From the Publisher: This is a collection of short stories about adoption. They are written by an author who admits to using a pseudonym, having worked 14 years for a county adoption agency. She participated in nearly 1,000 adoptions and the stories contained in this volume are “... authentic in spirit, but altered in detail.”

From American Anthropologist, Vol. 32, Issue 1, p. 178: The more technical series of the Catholic Anthropological Conference auspiciously begins with this paper by Father Meier. The Gunantuna occupy the northeastern section of the Gazelle peninsula and represent a typical Melanesian group. The author, who resided among them from 1899 until 1914, wisely sketches their general culture before going into details as to the adoption ritual. Except in one district this tribe is divided into exogamous matrilineal moieties, but, as usual, this rule of descent does not imply feminine ascendancy. The men do the moat important part of the horticultural work and own virtually all the property held. Incidentally, we learn the interesting fact that simple barter does not occur, all business being transacted through a transfer of shell money (p. 13). There is patrilocal residence and nepotic inheritance (pp. 14,17). On his main theme Father Meier contributes a wealth of concrete information, illuminated both by texts in the original and by specific biographical material. The psychological motives leading to adoption are fully discussed. In several respects the paper suggests intensive comparison with Dr. Rivers’ and Professor Malinowsld’s researches on Melanesian peoples. Both Father Meier and the Conference may be congratulated on this eminently worthwhile contribution. — Robert H. Lowie

---

By the Same Author: Illegitimate Birth Among the Gunantuna (1938) and The Orphan Child Among the Gunantuna (1939).

How does not knowing one’s biological parents influence developmental tasks of adolescence? This question was studied with adolescents who were adopted at infancy, have serious emotional problems and were living in a residential treatment center during the research. The areas explored include: (1) The adolescent’s need to separate from parents; (2) Fantasies about biological parents; (3) Identity formation; (4) Personality integration; (5) Under what circumstances adoption would prove to be an interfering factor, or an additional stressor, to the adolescent striving for her or his own identity; and (6) Implications for the psychotherapy process.

From the Back Cover: The growing use of assisted reproduction, including sperm donation, gamete donation, and surrogate motherhood, has raised a number of ethical issues in common with adoption. These issues include the parties’ roles, such as which parties are considered the legal parent; anonymity and the balance between the right to privacy of donors and the right of persons to medical or other background information; and concerns related to the growing role of money and market forces in each area.

Adoption and Assisted Reproduction reviews not only the available literature, but the wide range of current case law and statutes. This book will be an invaluable tool for all adoption professionals, and will hopefully serve as a first step toward a full discussion of the unresolved issues that professionals currently confront in both policy and practice.

This is the fourth title in a series on adoption and ethics developed by the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and designed to provide an overview of the current knowledge base on key adoption policy and practice issues.

---

About the Author: Madelyn Freundlich is policy director for Children’s Rights, Inc., New York, NY. She formerly served as the executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute and as general counsel for the Child Welfare League of America. She is a social worker and lawyer whose work has focused on child welfare policy and practice for the past decade. She has authored a number of books and articles on child welfare law and policy. Her most recent writing has focused on the impact of welfare reform on foster care and special needs adoption; the role of race and culture in adoption; interstate adoption law and practice; genetic testing in adoption evaluations; and confidentiality in child welfare practice. Ms. Freundlich holds masters degrees in social work and public health and holds a JD and LLM.

From the Back Cover: Adoption and Assisted Reproduction: Families Under Construction provides an in-depth exploration of the fascinating and controversial issues emerging out of biotechnology and society’s expanding understanding of family identity. In this ideal supplement to any Family Law curriculum, authors Appleton and Weisberg combine solid treatment of the law and carefully crafted additional content to elicit analysis and fuel class discussion.

Using a balanced presentation of law, policy, critical perspectives, and depictions in popular culture, this finely honed text features:

• Thorough analysis of important cases, statutes, and regulations, including law reform efforts and the absence of law on some topics

• Opportunities for comparative analysis of law and policy among various states and nations, with exploration of questions of jurisdiction, choice of law, and enforcement

• Critical perspectives on core concepts, such as parentage, the role of the state in the construction of family, and examination of unspoken assumptions about gender, race, and class

• Clear and informative exposition

• Interdisciplinary materials and references to books and films from popular culture, which bring the legal materials to life

• Discussion of professional responsibility and the role of the lawyer in the face of cutting-edge social issues and nascent law and policy

• Notes and Questions that follow the principal cases and illuminate salient themes

• Thought-provoking problems that prompt consideration of new issues, preparing students not only to address the law as it exists, but as it might become.

