Special Needs Adoption

Beyond Consequences, Logic and Control: A Love-Based Approach to Helping Children with Severe Behaviors
by Heather Forbes and Bryan Post, 2006
This book gives us the understanding to truly provide emotional safety for children with trauma histories.  By revealing the connection between the body/mind system as it relates to trauma and stress, it challenges all of us to embrace a paradigm shift.  It reveals our own fears, invites us to step into our child’s inner world, and demonstrates how to respond to them with love.

Uncommon Voyage: Parenting a Special Needs Child
by Laura Kramer, 2001
A memoir in which the author shares her experiences raising a special needs child.

The Healing Power of Family: An Illustrated Overview of Life with the Troubled Foster or Adopted Child
by Richard J Delaney, Ph.D.
Offers a non-technical, user-friendly approach to the understanding and treatment of disturbed foster and adopted children. It describes the most common behavioral and emotional problems observed in children who have been formally mistreated, explaining their powerful negative impact on parents. It then provides specific examples of family-based interventions to cope with these behaviors.

Treating the Aftermath of Sexual Abuse: A Handbook for Working with With Children in Care
by M. Osmond, D. Durham, A. Leggett, and J. Keating
Many children who are in foster care or are adopted have been sexually abused in a previous placement. How can you help such a child to find the path to healing? What are the best methods of treatment? How can you understand the signs and signals of the child’s behavior? TREATING THE AFTERMATH OF SEXUAL ABUSE guides caregivers and professionals as they learn to become careful, thoughtful listeners in order to understand the child’s story.

Can This Child Be Saved?
by Foster W. Cline, M.D. and Cathy Helding
Some children have been severely and permanently damaged by their pasts, resulting in behavioral, psychiatric, emotional, and neurological disorders. CAN THIS CHILD BE SAVED offers help and hope, encouragement and support. It explores and validates parent’s feelings and offers struggling families clearly detailed and easy-to-understand parenting techniques and therapeutic approaches that succeed with disturbed children.

Cline/Helding Adopted and Foster Child Assessment (CHAFCA)
by Foster W. Cline, M.D. and Cathy Helding
CHAFCA was designed to be used by parents or caregivers as a preclinical assessment tool for identifying problems or predicting future ones in adopted or foster children. The subtests are easily administered and scored by nonprofessionals. CHAFCA is appropriate both pre-adoption and post-adoption, as long as the child has been in the current placement for at least 6 months. The twelve diagnostic subtests include such areas as attachment disorder, depression, substance abuse, sensory integrations, and emotional health.

Attachment Disorder

Creating Capacity for Attachment: Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy in the Treatment of Trauma-Attachment Disorders
by Arthur Becker-Weidman and Deborah Shell
A comprehensive book about Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. A gentle,
holistic, therapeutic approach designed to resolve trauma in children who have
experienced abuse, neglect, loss, or other extreme challenges to primary
relationships. Respected professionals offer practical strategies for treating and
parenting children with trauma and attachment disorders.

Treating Attachment Disorders: From Theory to Therapy
by Karl Heinz Brisch
As research leads to an increasingly better understanding of attachment disorders, the tools available to professionals and parents for treatment continue to improve. This book is one such tool, offering an in-depth analysis of the many manifestations and intensities of attachment problems, form pre-conception to post-birth and post-adoption. With comprehensive yet east-to-understand text, this is a great resource for anyone dealing with attachment problems.

When Love Is Not Enough: A Guide to Parenting Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder
by Nancy L. Thomas
Nancy Thomas, a therapeutic parenting specialist, has shared her life and home for over twenty years with severely emotionally disturbed children. These children, over 90% of whom have committed murder, have problems including ADHD, reactive attachment disorder, Tourette Syndrome, bipolar disorder and others. WHEN LOVE IS NOT ENOUGH provides you with the tools and guidance to parent with power, love and style. This books is the culmination of several years’ work, and is an excellent guide for parents of children who simply don’t know how to live in a family.

