Dandelion On My Pillow Butcher Knife Beneath

This shocking and thought provoking account is the true story of emotionally lost children and how some found their way back. Like a diamond in the rough, all of the kids who killed were tough and protected on the outside while hiding a glimmer of promise inside. For many of these children, the Thomas’s were their last hope. With the guidance of this courageous family, their stories of survival and victory break the unwritten code of silence about children without a conscience. Through therapeutic intervention comes the spellbinding metamorphosis of nine children. Although it stems from the deepest of human suffering, each shining triumph will leave you uplifted and celebrating life.

“Traster’s memoir is simultaneously unnerving and inspirational. The adoption world—and everyone surrounding it (meaning everyone)—needs to better understand the realities that affect so many children being adopted from orphanages today.” —Adam Pertman, president, The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, and author of Adoption Nation In this starkly honest memoir, award-winning journalist Tina Traster tells her moving Russian-adoption story, from dealing with the bleak landscape and inscrutable adoption handlers in Siberia, to her feelings of ambivalence at being a new mother in her forties, to her growing realization over months then years that something was “not quite right” with her daughter, Julia. Traster describes her despair as she blamed her mothering skills for her daughter’s troublesome behavioral issues, until she came to understand that Julia suffered from reactive attachment disorder, a condition associated with infants and young children who have been neglected, abused, or orphaned. She describes how with commitment and acceptance, she and her husband have closed the gulf between them and their daughter to form a loving bond, and provides practical advice for parents struggling with attachment issues. Tina Traster has contributed to numerous publications including the New York Times, the New York Post, Huffington Post, Family Circle, and many more. She lives in Valley Cottage, New York. Melissa Fay Greene is the author of five books, including There Is No Me Without You and No Biking in the House Without a Helmet. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

During my years as a social worker who intervened in the lives of many families, the frustrating prohibition I faced was the State’s reluctance to allow any suggestion toward the family developing a spiritual component. Even though it was obvious that this one focus could correct the errors that promoted child abuse, spousal abuse, addiction, and divorce, it was ignored as a useful intervention for failing families. It is my hope that this book can lead children’s caretakers to the thing that works to bring up their darlings in peace and safety.

Climbing the Broken Judicial Ladder continues the author’s journey of exploring the heartbreak and loss of first adopting Cordelia with severe reactive attachment disorder (RAD) in Washington state and then of nearly losing her to the draconian and confused child welfare legal complex in Los Angeles. In this third volume of his Denied! Failing Cordelia trilogy, Cambridge climbs the broken California judicial ladder from the California Court of Appeals (Second Appellate District) based in Los Angeles to the California Supreme Court. Cambridge concludes that in appeals relating to dependency cases, the ladder is broken for parents seeking to advocate for themselves and for the true best interests of their children. Policies relating to child welfare are flawed, Cambridge argues, because of the preemptive and prejudicial response to the issues raised during the detention of children. As with his two earlier books, Cambridge explores issues connected with how best to parent his adopted daughter and advocate for her needs in the context of a dependency case. Cordelia’s reactive attachment disorder would surface throughout the judicial struggle as would the author’s own struggles with Asperger syndrome. Each would feed negatively into the overall trauma and drama of the author’s unrelenting quest to reunite his “forever family.” Cambridge believes that dependency proceedings are ill-equipped on many levels to elicit a proper understanding of RAD or of the therapeutic parenting needed to address it. Cambridge believes that adoptive parents of children with special needs need to be understood by more sympathetic social workers and by therapists trained in attachment disorders. Cambridge’s persistent efforts to reunite his “forever family” would leave him increasingly isolated as he climbs the judicial ladder. Based on his experiences, Cambridge explores areas for reform in Los Angeles dependency proceedings and evokes Shakespeare’s King Lear by arguing that social workers need to “see better” and that the Los Angeles Juvenile Dependency Court needs to encourage a broader understanding of the issues raised through more effective legal advocacy from assigned dependency lawyers. Cambridge argues that parents should be allowed to address the court directly. Cambridge also relates how he and his daughter have found many positive and healthy ways to heal in the years since their dependency case ended. Much trauma could have been avoided if those around them had “seen better” and had recognized the value in their dramatic and loving adoption journey.