The Adoption and Children Act 2002 contains the most radical changes to adoption law for over 25 years. The Act repeals and replaces the Adoption Act 1976 and amends the Children Act 1989. Significant detail is provided in Regulations. This clear and practical guide provides authoritative guidance to the new legislation. The full text of the 2002 Act is set out together with the Regulations. Free access is provided to an associated website containing secondary legislation and supplementary materials.

Quality adoption practice supports sharing of information so that children with medical, psychological, and developmental problems are placed with families prepared to meet their needs. Part One of this report reviews the major court decisions in this area and summarizes the judicial trends. Part Two reviews statutory law and charts the various ways in which states have defined the nature and scope of duty to disclose nonidentifying information.

From the Back Cover: With a focus on optimizing the potential of older child adoption as a key element in child welfare services, this book analyzes the personal and social economy values of adoption, and the changing characteristics of adoptive children and families, while providing models of psychosocial adjustment to adoption. The implications for child welfare policy and services are explored in depth, with special attention to methods for identifying risk factors and to strategies for maintaining adoptions that have been identified as at-risk for disruption.

---

About the Author: Richard P. Barth, a fost-adopt father, is Associate Professor, Associate Director of the Family Welfare Research Group, and Chairman of the School Social Work Program, in the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. He is Book Review Editor for the journal, Children and Youth Services Review, and Consulting Editor for the Journal of Adolescent Research. He is the author of Social and Cognitive Treatment of Children and Adolescents.

Marianne Berry is a doctoral candidate in Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a Fellow of the American Association of University Women. She was previously a child welfare worker in Dallas, Texas, and has published extensively on the adoption of special-needs children, outcomes of children under permanency planning, and parent training in child welfare services.

From the Back Cover: Adoption expert Lori Carangelo, the founder of Americans for Open Records (AmMFOR), has compiled an up-to-date collection of findings pertaining to all aspects of adoption and donor conception. Her The Adoption and Donor Conception Factbook, is an “at a glance” resource for researchers, helping professionals, activists, lawmakers, journalists, genealogists, and other researchers seeking the facts about America’s multi-billion dollar, Adoption, Assisted Reproduction, and Foster Care industries.

The only comprehensive book of its kind, The Adoption and Donor Conception Factbook defines and explains the differences between Adoptees, “Birth” Parents, Parents by Estoppel, De facto Parents, Adoptive Parents or Adopters, Donors, Donor Offspring, Intended Parents, Foster Parents, Psychological Parents, Carriers, Gestational Surrogates, Altruistic Surrogates, Custody Evaluators, and so on. Readers will find chapters devoted to each of these constituencies in the adoption and donor conception industries. Ms. Carangelo explains each stakeholder’s legal or political status and then accounts for their numbers, origins or whereabouts, and the pros and cons of their points of view.

The Adoption and Donor Conception Factbook concludes with an up-to-date list of websites pertaining to this topic and a comprehensive bibliography of books and articles.

---

About the Author: Lori Carangelo, the author of the popular finding aid, The Ultimate Search Book, lets the statistics speak for themselves but also pulls no punches. For instance, “Chapter 3: Adoptees—Outcomes,” discusses adoptees’ denied access to medical information and criminal activity among adopted children. In the second part of the book, “Statistics of Assisted Reproduction,” the author cites the available statistics on the number of sperm and egg donors, evaluates the privacy issues surrounding assisted reproduction, surveys the legislative history of assisted reproduction throughout the U.S. and identifies key lobbying organizations in the battle over assisted reproduction, including the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. In Part 3: “Foster Care, CPS, Family Courts,” Lori puts her microscope over foster care outcomes, examines the impact of the Child Protective Services Act, and asks the reader to consider the alternatives to adoption foster care and fertility treatments—as borne out by the statistics. In all cases, readers and researchers will be amazed by the plethora of facts amassed by Ms. Carangelo AND will want to browse the back stories, consider the sources, follow the dollars, and judge for themselves.

