Foster Care Adoption
Featured Books
The Connected Child: Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family
The Connected Child by Dr. Karyn Purvis is a trusted guide for parents adopting children “from hard places,” though its wisdom applies to all families. With warmth and compassion for both the child and the parent, Purvis helps parents understand challenging behaviors while emphasizing “connection before correction.” Practical strategies and her encouraging tone will leave you feeling hopeful and empowered to build stronger, healing relationships with your children.
Has Your Child Been Traumatized?
Psychologist Dr. Melissa Goldberg Mintz offers a comprehensive, practical guide to understanding and supporting children who have experienced trauma. She explains what signs to look for, how to respond to behavioral changes, and when to seek professional help, and provides resources for families. This book equips parents and caregivers with tools to face challenges with hope and resilience, making it an invaluable resource for anyone caring for a traumatized child.
More Great Books
The Foster Parenting Manual: A Practical Guide to Creating a Loving, Safe and Stable Home
Written by veteran foster parent Dr. John DeGarmo, this comprehensive guide offers practical advice on common challenges in foster care, including school support, internet use, and birth parent contact. Drawing on his years of experience, DeGarmo provides clear, compassionate strategies to help children feel safe, secure, and loved in their temporary homes. An excellent, down-to-earth resource for foster parents at any stage.
A Child’s Journey Through Placement
This insightful guide offers social workers, adoption professionals, and foster parents practical tools for supporting children through adoption and foster care. Covering attachment, separation, and developmental stages, it provides straightforward advice on minimizing the trauma of moves, effective case planning, behavior management, and direct work with children. Case studies and exercises throughout deepen understanding and encourage hands-on learning, making this a valuable resource for professionals and caregivers alike.
A Guidebook for Raising Foster Children
Written by a pediatrician, this practical guide offers foster families down-to-earth advice on raising children in care. Covering health, behavior, school, and daily challenges, it provides clear suggestions for handling common issues and knowing when to seek professional help. Centered on the needs of children navigating the system, it’s a fantastic, supportive resource for any foster parent.
The Children Money Can Buy: Stories from the Frontlines of Foster Care and Adoption
Part memoir and part analysis, The Children Money Can Buy follows social worker and adoptive mother Anne Moody’s lifelong work in adoption and foster care. She candidly exposes unethical practices like “baby buying” while also highlighting positive reforms, including the rise of open adoption. With compelling behind-the-scenes stories from domestic, international, and state systems, Moody offers a balanced, eye-opening perspective. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complexities of adoption.
Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn’t Ours
This poignant memoir chronicles one family’s journey through the foster care system, with its many complexities and injustices. After years of starts and stops, the author and her husband welcomed Coco, a 3-day-old infant, into their home. What follows is a moving reflection on motherhood, love, and ultimately letting go. A tender tribute to a child who could not stay, it captures the bittersweet truth: “You were never ours, yet we belong to each other.”
Welcome to The Foster Lane: Parenting Advice from a Coach Who’s Been There
Written by a Certified Parent Coach, this book offers foster parents both encouragement and practical strategies for moving from surviving to thriving. Focused on children who have experienced trauma, it provides compassionate, real-life solutions to the everyday challenges of fostering. A supportive and empowering resource for anyone caring for children in the foster system.
Trash Bag of Memories
In this powerful memoir, a former foster youth shares vivid snapshots of her journey through multiple placements and the heartbreak of a failed adoption. With honesty and courage, she reflects on her experiences to raise awareness, inspire change, and offer hope for healing. A moving testimony to resilience and the ongoing need for reform in foster care.
A Love-Stretched Life
Blending her experiences as a parent by birth, adoption, and foster care, the author offers honest stories and encouragement for navigating life’s unexpected turns. She emphasizes connection, acceptance, and hope in the messy “in-between” of expectations versus reality, while also providing practical suggestions for advocacy. A heartfelt resource for those caring for vulnerable children and the families who support them.
The Seven Core Issues Workbook for Parents of Traumatized Children and Teens
Written by two of our favorite leading adoption experts, this workbook explores seven core issues—loss, rejection, shame, grief, identity, intimacy, and control—and their connection to trauma. With clear explanations, activities, and exercises, it helps parents recognize and address their own struggles while supporting their children’s healing. Applicable to any child, tween, or teen who has experienced trauma, it is a practical and compassionate resource for nurturing growth within families.
Foster & Adoptive Parenting
Written by a foster and adoptive mom passionate about attachment and trauma-informed care, this book offers parents practical tools, creative exercises, and journal prompts for reflection and encouragement. Packed with truth and wisdom, it’s perfect for busy parents needing a quick mindset reset, inspiration, or practical tip while raising children with trauma histories or neurodiversity.
Braving the Dark
This powerful book amplifies the often-overlooked voices of former foster youth who, against the odds, pursued higher education. Their stories weave together trauma and resilience, pain and joy, offering readers both inspiration and insight. Alongside these narratives, the author shares practical ways we can all help create brighter futures for youth in care.
Keep the Doors Open
In this honest memoir, Kristen Berry—adoptive mother of eight and foster parent to more than twenty children—shares the trials, heartbreaks, and joys of fostering. She describes life in a foster home as living with a revolving door, never knowing who will arrive or when goodbyes will come. With candor and encouragement, Berry invites readers to consider the adventure and purpose of fostering. A must-read for anyone curious about opening their home and heart to children in need.
Trauma-Informed Foster and Adoptive Parenting
Written by psychologist and adoptive parent Dr. David Adams, this book offers evidence-based strategies for parents raising children with challenging or oppositional behaviors, especially those from traumatic backgrounds. Combining professional expertise with personal experience, Adams provides practical evidence-based tools to manage outbursts and foster healing. A valuable guide for foster and adoptive parents, as well as professionals who support them.
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