Understanding and Working with Parents of Children in Long-Term Foster Care

Gillian Schofield and Emma Ward have drawn strongly on the very personal and often moving experiences of parents whose children have been taken into long-term foster care to produce this well written and insightful book. Quotations from parents poignantly demonstrate the challenges that they have faced. These capture their own understanding and sense of what has happened and the resulting impact on their lives, their children's lives and their relationships with their children and the professionals working with them... There are useful suggestions for ways of improving relationships between both social workers and parents and foster carers and parents respectively. Well written and concise, each chapter ends with a conclusion and a section on "key messages and implications for practice", which is a useful summary of the content. This book is a valuable resource for expanding awareness of the key issues for parents of children in long-term foster care and the positive contributions parents can make to the welfare of their children. It uses the lessons learnt to offer useful models of good practice. This area is overlooked and under-published. -- Foster Care
It's a fantastic book that gives real insight into the lives of the birth parents and may help you to keep a more balanced perspective next time you're struggling with visitations. -- Foster Families