Attaching in Adoption: Practical Tools for Today’s Parents
by Deborah Gray
Many adopted children come to their families at an older age. Their adoptive parents need help in understanding how prior experiences and changes in caregivers, culture, language, and more can create challenges for children trying to form attachments in their new families. ATTACHING IN ADOPTION provides advice about obtaining a proper diagnosis, building a caring professional team, using various approaches to parenting and teaching, and finding a therapist who is adequately informed, prepared, and experiences.

Parenting the Hurt Child: Helping Adoptive Families Heal and Grow
by Gregory J. Keck, Ph.D. and Regina M. Kupecky, L.S.W.
Some adoptees come to their new homes with hurts from the past that can affect an entire family. With time, patience, and informed parenting, your adopted child can heal, grow, and develop beyond what seems possible now. PARENTING THE HURT CHILD explains how to raise your child with loving wisdom, resolve, and success, while preserving your stability and sanity.

Adopting the Hurt Child
by Gregory C. Keck, Ph.D. and Regina M. Kupecky, L.S.W.
Adopting children who have experienced past emotional and physical atrocities, interruptions in parent-child bonding cycles, losses, and inappropriate behaviors can entail much frustration and heartache. ADOPTING THE HURT CHILD is a frank and poignant portrayal of the sad and often brutal reality of adoption. But
more importantly, it is a source of valuable information, hope and inspiration for adoptive and foster parents, therapists, teachers, social workers, and all others whose lives interact with these children.

Broken Hearts, Wounded Minds
by Elizabeth M. Randolph, MSN, Ph.D.
BROKEN HEARTS, WOUNDED MINDS provides an exciting, new and comprehensive look at attachment disorder, including the latest research findings on the psychological functioning of severely traumatized children and the effectiveness of attachment therapy. This book is aimed primarily at professionals in this field, but also provides an invaluable resource for any parents dealing with their own children’s issues surrounding attachment disorder.

Building the Bonds of Attachment: Awakening Love in Deeply Troubled Children
by Daniel A. Hughes
Hearts are for loving. But hearts fractured by early neglect and abuse don’t know how to love. Using a composite figure, Katie, a fragmented, tormented, isolated girl in foster care who is filled with terror, shame, rage, and despair, this book exposes the tragedy of the unattached child. It alternates Katie’s story with an analysis of the effects of her early life experiences. BUILDING THE BONDS OF ATTACHMENT realistically portrays the experiences of poorly attached children and offers practical strategies for helping them overcome their difficulties.

Children Who Shock and Surprise
by Elizabeth Randolph, R.N., Ph.D.
Do you get confused reading complex, technical books about attachment disorder? Do you wish you could find a basic book that you could give to relatives, teachers, and doctors to help them understand the problem? CHILDREN WHO SHOCK AND SURPRISE is designed to provide you with a brief, but complete, description of the causes and symptoms of attachment disorder, some useful parenting tactics, and the most effective treatment techniques.

Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love
by Robert Karen, Ph.D.
BECOMING ATTACHED offers fresh insight into the fundamentals of emotional life using lay terms so parents and professionals alike can really soak up these concepts. The author begins with the history of attachment theory and psychoanalytic theory and then continues on to contemporary issues. Such questions as: What are the risks of day care for children under 1 year of age, and what can parents do to manage those risks, are explored.

Parenting Challenges

Can’t You Sit Still? Adoption and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
by Randolph Severson
Experts state that the incidence of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is four times greater among adopted children than in the general population. This book, written specifically for adoptive parents, offers eloquent but practical advice about ADHD. In addition to providing concrete, inventive advice about behavior management, medication, and diet, CAN’T YOU SIT STILL? Provides a message of hope.

“Mom, Jason’s Breathing On Me!” The Solution to Sibling Bickering
By Anthony E. Wolf, Ph.D.
In a fresh, funny, and straightforward way, the author presents three essential rules for dealing with sibling arguments- rules that if followed, completely remove the root causes of bickering.

