Adopting the Hurt Child: A Guide for Parents and Professionals Book

THE NEW FACE OF ADOPTION. Fewer and fewer families adopting today are able to bring home a healthy newborn infant. The majority of adoptions now involve emotionally wounded, older children who have suffered the effects of abuse or neglect in their birth families and carry complex baggage with them into their adoptive families. Adopting the Hurt Child addresses the frustrations, heartache, and hope surrounding the adoptions of these special-needs kids. Children who have endured emotional and physical atrocities, failed reunifications, and myriad losses associated with multiple moves in the foster care system not only present unique challenges to their adoptive families but also impact greater society in significant ways. Integrating social, psychological, and sociopolitical issues, Adopting the Hurt Child explains how trauma and interruptions affect these children's normal development and often severely undermine their capacity to function in a loving family and in society. Written in a non-technical style accessible to a diverse audience, Adopting the Hurt Child brings to light grim truths, but also real hope that children who have been hurt can be healed and brought back into life by the adoptive and foster parents, therapists, teachers, social workers, and others whose lives interact with theirs.