Saturday 18 August 2007

Books, books and more books!

As I haven't got any more meetings with the agency or paperwork to complete, I've been filling my spare time with lots of reading relating to foster care. I love reading anyway, and I'm finding that I'm learning so much. It's even got me reflecting on my teaching experiences; a lot of what I now know would have been very useful back then. I won't go into details, but there seems to be a lot of issues mentioned in the literature that relate to some of the children at school, and it's made me wonder about their home lives.

I thought I'd use this post to list the books I've read so far:

'Damaged: The Heartbreaking True Story of a Forgotten Child' by Cathy Glass (a book written by a foster carer about her experiences with a very abused young girl.)

'Wednesday's Child' by Shane Dunphy (a childcare worker and his experiences with three families.)

'If you don't stick with me, who will?: The challenges and rewards of foster care' edited by Henrietta Bond (a collection of first-person accounts from foster carers giving a very real insight into what it's like to care for children - a very interesting book!)

'Providing a secure base in long-term foster care' by Mary Beek and Gillian Schofield (currently reading this one - this text uses case studies to show how children with backgrounds of loss and adversity need the experience of sensitive parenting and a secure base to contain their anxieties, heal their sense of hurt, build self-esteem and make them confident and competent - all based around attachment theory.)

4 comments:

Anita said...

Hey, Em... I just found your blog through Mindy's. We are starting our foster to adopt classes on Sept 4th... So excited to hear of your journey in the midst of ours.

Anita said...

http://thevoiceofadventure.blogspot.com/2007/08/new-red-pill-challenge-fields-of.html

I don't think that will come across as an active link, but you can cut/paste.

You might enjoy this bloggers book club too... Angel adopted a 7 year old from Guataumala, so lots of the attachment issues relate to those of us planning to foster or foster to adopt older children/sib groups.

And since you are a self proclaimed book-a-holic, I thought you might enjoy the read.

Anita said...

Em, any updates? We are starting our certification classes on 9/4...

BlessedWithDaughters said...

Em, how are you? I haven't heard from you in ages...thought I'd pop over to see how things are going for you. Any updates?

--Mindy