Transracial Adoption

Transracial Adoption:  Children and Parents Speak
by Constance Pohl and Kathy Harris, 1992
The adoption of a child of one race by parents of another race is a complex, controversial issue.  The authors explore the issue of transracial adoption through discussions with families. 

Does Anyone Else Look Like Me? A Parent’s Guide to Raising Multiracial Children
by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
A great book for helping ethnically-mixed kids to develop an understanding of their individuality and build self-esteem. “Am I black or white or am I American?” DOES ANYBODY ELSE LOOK LIKE ME includes professional commentary as well as scripts and stories that will become an invaluable reference for both adoptive and birth parents of mixed race children as they rear their children in an evolving world.

Loving Across the Color Line: A White Adoptive Mother Learns About Race
by Sharon Rush
What more could a liberal, White, civil rights law professor learn about the Experiences of African Americans? Plenty. In this moving, heartfelt memoir of a mother and daughter’s loving relationship, the author describes how her eyes were opened to the harsh realities of the American racial divide. Only by living with her daughter through day-to-day encounters did she learn that racism is far more devastating to Blacks than most Whites can ever imagine.

In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories
by Rita J. Simon and Rhonda M. Roorda
How did being adopted transracially affect their lives through childhood and into adulthood? How did their family experiences influence their racial and social identities, their choice of friends and marital partners, and their lifestyles? IN THEIR OWN VOICES collects the results of interviews conducted with black and biracial young adults who were adopted as children by white parents.

Saving Memories

Adoption Lifebook: A Bridge to Your Child’s Beginnings
by Cindy Probst
How do you and your child talk about her/his life before you became a family? Are there parts of your child’s early life story that you find difficult to explain? Do you ever wonder about which workds to use and where to start? This workbook, created especially for international adoptive families, will show you how to assemble the perfect ADOPTION LIFEBOOK to record your child’s memories and experiences.

Lifebooks: Creating a Treasure for the Adopted Child
by Beth O’Malley
Are you looking for guidance in creating a lifebook for yoru baby or child? This book will inspire you to begin your child’s memory book and then walk you through the process, page by page. Learn what you need to record for your child’s needs, both now and in twenty-five years. Personal lifebook stories and full-length examples are included. LIFEBOOKS: CREATING A TREASURE FOR THE ADOPTED CHILD is appropriate for any type of adoption and also for foster care.

Talking About Adoption

Telling the Truth to Your Adopted or Foster Child: Making Sense of the Past
by Betsy E. Keefer and Jayne E. Schooler
There are three overriding principles guiding the contents of this book: the needs of the adopted child are paramount; honesty is essential to integrity; and love for children and hope for their future as well-adjusted, secure individuals should be the bedrock underlying talks about adoption. TELLING THE TRUTH TO YOUR ADOPTED OR FOSTER CHILD will equip you with the knowledge and tools you will need for a lifetime of communication about the complex, troubling, and sometimes painful aspect of your child’s past.

Talking to Your Child About Adoption
by Patricia Martinez Dorner, M.A., L.P.C.
Covering infancy through the teen years, TALKING TO YOUR CHILD ABOUT ADOPTION guides adoptive parents as they learn about adoption issues and how to comfortably discuss them. The emphasis of this book is that communication about adoption is an ongoing process. This book is helpful for friends and family.

Adopting the Older Child

Parenting Your Adopted Older Child: How to Overcome the Unique Challenges and Raise a Happy and Healthy Child
by Brenda McCreight, Ph.D.
Written with understanding and care, PARENTING YOUR OLDER CHILD is a comprehensive, practical look at overcoming the various challenges of raising a child adopted over the age of two. These range from complex issues like ADHD and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome to simpler, but no less challenging ones such as self-identity

Toddler Adoption: The Weaver’s Craft
by Mary Hopkins Best, Ed.D.
Increasingly, adoptive children are entering their forever families past the age of infancy but not yet as older children. TODDLER ADOPTION covers all aspects of adopting and parenting these young children: making an informed decision whether or not to adopt; preparation and education; forming attachments; behavior management; and more.

