. Ultimately, Krebs and Pitcoff argue that change must include the participation of caring communities of volunteers who want to see disadvantaged youth succeed, as well as the use of creative approaches such as the Socratic Method to help 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. Their stories demonstrate that 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 independence, and avoid becoming the statistics that foster care has so often produced in the past.

Faith & Foster Care

Faith & Foster Care PDF Author: John Degarmo
Publisher: New Hope Publishers (AL)
ISBN: 9781563096716
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Filled with personal stories and Scripture, Faith & Foster Care shows how to practically and specifically live out your faith in foster care ministry. An encouraging resource for novice or experienced advocates and parents, specific issues addressed include advice on marriage and foster care, how to love the foster child and birth family, how to pray for your foster child and birth family, and how to let go when children leave your care. See how your actions have a far-reaching impact when you live out your faith.

Beyond Common Sense

Beyond Common Sense PDF Author: Fred Wulczyn
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9780202364278
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
"This timely volume offers useful insights into the child welfare system and will be of particular interest to policymakers, academics with an interest in child welfare policy, social work educators, and child advocates."--BOOK JACKET.

Counting Down

Counting Down PDF Author: Deborah Gold
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821446185
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
When Deborah Gold and her husband signed up to foster parent in their rural mountain community, they did not foresee that it would lead to a roller-coaster fifteen years of involvement with a traumatized yet resilient birth family. They fell in love with Michael (a toddler when he came to them), yet they had to reckon with the knowledge that he could leave their lives at any time. In Counting Down, Gold tells the story of forging a family within a confounding system. We meet social workers, a birth mother with the courage to give her children the childhood she never had herself, and a father parenting from prison. We also encounter members of a remarkable fellowship of Appalachian foster parents—gay, straight, right, left, evangelical, and atheist—united by love, loss, and quality hand-me-downs. Gold’s memoir is one of the few books to deliver a foster parent’s perspective (and, through Michael’s own poetry and essays, that of a former foster child). In it, she shakes up common assumptions and offers a powerfully frank and hopeful look at an experience often portrayed as bleak.

Beyond PTSD

Beyond PTSD PDF Author: Ruth Gerson, M.D.
Publisher: American Psychiatric Pub
ISBN: 1615371109
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Impulsivity, poor judgment, moodiness, risky behavior. "You don't understand." "I don't care." "Whatever, bro." Engaging and working with teenagers is tough. Typically, we attribute this to the storms of adolescence. But what if some of the particularly problematic behaviors we see in teens - self-destructive behaviors, academic issues, substance abuse, reluctance to engage in therapy or treatment - point to unspoken trauma? Teens nationwide struggle with traumatic stress related to poverty, abuse, neglect, bullying, traumatic loss, and interpersonal or community violence. But youth are also generally reluctant to disclose or discuss experiences of traumatic stress, and adults working with these youth may not immediately perceive the connection between prior trauma and the teen's current risky or concerning behavior. Beyond PTSD: Helping and Healing Teens Exposed to Trauma helps adults recognize and understand traumatized youth, and provides concrete strategies for talking to and engaging the teen, overcoming resistance, and finding the most appropriate evidence-based treatment approach for them. Nearly twenty contributors pull from their extensive and varied experience working in schools and hospitals to child welfare programs, juvenile justice facilities, pediatric offices, and with families to provide concrete tips to manage the challenges and opportunities of working with trauma-exposed adolescents. Chapters present trauma-informed approaches to youth with aggression, suicide and self-injury, psychosis, and school refusal; youth with physical or developmental disabilities or medical comorbidities, those in juvenile justice or child welfare; teen parents; and LGBTQ youth, among others. Throughout the text, tables compare different types of trauma therapies and provide information about how treatments might be adapted to fit a specific teen or setting. Readers will also find "real life" case vignettes and concrete, specific clinical pearls-even examples of language to use--to demonstrate how to work effectively with difficult-to-engage teens with complex symptoms and behaviors. Written to be practical and accessible for clinicians, social workers, pediatricians, school counselors, and even parents, with the information, context, and strategies they need to help the teen in front of them.

