Foster Care Adoption

Faces of Foster Care has heartfelt and frank messages from people around the country who have been involved in some way with foster care. Told like mini memoirs, their inspiring and sometimes heartbreaking stories bring us into their lives and show us unique perspectives of foster care in the United States.

Sixteen years ago, Jordyn and Annie were young, in love, and expecting their first baby together through the miracle of artificial insemination. Their happiness was cut short however when their first baby boy died only hours after birth. After a successful pregnancy and birth, they brought a second son into the world a couple of years later. Today, Jordyn is a single mother raising 14 year old Nicholas and has finally gained stability and routine from their pre-chaotic life. Though the memory of the son she lost and the brother Nicholas never got to know remains in her heart, Jordyn ...

“Your parents are so amazing for adopting you! You should be grateful that you were adopted.” Angela Tucker is a Black woman, adopted from foster care by white parents. She has heard this microaggression her entire life, usually from well-intentioned strangers who view her adoptive parents as noble saviors. She is grateful for many aspects of her life, but being transracially adopted involves layers of rejection, loss, and complexity that cannot be summed up so easily.

Breathing Through Foster Care is an honest and sometimes raw account of the daily joys and challenges of fostering. This honest glimpse into an imperfect family offers practical tips on how to avoid the missteps they made. It also provides many strategies they learned along the way to maintain a healthy family with children who have experienced trauma.

Ruth was a ghost of a girl when she arrived into foster mother Maggie Hartley's care. Pale, frail, and withdrawn, it was clear to Maggie that Ruth had seen and experienced things that no 11-year-old should have to, that she's been conditioned to "see no evil, speak no evil". Ruth is in desperate need of help, but can Maggie get through to her and unlock the harrowing secret she carries? Through love, reassurance, and patience, Maggie starts to unravel Ruth's painful past - a past defined by cruelty and abuse.

In this honest and open account, Karla shares her journey of foster care, adoption, and a career that took her by surprise. As a mom of six amazing children, she has developed tried and true resources for families across the globe on trauma competent parenting. Here she brings her global and personal experience to the masses. Karla will inspire you and equip you with tools you need to be an agent of healing and advocate for your children NO MATTER WHAT!!If you are asking...Is Love Enough?What is trauma competency?How do I meet my child's complex needs?How can I be an agent of healing for my...

When foster carer Cathy Glass is asked to foster Darcy-May, a two-day-old baby, she is very concerned. The baby is coming to her straight from the hospital and will have no contact with her teenage mother, Haylea. Even more worrying, she will be brought to Cathy with a police escort, as it’s vital her extended family don't know where she is.

What does it take to keep a child safe? As a long-time strategist and activist fighting for better outcomes for foster children, Mark Daley thought he knew the answer. But when Ethan and Logan, an adorable infant and a precocious toddler, entered their lives, Mark and his husband Jason quickly realized they were not remotely prepared for the uncertainty and complication of foster parenting.

Though the words "foster care" are not in the Bible, the act of caring for the vulnerable is clearly important to God. Perhaps nowhere is that kind of tender attention and care for the vulnerable more evident than in the act of fostering a child. But as foster parents pour themselves into the children God has called them to care for, they may find themselves feeling emptied, in need of being refreshed and reinvigorated for the day to come.

Taking Love and Law Seriously... Aiden O'Connell is a decorated search and rescue K-9 officer in Clear Mountain, Colorado. His partner is a fierce and loyal German shepherd named Cooper and together they find missing hikers, lost children, and natural disaster victims. Even though his career is on track, he is still missing one piece in his life-a woman with whom he can share his success. Lindsay Wright has a calling-to help displaced children find loving homes. As a social worker, she sees all sorts of situations that break her heart. She is so busy helping the children she is responsible ...

Growing up in foster care, Muir has lived in many houses. And if she's learned one thing, it is to Pack. Light. Carry only what fits in a suitcase. Toothbrush? Yes. Socks? Yes. Emotional attachment to friends? Foster families? A boyfriend? Nope! There's no room for any additional baggage. Muir has just one year left before she ages out of the system. One year before she's free. One year to avoid anything - or anyone - that could get in her way. Then she meets Francine. And Kira. And Sean. And everything changes.