Our Own: Adopting and Parenting the Older Child
by Trish Maskew
Children adopted as preschoolers or older come with histories and fully formed personalities. But they also bring happiness, laughter, and great resilience. In this book, dozens of adoptive families tell about the joys and challenges of adopting an older child. Their stories are backed up by thorough research, interviews and professionals, and opinions from adult adoptees. Filled with compassion, humor, and common sense, OWN OWN is the essential handbook for anyone adopting an older child.

Helping Children Cope with Separation and Loss
by Claudia Jewett-Jarrett
All adopted children have suffered a loss- the loss of their birthparents. Some have also been separated from one or more foster parents. HELPING CHILDREN COPE WITH SEPARATION AND LOSS contains compassionate step-by-step guidance for any concerned adult who wants to help a child talk about, cope with, and recover from a loss. It offers warm advice, specific techniques, and innovative ideas for helping children overcome the sadness,anger, and anxiety they feel during a difficult time.

A Child’s Journey through Placement
by VeraI. Fahlberg, M.D.
For some children, being in placement is only a brief stop on the way to being reunited with their parents or placed wit an adoptive family. Others may wander in and out of foster care, mental health facilities, and juvenile justice programs throughout their childhood. These are the children- victims of broken attachments- who are at greatest risk for socio-pathic behavior as adults. A CHILD’S JOURNEY THROUGH PLACEMENT provides the foundation, resources, and tools to help professionals and parents support these children on their way to adulthood.

Adopting the Older Child
by Claudia L. Jewett
I you have already adopted an older child or are considering doing so, this book is indispensable. ADOPTING THE OLDER CHILD describes a child’s transition through the testing phase and on to the full integration into a family. It gives practical, caring advice on how to handle each situation.

Foster Parenting

A Guidebook For Raising Foster Children
by Susan McNair Blatt, M.D.
This book about foster care is based on questions and answers from foster parents and children. It provides wisdom and practical suggestions to address problems that can arise in foster care. From newborns to teens, from health issues to the juvenile justice system, this book written by a pediatrician offers guidance and suggestions to assist foster parents in the process of raising their children.

The Sexualized Child in Foster Care
by Sally G. Hoyle
THE SEXUALIZED CHILD IN FOSTER CARE gives practical advice, information, training tips, and references for those who work with children who have been sexually abused in a previous placement. Chapters include information about sex and sexuality, distinguishing normal from abnormal sexual behavior, treatment methods, research on sexual abuse assessment and concerns about the sexually aggressive child. Just as important, the book covers the emotional cost of treating sexual abuse survivors and how to care for the caretakers.

Growing Up Adopted

Adopted Teens Only: A Survival Guide to Adolescence
by Danea Gorbett, 2004
The author combines her personal experience and background in psychology and education with personal stories as told by adoptees, adoptive parents and birth parents to produce a practical guide for adopted teenagers.  Adopted teens will discover:  What feelings and thoughts are common to the adoptive experience, what adoptive parents feel, what birth parents feel, what emotional issues are connected with search and reunion and how to talk to parents about adoption questions.

Journey of the Adopted Self:  A Quest for Wholeness
by Betty Jean Lifton, 1994
Betty Jean Lifton, whose LOST AND FOUND has become a bible to adoptees and to those who would understand the adoption experience, explores further the inner world of the adopted person.  She breaks new ground as she traces the adopted child’s lifelong struggle to form and authentic sense of self.  And she shows how both the symbolic and the literal search for roots becomes a crucial part of the journey toward wholeness.

May the Circle be Unbroken: An Intimate Journey Into the Heart of Adoption
by Lynn Franklin with Elizabeth Ferber, 1998
A poignant memoir of a woman who reunited with a child she placed for adoption.  The changing face of adoption and virtually every possible form of adoption are covered.  The author speaks to adoptees wondering if they should search for their mothers and to women who have relinquished a child and are wondering and are wondering if they are emotionally able to reconnect. 