From the Dust Jacket: After 40 years of legal adoption in Britain it remains true to say that remarkably little is known about the effectiveness of adoption processes and the success or failure of adoption as an institution. It is generally thought that adoption is a good thing, and more and more people adopt every year, but hard facts are still difficult to find. Compared with the United States few research studies into adoption have, even now, been published in this country, and most of those that do exist deal with relatively small samples.

In Adoption and Family Life Margaret Kornitzer has used as her basic material detailed information, obtained mostly by personal interviews with adopters and adoptees, about 500 adoptive situations involving over 650 adopted children. She has analysed her findings about the natural parents of the children, the children themselves, the adopters and their motives and needs, adoption agencies and methods of placing, the legal process and the post-adoptive situation. She has also studied at close range the adoptive family and the stresses and strains imposed upon it from outside because of the attitudes of the community towards adoption, as well as the apparent outcome of adoption in terms of the personalities of adults and adolescents who were adopted in childhood.

Some of the most important chapters in the book attempt the difficult task of assessing the comparative “success” or “failure” of the adoptions in the survey and of studying the factors involved. Several chapters deal with the question of telling the child he is adopted, and with the sometimes startling inadequacy of adopters’ attitudes towards children’s needs in this respect.

About half a million children have been legally adopted in England and Wales since 1927, so that their problems are not remote or academic for the community as a whole. This large-scale study does not pretend to give the answers to adoption problems, but it provides a challenging picture and raises many awkward questions for law-makers, social workers and adopters alike.

From the Publisher: Adoption and fostering practice in Scotland is much the same as elsewhere in the UK, especially in relation to:

• social and demographic changes

• developing policies and practices, such as post-adoption information exchanges

• responding to the challenges that face children adopted from local authority care

• incorporating birth parents in support services.

This book summarizes Scottish adoption and fostering practice, outlines major developments, and highlights where Scottish policy and legal framework differ from elsewhere in the U.K. Research findings that have U.K.-wide application are discussed—for example, the need for sensitization of foster parents to the challenges in caring for a child that has been sexually abused and the needs of post-care adults.

The book begins with a brief history of developments in care for children who cannot be looked after within their biological families. A chapter on kinship care brings the Scottish policy and practice framework up to the present. The book concludes with a chapter that points to current gaps in knowledge, policy, and practice.

Adoption and Fostering in Scotland is a short and readable survey of Scottish practice set in the context of developments in other jurisdictions. As such, it will be valuable to students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as to those practitioners whose work involves adoption and fostering.

---

About the Author: Gary Clapton is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Edinburgh.

Pauline Hoggan is an experiences practitioner in adoption and fostering in both the independent and local government sectors.

Adoption and Mothering is an international and interdisciplinary collection that examines birthmothers and adoptive mothers; it investigates debate, discourse, and the politics of adoption that surrounds them and impacts contemporary notions of motherhood as biological and non-biological kin in North American contexts. Written by authors from disciplinary perspectives in the humanities and social sciences, its essays offer critical perspectives on adoption and mothering that challenge institutionalized ideas, assumptions, pathologies, and psychologies that are used to interpret birthmothers and adoptive mothers. Its authors interrogate questions of race, gender, disability, class and sexuality as they relate to the experience, identity, and subjectivity of mothers who are marked by the institution of adoption. It investigates historical and contemporary themes, language, law, and practices that concern mothering in closed and open adoption systems, and in transracial and transnational adoption. It critically explores the expectations, scrutiny, and liminality that birthmothers and adoptive mothers often face. It looks at imperatives that mothers be the keepers of culture, potential adversaries, and borderland mothers. In effect, it creates a productive and exciting dialogue between birthmothers and adoptive mothers to challenge traditional notions of motherhood.

Guides juvenile and family courts in assessing and implementing improvements in the handling of child abuse and neglect cases through the termination of parental rights and adoption process. These Adoption and Permanency Guidelines are the result of a three-year effort to produce best practice recommendations for use in dependency cases involving abused and neglected children who cannot be reunited with their families.