An in-depth exploration of the theory, implementation, and culture of attachment therapy to treat reactive attachment disorder (RAD) as it is practiced in Evergreen, Colorado, the center of RAD treatment in the United States.

Based on personal experience, Vrooman developed this workbook to guide parents through the adoption process to ensure they are knowledgeable and informed. In addition, Vrooman discusses information that parents need to know so the child will receive the proper counseling, therapy, medical treatments, or educational assistance. Contains forms, checklists, worksheets, and questionnaires to help adoptive parents learn everything about their new child prior to the finalization of the adoption--page 4 of cover.

Dispatches from the new front lines of parenthood When the two-time National Book Award finalist Melissa Fay Greene confided to friends that she and her husband planned to adopt a four-year-old boy from Bulgaria to add to their four children at home, the news threatened to place her, she writes, "among the greats: the Kennedys, the McCaughey septuplets, the von Trapp family singers, and perhaps even Mrs. Feodor Vassilyev, who, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, gave birth to sixty-nine children in eighteenth-century Russia." Greene is best known for her books on the civil rights movement and the African HIV/AIDS pandemic. She's been praised for her "historian's urge for accuracy," her "sociologist's sense of social nuance," and her "writerly passion for the beauty of language." But Melissa and her husband have also pursued a more private vocation: parenthood. "We so loved raising our four children by birth, we didn't want to stop. When the clock started to run down on the home team, we brought in ringers." When the number of children hit nine, Greene took a break from reporting. She trained her journalist's eye upon events at home. Fisseha was riding a bike down the basement stairs; out on the porch, a squirrel was sitting on Jesse's head; vulgar posters had erupted on bedroom walls; the insult niftam (the Amharic word for "snot") had led to fistfights; and four non-native-English-speaking teenage boys were researching, on Mom's computer, the subject of "saxing." "At first I thought one of our trombone players was considering a change of instrument," writes Greene. "Then I remembered: they can't spell." Using the tools of her trade, she uncovered the true subject of the "saxing" investigation, inspiring the chapter "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex, but Couldn't Spell." A celebration of parenthood; an ingathering of children, through birth and out of loss and bereavement; a relishing of moments hilarious and enlightening—No Biking in the House Without a Helmet is a loving portrait of a unique twenty first-century family as it wobbles between disaster and joy.

This book discusses the relationship between juvenile disability and delinquency, including characteristics of youth with disabilities, how disability relates to delinquency, and its impact during a youth’s involvement with the juvenile justice system. The book details the relationship between developmental, cognitive, psychological, and educational disorders—specific conditions including ADHD, bipolar disorder, and autism spectrum disorder—and delinquency in light of both their overrepresentation among youth offenders and the uninformed handling of these youth within the court system. Case studies illustrate the complexities in the processing and placement of these youth offenders, as well as highlight the barriers to delinquent youth receiving appropriate treatment, and their increased risk of reoffending. From this robust knowledge base, the authors make expert recommendations for improving the juvenile justice system at the practice and policy levels to better serve this population. This authoritative volume: • Identifies characteristics and risk factors associated with juvenile delinquency. • Reviews evidence relating developmental, mental health, and other disorders to juvenile offending. • Describes the implications of disabilities in key areas such as offending, risk assessment, competency, and outcomes. • Examines the role of disability law in the juvenile justice system. • Offers guidelines for professionals to use this knowledge in their work. Juvenile Delinquency and Disability is an essential resource for researchers, scientist-practitioners, and graduate students in clinical, counseling, and school psychology, criminology and criminal justice, child psychiatry, educational policy and politics, developmental psychology, and social work.