Twenty Life Transforming Choices Adoptees Need to Make
by Sherrie Eldridge
The author presents a collaboration of more than seventy adoptees who shared their stories of life’s challenges as an adoptee. TWENTY LIFE TRANSFORMING CHOICES ADOPTEES NEED TO MAKE presents unique challenges- most which adoptees never make public. After reading the stories, and adoptee will realize that he or she is not alone but instead in the company of many people who will provide inspiration to make life choices to become everything you were born to become.

The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child
by Nancy Newton Verrier, M.A.
THE PRIMAL WOUND is a book that is both forceful and courageous in the way it approaches the subject of adoption. Using information abut pre- and perinatal psychology, attachment, bonding, and loss, it illuminates the effect that separation from their birthmother has on adopted children. This book provides validation of many adoptees’ feelings, as well as bringing clarity and understanding to their experiences.

Why Didn’t She Keep Me?: Answers to the Question Every Adopted Child Asks
by Barbara Burlingham-Brown, M.S.
This book is a collection of moving stories by fifteen women who made an adoption plan for their children. WHY DIDN’T SHE KEEP ME is an important book for mothers-to-be who are considering adoption and for those hoping to adopt. Most of all, however, it is for any adoptee who wants to understand how and why a birthmother made her decision.

Educating Others

S.A.F.E. at School-(S)upport for (A)doptive (F)amilies by (E)ducators: A Manual for Teachers and Counselors
by Mary Schoettle
S.A.F.E. AT SCHOOL presents 5 proactive strategies to help teachers and counselors create a positive adoption environment in school: Acceptance, Accuracy, Assignments, Assistance, and Advocacy. Background material is included on: adoption today, unique educational needs of some students, and how students at all ages are likely to comprehend the complexities of adoption. Guidelines and examples are provided t improve communication about adoption while protecting the privacy of personal adoption stories. S.A.F.E. is a complete, but simple, tool for addressing the complex topic of adoption in ANY school.

Children of Intercountry Adoptions in School: A Primer for Parents and Professionals
by Ruth Lyn Meese
Children adopted from foreign countires have issues that can often place them at high risk for failure in school. Teachers and other school professionals often do not know how t test them, teach them, or meet their needs. CHILDREN OF INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTION IN SCHOOL explains those needs and offers guidelines and suggestions to maximize the educational performance of these children and help them meet their full potential.

Adoption is a Family Affair
by Patricia Irwin Johnston, M.S.
Don’t you wish that there was an easy way to explain the hows and whys of adoption to your parents and the other members of your family? This book’s conversational tone and wealth of information will turn family members into adoption experts (and supporters!) in no time.

Adoption and the Schools
by Lansing Wood and Nancy Ng
From tots to teens, school can often be a challenge for the adopted child. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of educating the educators about adoption, diversity, inclusion, language, and special educational needs. Sometimes you need to go further and tackle deeply-held traditional practices and policies. ADOPTION AND THE SCHOOLS will help you and your child’s teacher make school a better place for your adopted child.

An Educator’s Guide to Adoption
Baby pictures….Family Trees….Family Life….Cultural Heritage. These popular school assignments can be difficult, if not impossible, for adopted children. AN EDUCATOR’S GUIDE TO ADOPTION will help teachers to increase their understanding of families build by adoption. It gives them the tools to deal with possibly awkward situations and provides resources for integrating lessons about family diversity into the standard curriculum.

Cross-Cultural Adoption: How to Answer Questions from Family, Friends, and Community
by Amy Coughlin and Caryn Abramowitz
CROSS-CULTURAL ADOPTION is a new, refreshing book for all adoptive parents wjp are often confronted wherever they go with “the” questions. “Who are her real parents? Where is she from?” If adults aren’t careful,the answers can have devastating effects; if they are careful, the answers lay a solid foundation for fostering love, enriched families, and relationships.