From the Back Cover: As professionals have become aware of the impact of prenatal substance exposure on children in the adoption process or who are available for adoption, there is a heightened need for understanding a range of issues connected with prenatal alcohol and drug exposure. This book addresses many of these issues, providing important information on:

• Impact of prenatal substance exposure on children’s immediate health and well-being

• Long-term health and development of substance-exposed children

• Remedial effects of a positive postnatal environment

• Counseling suggestions for prospective adoptive parents

• Services and supports to maximize positive outcomes

Developed with the support of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this book contains the contributions of experts known for their work in the fields of drug and alcohol exposure and adoption. It is designed to serve as a key resource for practitioners, policymakers, researchers, and others with an interest in adoption.

---

About the Author: Richard S. Barth, M.S.W., Ph.D., is the Frank A. Daniels Distinguished Professor of Human Services Policy Information in the school of social work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was previously Hutto Patterson Professor, school of social welfare, University of California at Berkeley. His books include Adoption Disruption: Rates, Risks, and Resources, From Child Abuse to Permanency Planning: Pathways Through Child Welfare Services (Aldine, 1994), Child Welfare Research Review I and II (Columbia, 1994; 1997); and The Tender Years: Toward Developmentally Sensitive Child Welfare Services (Oxford, 1998). He is on the editorial boards of several research, policy, and practice journals and was the 1998 recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Research from the National Association of Social Workers.

Madelyn Freundlich, M.S.W., J.D., LL.M., is the executive director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute. Her work has focused on child welfare policy and practice for the past decade. She formerly served as general counsel for the Child Welfare League of America. She is the author of a number of books and articles on adoption, child welfare law and policy, and the financing of child welfare services.

This issue brief provides adoption professionals with information on the privatization of adoption services. It presents background information on privatization and examines the key issue of monitoring; considers the privatization of adoption; addresses the relationship between privatization and managed care, highlighting the differences between managed care approaches in health care and in child welfare; and sets out recommendations for adoption professionals to use in participating in and shaping what are likely to be ongoing discussions about the use of privatization and managed care in child welfare. By the Same Author: From Hopeless to Hopeful: Raising an Older Adopted Child (2013, Lulu.com).

The adoption of black children by white couples is, inevitably, a controversial area of social policy. Opponents of the practice—including some black community groups—have argued that blacks have always serviced whites and are now servicing them in the ultimate fashion by providing children for them. Equally, it is argued that such children will face major difficulties of integration and, in adolescence, an “identity crisis”: not knowing who they are—black or white—will result in a debilitating sense of confusion and major behavioral difficulties. This study tests these assumptions by looking in detail at the effects of transracial adoption once the children have reached adolescence. The authors interviewed a large group of white parents and talked at length to the children, now aged between 13 and 15, about their experience of adoption. Thus, much of the evidence presented here is based on the direct testimony of the parents and, for the first time in British adoption research, of the children themselves. The result is a fresh and illuminating account of family integration in practice, family attitudes and policies towards adoption and racial identity, the children’s own conception of their racial identity and their experience of being black in a white family. These detailed findings are then placed in the context of the wider political issues surrounding transracial adoption. The book will have much to say to social workers, policymakers and prospective adoptive parents seeking up to date information on which to base their own discussions, practice and decisions.

More than a dozen leading legal practitioners and health specialists have collaborated on this comprehensive guide to the complex and fast-changing areas of adoption and reproductive technology law. Practical, step-by-step treatment of each topic guides practitioners through procedures such as consents to adoption, petitions to dispense with consent of a birth parent, determinations of parentage, petitions for adoption and agreements for gamete donation or surrogacy.

The concept of special guardianship was introduced by the Adoption and Children Act 2002. Special guardianship orders are private law orders which give a special guardian parental responsibility for the child concerned. They provide permanence and security for those children for whom adoption is not suitable but who cannot live with their birth parents. The basic legal links between the child and his birth family are preserved. In contested cases, courts are often faced with one key question: should a child remain in care as a foster child or be made the subject of a special guardianship order or be adopted? Adoption and Special Guardianship: A Permanency Handbook brings together, for the first time in a single volume, the law and procedure relating to adoption with that of special guardianship. This unique work examines recent case-law, alongside the policy that underpins the legislation, including socio-legal research on how the law operates and social research on the needs of children. Adoption and Special Guardianship: A Permanency Handbook also examines the fundamental and common issues concerning the importance of the child’s relationship with his birth family, contact with them after the order is made, and the impact on the child of remaining a child in care. About the Author: His Honour Judge John Mitchell is a Circuit Judge, appointed in 2005 having previously been a district judge for six years. He sits as a nominated care judge at Gee Street Courthouse and as a deputy High Court Judge in the Family Division. Judge Mitchell is also the author of Children Act Private Law Proceedings and Adoption.