Second Time Foster Child

Second Time Foster Child PDF Author: Toni Hoy
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
ISBN: 161448161X
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
“Toni walks us through the experience of having foster children with undiagnosed mental illness . . . moving and heart-wrenching” (Marcia Stein, PHR, CA, author of Strained Relations). As an infant, Daniel entered the foster care system as a result of severe neglect, which manifested in violence and aggression later in his childhood after he was adopted by Jim and Toni Hoy. Desperate to get him into a residential treatment center and keep their other children safe, Jim and Toni were given two options by the state of Illinois: either keep him in a psychiatric hospital or be charged by the Department of Children and Family Services with child endangerment for failure to protect their other children. Mental health professionals recommended abandoning Daniel at the hospital after the state denied all viable sources of funding for his treatment. So Daniel re-entered the foster care system for no other reason than he was mentally ill. A year later, Daniel’s mother discovered that his treatment was covered by a funding source that he was awarded as part of his special needs adoption. How could they get the state government to understand the federal law and re-gain custody of their son? Second Time Foster Child is the story of parents who never gave up on their son, despite being prosecuted and persecuted in exchange for his medically necessary treatment. “Toni Hoy bares her soul in this courageous true story of her family’s journey to help and heal her severely traumatized adopted son.” —Michael Groomer, founder, and Beverly Hansen, executive director, Advocates for Children of Trauma

What Works in Foster Care?

What Works in Foster Care? PDF Author: Peter J. Pecora
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195175913
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The Northwest Foster Care Alumni Study found that quality foster care services for children pay big dividends when they grow up. Key investments in highly trained staff, low caseloads and robust complementary services can dramatically reduce rates of mental disorders and substance abuse. This book offers a model foster care programme.

Three Little Words

Three Little Words PDF Author: Ashley Rhodes-Courter
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416948066
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in 14 different foster homes. In this unforgettable memoir, the author recounts her years growing up in the foster care system, revealing painful memories but also her determination to discover the power of her own voice.

Orphan Justice

Orphan Justice PDF Author: Johnny Carr
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
ISBN: 1433677970
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Christians are clearly called to care for orphans, a group so close to the heart of Jesus. In reality, most of the 153 million orphaned and vulnerable children in the world do not need to be adopted, and not everyone needs to become an adoptive parent. However, there are other very important ways to help beyond adoption. Indeed, caring for orphaned and vulnerable children requires us to care about related issues from child trafficking and HIV/AIDS to racism and poverty. Too often, we only discuss or theologize the issues, relegating the responsibility to governments. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. Based on his own personal journey toward pure religion, Johnny Carr moves readers from talking about global orphan care to actually doing something about it in Orphan Justice. Combining biblical truth with the latest research, this inspiring book: • investigates the orphan care and adoption movement in the U.S. today • examines new data on the needs of orphaned and vulnerable children • connects “liberal issues” together as critical aspects or orphan care • discovers the role of the church worldwide in meeting these needs • develops a tangible, sustainable action plan using worldwide partnerships • fleshes out the why, what, and how of global orphan care • offers practical steps to getting involved and making a difference

To the End of June

To the End of June PDF Author: Cris Beam
Publisher: HMH
ISBN: 0547999534
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book that “casts a searing eye on the labyrinth that is the American foster care system” (NPR’s On Point). Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is To the End of June, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children in their search for a stable, loving family. Beam shows us the intricacies of growing up in the system—the back-and-forth with agencies, the rootless shuffling between homes, the emotionally charged tug between foster and birth parents, the terrifying push out of foster care and into adulthood. Humanizing and challenging a broken system, To the End of June offers a tribute to resiliency and hope for real change. “A triumph of narrative reporting and storytelling.” —The New York Times “[A] powerful . . . and refreshing read.” —Chicago Tribune “A sharp critique of foster-care policies and a searching exploration of the meaning of family.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review) “Heart-rending and tentatively hopeful.” —Salon