Adoptive Parenting

Creating Memories: Innovative Ways to Meet Adoption Challenges
by Cheryl Lieberman and Rhea Bufferd, 1999
All families, no matter how they are brought together, struggle against enormous odds to thrive.  However, for adoptive families, where the history is not a shared one, the rites and traditions commonly relied upon to negotiate transitions and to withstand internal or external stressors do not yet exist.  The ceremonies presented in this book cover the spectrum of life cycle phases, from preadoptive to moving in, from adjustment to reinforcement and beyond.

Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility
by Foster Cline and Jim Fay, 2006
As a parent, you only have a few years to prepare your children for a world that requires responsibility and maturity for survival.  Responsibility is like anything else – it is learned through practice.  If you want to raise children to be self-confident, motivated and ready for the real world, take advantage of the win-win approach to parenting.  Your children will win because they’ll learn responsibility and the logic of life by solving their own problems.  And you’ll win because you’ll establish healthy control – without resorting to anger, threats, nagging, or power struggles.  Parenting with Love and Logic puts the fun back into parenting!

Parenting Teens with Love and Logic: Preparing Adolescents for Responsible Adulthood
by Foster Cline and Jim Fay, 2006
When kids hit their teen years, parenting takes on a whole new dimension.  As they struggle toward independence and autonomy, some dicey issues emerge…That’s where love and logic parenting comes in.  Love means giving your teens opportunities to be responsible and empowering them to make their own decisions.  Logic means allowing them to live with the natural consequences of their mistakes and showing empathy for the pain, disappointment, and frustration they’ll experience.

The Post-Adoption Blues: Overcoming the Unforeseen Challenges of Adoption
by Karen J. Foli, Ph.D., and John R. Thompson, M.D.
THE POST-ADOPTION BLUES is designed to do two things. The first is to explain the common issues that face most, if not all, families during the post-adoption period. The second is to provide simple, effective help for you, the adoptive or kinship parent. The authors explore how to consciously acknowledge the expectations that may be contributing to the struggles, make sense of the nagging emotions that can keep parents from the joy of parenting, and how to move confidently and happily forward as parents and as a family.

Adoption Wisdom: A Guide to the Issues and Feelings of Adoption
by Marlou Russell, M.D.
The purpose of this book is three-fold: to prepare those who are considering adoption; to validate the feelings of adoptive parents, birth parents, and adoptees; and to educate people about the lifelong impact of adoption. By examining the many issues involved in adoption, this book provides the opportunity for the
reader to gain a fuller appreciation of the complexities involved in the adoption experience.

Raising Adopted Children
by Lois Ruskai Melina
RAISING ADOPTED CHILDREN is a parent’s guide to rearing children in an adoptive family. It covers circumstances important to all adoptive parents. Drawing from child development, psychology, sociology, medicine and also the experiences of adoptive parents, it examines the child’s physical, emotional, and psychological development at every age. IN addition, there are chapters on special topics such as the multi-racial family, serious behavior problems and single parent adoption.

Real Parents, Real Children
by Holly van Gulden and Lisa M. Bartels-Rabb
If you’ve ever heard Holly van Gulden speak, you’ll know that a wealth of information awaits you in this book. REAL PARENTS, REAL CHILDREN offers insight into how adopted children commonly think and feel about being adopted. It explains why, and in what way, adopted children grieve for their birth parents and suggests ways that adoptive parents can help them to come to a healthy resolution of this grief.

Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Adoptive Parents Knew
by Sherrie Eldridge
This remarkable book offers an unparalleled window into the heart of the adopted child, giving voice to feelings that are often too difficult to express. In powerful, poignant essays, it highlights the TWENTY THINGS ADOPTED KIDS WISH THEIR ADOPTIVE PARENTS KNEW. It also speaks to the unspoken concerns at the heart of every adoptive family, offering practical advice for addressing past issues, handling current crises, and ensuring a long, loving future for you and your children.