From the Publisher: More than 5,000 public and private adoptions were finalized in Florida during 2009. Based on recent trends, this number is expected to increase annually, despite the sometimes confusing legal procedures that often impede successful completion of the adoption process for families.

Melissa Tartaglia, whose legal practice focuses on adoption and surrogacy, has been giving seminars on the adoption and surrogacy process for years. In this easy-to-use sourcebook, she presents the pros and cons of the wide range of adoption choices available in Florida, along with invaluable step-by-step tips on completing appropriate legal paperwork. Specific real-world examples and scenarios are explored to help explain the procedures and how best to approach potential pitfalls.

Suitable for laypersons considering adoption and lawyers who need a quick, single-source reference, Adoption and Surrogacy in Florida is the most complete and accessible guide to navigating the state’s sometimes unintuitive adoption and surrogacy legal requirements. It encompasses adoption and surrogacy processes from beginning to end: finding a child or gestational surrogate; drafting an enforceable contract; obtaining a home-study; locating the right physicians; satisfying legal requirements; and bringing an action for adoption or determination of parental status.

Providing information on dozens of invaluable resources, an explanation of applicable statutes and procedures in layman’s terms, checklists, a CD containing downloadable legal forms, and detailed instructions, Adoption and Surrogacy in Florida is a must-own volume for any Floridians who want to start or expand their families through adoption or surrogacy—in some cases without engaging an agency or attorney.

---

About the Author: Attorney Melissa A. Tartaglia is the president of Tartaglia Law Group, a Florida firm that focuses on adoption, surrogacy, temporary guardianship, dependency, and custody issues.

Adoption and surrogate pregnancy are the two most realistic options currently available for millions of couples unable to have biological children. In the past decade, international adoption has become popular among those who wish to avoid the wait associated with adopting domestically. Yet because of unique political, economic, and cultural circumstances within individual countries, international adoption is fraught with legal controversies and difficulties. Surrogate pregnancy is a relatively new and inherently complicated alternative. With few regulations to guide the process and protect those involved, however, countries struggle to address its ethical and moral questions, in addition to the legal, political, cultural, and environmental ramifications. Providing a historic overview and defining the key issues, Adoption and Surrogate Pregnancy examines the laws related to adoption and surrogate pregnancy in five countries: the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom, and Guatemala. The discussion covers the ways in which adoption and surrogate pregnancy overlap and influence each other, the nuances that further complicate matters, and the controversies surrounding both issues—such as fears of exploitation, class discrimination, socially “unwanted” children, same-sex parenthood, and the difficulties of governing the family unit. Allowing students to compare the subjects from the perspectives of different countries and cultures, this balanced and objective volume sheds light on the way these issues affect the global community. About the Author: Faith Merino is an award-winning writer and editor. She has contributed extensively to Facts On File’s Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania and was editor-in-chief at Calliope literary magazine at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA. Her short story, “At the Bottom of the Ocean,” was awarded first place at the Open Windows 2007 Fiction Competition. Foreword author Pamela Anne Quiroz is associate professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago and is the author of Adoption in a Color-Blind Society, among other publications.

From the Publisher: Since the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law in 1990, adoption agencies have been on notice that they must exercise caution when using disability-related criteria in the selection of adoptive parents. Part I of this book reviews the nondiscrimination mandates of the ADA, discusses who it protects, outlines sanctions for violations, and describes relevant case law. Part II addresses the extent to which ADA protects individuals with drug addictions, who are HIV-positive, and who have psychiatric disorders. Part III provides case examples in which the ADA may apply and identifies considerations agencies might take into account in making decisions about prospective parents based on disability-related concerns.