The American child welfare system is bent toward protecting adults, not children. Kids in danger are treated instrumentally to promote the rehabilitation of their parents, the welfare of their communities, and the social justice of their race and tribe. It is time to stop letting efforts to fix the child welfare system get derailed by activists who are concerned with race-matching, blood ties, and the abstract demands of social justice, and start asking the most important question: Where are the emotionally and financially stable, loving, and permanent homes where kids can thrive?

Child Protection Services have been involved with Billy and his mother for some time now. He has been happily settled in a kinship placement with his grandmother and enjoys his pet cat, interacting with neighbors, and even taking piano lessons. As the story unfolds, Billy's grandmother has unexpectedly passed away and so the story of Billy Had to Move begins. Unfortunately, Billy's mother cannot be located. Mr. Murphy, Billy's social worker, places him in the foster home of Amy, Tim, and their baby "Colly".

From the author of award-winning children's story books, Delly Duck, Room in the Nest, and other adoption and fostering children's stories, comes an emotional and informative account of the unique challenges and joys of adopting after having a biological child. When Holly and Jon Marlow decided to adopt from foster care, they wondered how much having a child already would affect the adoption process, and how the process would affect their daughter. With warmth and vulnerability, Holly shares her personal experiences, delving into the adoption approval and matching process, introductions, ...

It took less than four hours for Sarah Bailey and her younger brother Curtis to lose everything they knew. She lost her school, her mudpie stations, her church, her father, and her name. Everything they own is packed in garbage bags as they are moved to a new foster home. It’s supposed to be a safe haven for them, but as Sarah—now called Anna—learns, their so-called safety comes at a horrific price, as she is groomed and abused by her new foster mother.

Dani and her husband Tate’s life together is almost perfect. But Dani is haunted by guilt for causing a terrible car accident that left her unable to have children. She can’t remember why she was driving so fast that day or where she was going. Her therapist says she should try to move on.

"Ortiz Lane renewed my love for reading!" -Tiffany Literally borne of fire, Hannah enters this world prematurely and stoned out of her mind. Twelve families later she emerges from foster care into the campus of adulthood, struggling with the reality of her sexual orientation against idealized Sunday school memories. When she crosses paths with her first foster dad at a veterinary convention, a way to redemption begins to clear as Hannah struggles to right the wrongs that define her life. Enormous stakes overshadow her quest and every outcome has consequences, both personally and for the ...

A gripping fast-paced crime story. A window shattered by a single bullet. Cocaine-laced candy. A foster child in a group home ODs. It's just another Christmas in LA, until Detective Tom Stone takes action. Cocaine stuffed into candy bars are appearing throughout Los Angeles. A child’s overdose at Christmas pulls Detective Tom Stone and his partner Jake Sharp into the seedy, underground world of drug smuggling. The duo races to stop whoever’s responsible before another innocent life is lost. They piece together clues and close in on the criminals until Stone finds himself trapped, facing...

Wards of the State by journalist and author Claudia Rowe widens an eye-opening case from a true-crime lens to an exploration of the foster care-to-prison pipeline. The system is broken—hundreds of thousands of children every year leave America’s $30 billion dollar foster care system and enter its prisons, where in some cases, 75 percent of inmates are former foster kids. Through the stories of eight former foster kids, Rowe illustrates exactly where, when, and how the system is failing the children that it parents.

Self-made billionaire, Greg Cooper believes romance is best when it’s brief, fun and done. He rushes through life running from the past, playing in the present, and avoiding all commitments for the future. Tender-hearted Cassie Brewster, owner of Second Chance Ranch, devotes her life to helping at-risk juvenile delinquent boys grow up to be good men, not the arrogant, selfish, egotistical type she meets far too often. When Cassie & Greg are forced to work together, will the trials & tribulations they face with the boys teach everyone necessary life lessons? By summer's end, will they find...