How It Feels to Be Adopted
by Jill Krementz
In this book, nineteen youngsters describe HOW IT FEELS TO BE ADOPTED. These young people explain, from an adolescent’s point of view, both the good and the bad sides about being adopted.

Lesbian and Gay Fostering and Adoption
by Stephen Hicks and Janet McDermott (ed.)
It takes courage to decide to foster or adopt a child, knowing that your life will now be an open book; and if you are a lesbian or gay man, you face the additional hurdles of prejudice and legal obstacles. LESBIAN AND GAY FOSTERING AND ADOPTION presents a collection of personal accounts by those who have fostered or adopted children.

Raising Our Children’s Children
by Deborah Doucette-Dudman and Jeffrey R. LaCure
Custody battles, prior mistreatment of the children, legal arrangements, housing issues and the failure of social service systems to protect children are just some of the issues faced today by many caregiving grandparents. RAISING OUR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN is a hopeful book about families who have weathered the severest storms and emerged ready to help others.

Open Adoption

Cooperative Adoption:  A Handbook
by Mary Jo Rillera and Sharon Kaplan, 2001
Cooperative adoption represents possibilities.  It is used by each participant differently.  It adds options and extends family relationships.  It knows that all children come into this life whole, with all rights and relationships intact.  And it understands that no one else has the right to interrupt those rights or deprive another being of them.  Cooperative adoption is the child’s access to both families, to both sets of parents, with progressive participation in the decisions that will affect his/her life.

Lifegivers:  Framing the Birthparent Experience in Open Adoption
by James Gritter, 2000
The author humanizes birth parents in a way that makes many adoptive parents uncomfortable.  He examines the perceptions of birth parents and makes the case that if adoption exists to benefit children, then adopted children are best served when birth parents and adoptive parents work together to ensure that birth parents remain a part of their children’s lives.

Openness in Adoption
by Harold Grotevant and Ruth McRoy, 1998
Since the mid-1970’s, adoption practices in the United States have changed dramatically and the confidentiality maintained in the past is no longer the norm.  Some adoption professionals argue that openness is harmful and experimental while others argue that the secrecy of confidential adoption has been harmful to all parties involved.  Perspectives of adoptees, adoptive parents and birth mothers are shared.

The Open Adoption Experience
by Lois Ruskai Melina and Sharon Kaplan Roszia
Two leading adoption experts provide this reassuring guide to the issues and concerns of adoptive and birth families through all stages of the open adoption relationship. This book covers the steps from initial preparation, through placement and the first year, to the challenges of adolescence.

The Spirit of Open Adoption
by James L. Gitter
THE SPIRIT OF OPEN ADOPTION is a candid, intensely personal, highly readable account of the experiences of one agency that switched from closed to open adoptions. It traces the reasons for the change and the resulting effects on birthparents, adoptive parents, adoption practioners, and most importantly, the children.

Prenatal Substance Exposure

The Challenge of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: Overcoming Secondary Disabilities
by Ann Streissguth and Jonathan Kanter
This book examines 25 years of research on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) and Fetal Alcohol Effect (FAE). It summarizes recent findings and recommendations from twenty-two experts in the fields of human services, education, and criminal justice. THE CHALLENGE OF FETAL ALCOHOL SYNDROME acknowledges the diverse ansd multifaceted needs of people with FAS/FAE across their lifespan. It is a valuable resource for parents and professionals.

Psychology

Treating Traumatized Children: New Insights and Creative Interventions
by Beverly James
This book is important to seasoned and new clinicians alike. It discusses the do’s and don’ts of working with abused children and teaches what step in treatment follows another step, cautioning about what will happen if we are impatient or act from our own agenda. There is also a blueprint for assessing the impact of trauma and developing treatment plans. Art, play, and dream techniques, to name a few, are covered.