---

About the Author: Madelyn Freundlich is the former Executive Director of The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, New York, New York. She is a social worker and lawyer whose work has focused on child welfare policy and practice for the past decade. She formerly served as General Counsel for the Child Welfare League of America and as Associate Director of Program and Planning for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. She is the author of a number of books and articles on child welfare law, policy, and financing. Her most recent work includes the first installment in the Adoption and Ethics series, a multiyear project that will produce several titles addressing such issues as the role of race in adoption, the impact of reproductive technologies, and market forces driving the adoption field. Ms. Freundlich received her Master’s degrees in social work and public health, and she also holds a J.D. and LL.M.

Lisa Peterson is Legal Consultant to Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children, New York, New York. Spence-Chapin is a private, not-for-profit, state-licensed child placement agency and CWLA member that specializes in domestic, international, and Special needs adoption. Ms. Peterson was a corporate attorney with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City from 1986 to 1994. She has given presentations on the subject of wrongful adoption to the Joint Council on International Children’s Services and the Association of Administrators of the Interstate compact on Adoption and Medical Assistance.

From the Back Cover: Adoption is out of favour. Numbers have fallen dramatically, and baby adoptions have become rare events. Recent trends in family law make it increasingly unlikely that children will ever be declared free to be adopted, while would-be adopters are discouraged by a series of obstacles and objections.

Consequently children who are unable to live with their natural parents are likely to spend long periods—possibly their entire childhoods—“in care.” This can entail years of to-ing and fro-ing between children’s homes, foster parents, and repeated attempts to re-unite them with neglectful and often abusive parents. The results for the children concerned are extremely poor, and all the evidence suggests that the state makes a very bad substitute parent. Children who have spent time “in care” are more prone to psychiatric disorders, they suffer in terms of education and health, and they often “graduate” from the system to homelessness, unemployment and prison.

The results for adopted children, on the other hand, are extremely good. They do well by all measures. When they experience problems, these often relate to their early childhood trauma at the hands of their natural parents, or to long periods spent “in care” prior to adoption.

In this book Patricia Morgan argues that childcare legislation and practice should be re-organised so that adoption becomes the first, not the last, option for children who cannot live with their parents. A child welfare system in the twenty-first century should be built around finding a permanent home for every child.

---

About the Author: Patricia Morgan, Senior Research Fellow in the family at the IEA Health and Welfare Unit, is a sociologist specialising in criminology and family policy. Her books include Delinquent Fantasies, 1978; Facing Up to Family Income, 1989; Families in Dreamland, 1992; Farewell to the Family?, 1995; Are Families Affordable?, 1996; and Who Needs Parents?, 1996. She has contributed chapters to Full Circle, Family Portraits, The Loss of Virtue, Tried But Untested, Liberating Women from Modern Feminism and Just a Piece of Paper?, as well as articles for periodicals and national newspapers. Patricia Morgan is a frequent contributor to television and radio programmes and is presently writing a full-length work on the relationship between capitalism and the family.

---

By the Same Author: Adoption: The Continuing Debate (1999) and Love Her As She Is: Lessons from a Daughter Stolen by Addictions (2000, Light Hearted Concepts).

From the Dust Jacket: Adoption is a profound experience that touches upon universal themes of abandonment, identity, sexuality, parenthood, and the sense of belonging. The authors utilize family systems theory to construct a practical treatment approach for working with families on the myriad issues and interrelationships that surround adoption. The model described here is broadly inclusive of all families linked by “the adoption triangle”—birth parents, adoptive families, and adoptees—and it offers practical guidance for implementing differential treatment and effective clinical procedures on their behalf.

Building a framework for the chapters that follow, the book’s first section lays out basic premises regarding adoption and family therapy, and describes a model for assessment and treatment. Focusing on service to birth families, the second section describes both commonly held fallacies about birth families and factors in their assessment. The formation of adoptive families is the topic of the third section, which examines issues of affiliation and details the assessment of adoptive families and the treatment of couples with infertility problems. The book then considers the adoptive family in treatment with separate chapters on families with young children and those with adolescents or young adults. Exploring the lifetime impact of adoption, the fifth section covers issues that arise in the adoptee’s family as well as issues of search and reunion with birth parents. The text concludes with a discussion of trends and special circumstances in the formation of families, along with a look at what lies ahead in the field. Throughout, the authors translate complex theory into useful technique, and use poignant case materials to further illuminate each topic.

