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.
With a focus on nine different national contexts, this book explores contemporary family diversity. With attention to the different welfare states and cultures of care in each setting, it problematizes the pre-eminence of research and policy centered on heteronormative families, showing the extent to which family diversity exists cross-nationally in relation to different gendered and "family-friendly" policies. Considering variations in family forms, including differences in the number and marital status of parents, their gender, sexual orientation and biological relationship to the children (adoption), multicultural families, and families created by technological assistance or surrogacy, it presents demographic information, alongside quantitative and qualitative research, across a number of advanced countries. A contribution to our understanding of the diversity of family forms, how diversity is lived in families, and what family diversity means in various international policy contexts. The Changing Faces of Families will appeal to scholars with interests in the sociology of the family. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.
My parents were born and raised in Puerto Rico and immigrated to the United States. I was born in the United States and raised in foster homes because my parents were unable to care for me. The memoir is about my experience of growing up in foster care, being disconnected from my biological families and the consequent sense that I had of not knowing who I really was. This led to my decision as an adult to go to Puerto Rico to see if I could find my family and reconnect to my roots. The memoir is the story of my successful effort to find and reconnect with my families of origin.
No-one knows more about children in trouble than Barbara Holborow. In this best-selling book, Barbara draws on the knowledge and wisdom acquired in her many years as a Children's Court magistrate, where she presided over the best and the worst of children, and those dealing with them. She tells the story of her own life as well, and in these pages there is a wealth of practical advice for those who want the best out of the most valuable thing in our lives - our children. - - - - - - - - - "Times change, ideas about'good parenting' come and go, but what Barbara Holborow knows about children in trouble is still true, wise and relevant - because kids never change. During her 20 years in the Children's Court she witnessed both the tragedy of kids gone wrong and the triumph of young adultsre-making their lives. She talked tough but kept her eyes and heart open - and luckily for us parents, wrote this book, which hasbecome a best-seller." - - - - Jennifer Byrne, journalist, and host ofABC TV's First Tuesday Book Club."