Walking the Tiger: Healing Trauma
by Peter A. Levine with Ann Frederick
This book looks to nature for lessons in healing. The author looks deeply into trauma and how life events can overwhelm us mentally and physically. Common physical ailments and so-called medically untreatable syndromes are considered residues of thwarted trauma reactions incurred during routine surgical procedures, falls, prenatal stress and other childhood accidents and traumas. WALKING THE TIGER is for professionals, as well as individuals coping with trauma.

Adoption and the Family System
by Miriam Reitz and Kenneth Watson, 1992
Adoption is a profound experience that touches upon universal themes of abandonment, identity, sexuality, parenthood, and the sense of belonging.  The authors utilize family systems theory to construct a practical treatment approach for working with families on the myriad issues and interrelationships that surround adoption. 

Clinical and Practice Issues in Adoption: Bridging the Gap Between Adoptees Placed as Infants and as Older Children
by Victor Groza and Karen F. Rosenberg
Experts representing practitioners, researchers, advocates, and triad members compare adoptees placed as infants and adoptees placed 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.  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.

Current Thinking in Special Needs Adoption, 10th Anniversary Symposium
National Resource Center for Special Needs Adoption and Spaulding for Children, 1996
Topics include adoption recruitment, specific considerations of the core issues in adoption and implications for parenting in transracial/transcultural adoptions, post legal adoption services and collaboration in adoption support and preservation.

Hearing the Internal Trauma: Working with Children and Adolescents Who Have Been Sexually Abused
by Sandra Wieland, 1997
This book offers therapists an innovative clinical model for understanding what happens within a sexually abused child.  Combining the latest research findings in child development, early attachment, sexual abuse, and trauma with extensive clinical experience, this books assists therapists in not only recognizing the signs of abuse but also developing effective therapeutic interventions. 

The Mental Health Challenge of Special Needs Adoption: A Resource Book for Professionals Working with Adoptive Families
by Children’s Psychiatric Day Treatment Center, Oregon Health Sciences University
Members of the adoption triad are discussed, as well as therapy considerations; Selected readings are included.

The Post Adoption Experience: Adoptive Families’ Service Needs and Service Outcomes
Child Welfare League of America, edited by Martha Dore, 2006
For children unable to live with their biological families, adoption can provide the permanent, stable environment needed for healthy growth and development.  Ironically, however, supporting and preserving adoptive families traditionally receives less attention than the adoption process itself.  Successful and achievable approaches to meeting the needs of adoptive families and their children are explored.

Post Adoption Family Therapy: A Practice Manual
by Cheryl Prew, Susan Suter & Jan Carrington
Children’s Services Division, Dept. of HR, State of Oregon, 1990
Divided into two parts, the first discusses the conception of the Post Adoption Family Therapy project (PAFT), how it was developed and implemented, and research findings; the second section describes working with families of adoption from a clinical perspective.  Challenges which are unique to adoption are discussed.  Therapeutic techniques and a treatment model are presented.

Promoting Successful Adoptions: Practice with Troubled Families
by Susan Smith and Jeanne Howard, 1999
Focus is on adoptive families after the adoption is finalized; case examples, detailed case histories, presentation of strategies and resources are included.

Still Screaming: Birth Parents Compulsorily Separated from their Children
by Lyn Charlton, Maureen Clark, et al., 1998
The adoption of children against the wishes of their birth families is the most forceful of state interventions into family life.  The parents of children who are adopted compulsorily become, in law, strangers to their children and will never again be allowed to make key decisions in their children’s lives.  For many, the ties to their children are permanently severed.  What are the implications of birth parents who find themselves in this situation?  What services do they need?  And how should these be delivered?

Supporting Families After Adoption: Information for Professional Helpers Working with Adoptive Families
National Resource Center for Special Needs and Spaulding for Children, 2000
Topics include core adoption issues, characteristics that help adoptive families succeed, predictable crises, interventions and adoption dissolution and disruption.

Strengthening Adoptive Families: A synthesis of post-legal adoption opportunities grants
by Jeanne Howard and Susan Smith, 1997
Discusses the needs of adoptive families, strategies for increasing adoption competence, therapeutic interventions, education and resource support for families.