---

About the Author: Miriam Reitz, Ph.D., LCSW, is a family therapist currently in independent practice who has practiced, taught, and supervised in family therapy for many years in the Chicago area. After training as a clinical social worker, she began her career in a child welfare agency that treated children separately from their families. After early, enlightening exposure to systems theory applied to whole families, this became the basis for her work. She later returned to the University of Chicago to earn her doctorate in social work. A study of newly married couples for her dissertation provided research support for the practice model presented in this book.

Kenneth W. Watson, MSW, LCSW, is the Assistant Director of the Chicago Child Care Society. He has been in the field of child welfare for more than 35 years. Currently the Chair of the National Adoption Task Force of the Child Welfare League of America, he serves on the Board of the American Adoption Congress, and is a member of the Editorial Review Board of the journal, Child Welfare. He has held faculty appointments at four schools of social work and is nationally known as a trainer and an author of many articles and monographs on child welfare issues.

Adoption and The Gospel delivers sound biblical doctrine that most have never heard. One does not need to be a bible scholar to understand its message! Gerald Clark chronicles his struggle to overcome his traditional image of an orphanage, and how he learned from heart wrenching personal experiences with the children what they so desperately want and need. Six years working with children in an orphanage in the Philippines left Gerald and his wife seeking answers to difficult and very troubling questions. “If God loves me, why am I an orphan” “If you love me, why don’t you adopt me” I kept asking myself, “What’s wrong with this picture” No matter how much we love and care for children in an orphanage, they’re still orphans. What’s wrong with the picture is that we simply don’t understand that children just don’t want to BE orphans. Would we need more orphanages if Adoption was part of the Global Mission Strategy of every evangelical church in the world? Adoption says something about the Gospel and God’s love that no other word can say The Gospel is incomplete if it fails to include adoption Jesus came into the world to bring us a living example of God’s love, “so that we might receive the adoption as sons” Galatians 4:4-5 “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God” John 1:12 The solution to the world’s orphan crisis is found in the bible. Adoption Ministry equips the church to accomplish the task, and God has called millions of families around the world who already want to adopt!

From Eugenics Review, September 1967; 59(3): pp. 200-201: The two lectures published in this booklet describe the work done by the Guild of Service in Edinburgh, especially with regard to adoption. This was originally a moral welfare organization which, under the direction of Dr. McWhinnie, has developed its case-work service to unmarried parents alongside its work as a registered adoption society. There has thus been an integration of the two services. One advantage, among many, has been that the unmarried mother has been known to the case-worker for some months before her child is born. She is given sympathetic help to face the situation objectively and to decide on the course of action most likely to be beneficial both to the coming baby and to herself. The need for teamwork, both in the assessment of the biological parents, the baby and the adopting parents is stressed. Dr. McWhinnie has been fortunate in obtaining help from paediatricians, psychiatrists and the Department of Genetics in the University of Edinburgh, in cases where specialized help has been thought to be necessary. Controversial cases are referred to a medical referee. In this setting. Dr. McWhinnie has been able to apply the knowledge she gained from her study in depth into the attitudes of adults who had been adopted as children (Adopted Children: How They Grow Up). She feels that the needs of the child are of primary importance, as the child’s future adjustment to life is so dependent upon the environment in which it is reared. Nevertheless she is well aware of the problems of both the biological and adoptive parents, and her attitudes towards them are sympathetic, accepting and constructive. Her work has brought new insight into the problems of adoption and the booklet can be recommended to anyone who is interested in the subject. —Margaret Platt

From the Dust Jacket: Nearly 500,000 teenagers give birth each year in the United States, and the majority are not married. Many of these young women did not intend to parent so early in their lives, yet less than five percent release their babies for adoption. Most of the others never consider adoption as an alternative.

Older women, whether single or married, may also become pregnant at the “wrong” time in their lives. They may wish to consider the adoption alternative, yet they seldom are offered information or support in doing so.

Many people are strongly opposed to adoption. They can’t imagine a mother letting someone else rear her child. Others think adoption must be a selfish choice, something a mother does only if she doesn’t care about her baby.

Sometimes people think of adoption as a solution to the teenage pregnancy “epidemic.” They suggest that teenagers cannot be good parents and that their babies, by dictate, should go to older and more settled adoptive couples.

Jeanne Lindsay and Catherine Monserrat believe that either extreme is wrong. The decision to place one’s child for adoption is perhaps the most difficult decision a parent can ever make, a decision that requires a great deal of love and caring. The parent considering the adoption alternative needs considerable support as s/he considers an adoption plan, carries it out, and grieves the loss of a beloved child.

Adoption Awareness is about providing that support, whether the helping person is a teacher, counselor, nurse, social worker, attorney, clergy, or other concerned person.

---

About the Author: Catherine Paschal Monserrat, Ph.D., has fifteen years experience as a teacher, counselor and lecturer. She is currently in private practice as a psychologist working with individuals and families in Seattle, Washington. She is also a well-known speaker and workshop leader, and is the co-author of the widely used Teenage Pregnancy: A New Beginning and Working with Childbearing Adolescents.

Jeanne Warren Lindsay, M.A., C.H.E., developed and coordinated for sixteen years an alternative school program for pregnant and parenting teens in a Southern California school district. She is the author of seven other books dealing with adoption, adolescent pregnancy and parenthood and teenage marriage. She edits the NOAPP Network for the National Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy and Parenthood. She is a frequent speaker at conferences.

From the Back Cover: This report is about communicating adoption as an option to pregnant clients on an equal basis with parenting and abortion. Adoption is undervalued, underused, and poorly understood by many who counsel pregnant clients.

The Children’s Health Act of 2000 requires that training be established to prepare counselors in health care and allied settings to acquire information about adoption and to develop skill in communicating adoption to pregnant women in a non-directive manner. Prior to the Adoption-Awareness Training Initiative if clients didn’t ask about adoption, the topic was not discussed. Little thought was given to the possibility that thousands of pregnant women might lack sufficient knowledge about adoption to ask.

Our evaluation of adoption-awareness training covers a period of 3 years (2001-2004), and includes information collected from 13,000 trainees in 900 sites across the United States. Included in this report are modules and exercises designed to promote skill in communicating adoption using a variety of non-directive Rogerian techniques such as Reflection, Questioning, Clarification, and Summarization.

Evaluation results are consistent in documenting that adoption-awareness training is needed in health settings, as well as in allied social service and school programs.

---

About the Author: Edmund V. Mech, MSW, Ph.D., is the Evaluation Director for the Adoption-Awareness Training Project. Contributors to the final report include: Jeannie Gilbert, MS; Matthew Hall, MS; Elaine Hanson, BA; Laura Jensen, BA; Isaac Krig, BA; Elizabeth Leonard, MSW; Charles Marquardt, BA; Elisa Claasen, BA, and Heather Rosman, BA.

From the Dust Jacket: International Adoptions have decreased dramatically in the last decade, despite robust evidence of the tremendous benefits that early placement in adoptive families can confer upon children who are not able to remain with birth families. Adoption Beyond Borders integrates evidence from a range of disciplines in the social and biological sciences—including psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, sociology, anthropology, and social work—to provide a ringing endorsement of international adoption as a viable child welfare option. The author interweaves narrative accounts of her own adoption journey, which involved visiting a Kazakhstani orphanage daily for nearly a year, to illustrate the complexities and implications of the research evidence. Topics include: the effects of institutionalization on children’s developing brains, cognitive abilities, and socioemotional functioning; the challenges of navigating issues of identity when adopting across national, cultural, and racial lines; the strong emotional bonds that form even without genetic relatedness; and the methods in which adoptive families can address the special needs of children who experienced early neglect and deprivation, thereby providing a supportive environment in which those children can flourish. Striving to attain a balanced, evidence-based perspective on controversial issues, Adoption Beyond Borders argues that international adoption must be maintained and supported as a vital means of promoting international child welfare.

---

About the Author: Rebecca J. Compton is professor of psychology at Haverford College, where she has taught since 1999. She received her BA from Vassar College and her PhD in biological psychology from the University of Chicago. Her previous research focused on executive function, attention, and emotion regulation in the human brain, and she co-authored Cognitive Neuroscience, 3rd Edition (2011).