Foster Care Parents

If you are considering adoption or foster care or are already somewhere in this difficult and complicated process, you need trusted information from people who have been where you are. Mike and Kristin Berry have adopted eight children and cared for another 23 kids in their nine-year stint as foster parents. They aren't just experts. They have experienced every emotional high and low and encountered virtually every situation imaginable as parents. Now, they want to share what they've learned with you.

Rob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. Divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his adolescent and teen years, propelling Henderson to join the military upon completing high school. A portrait of shattered families, desperation, and determination, Troubled recounts Henderson’s expectation-defying young life and juxtaposes his story with those of his friends who wound up incarcerated or killed.

The American child welfare system is bent toward protecting adults, not children. Kids in danger are treated instrumentally to promote the rehabilitation of their parents, the welfare of their communities, and the social justice of their race and tribe. It is time to stop letting efforts to fix the child welfare system get derailed by activists who are concerned with race-matching, blood ties, and the abstract demands of social justice, and start asking the most important question: Where are the emotionally and financially stable, loving, and permanent homes where kids can thrive?

Mary B. Addison killed a baby. Allegedly. She didn't say much in that first interview with detectives, and the media filled in the only blanks that mattered: a white baby had died while under the care of a churchgoing black woman and her nine-year-old daughter. The public convicted Mary, and the jury made it official. But did she do it?

If you’re wondering if God can truly move in the life of someone with all the odds stacked against her, look no further than Tori Hope Petersen. Tori grew up in the foster care system, a bi-racial child in a confusing and volatile world. Growing up with a mentally ill mother and living in twelve different foster homes, nothing was in her favor. And yet, even with a miniscule chance of graduating college and a great risk of being homeless, jobless, and on drugs, Tori overcame every negative stereotype that attacked her. However, Tori will tell you she did not overcome. Christ did.

Breathing Through Foster Care is an honest and sometimes raw account of the daily joys and challenges of fostering. This honest glimpse into an imperfect family offers practical tips on how to avoid the missteps they made. It also provides many strategies they learned along the way to maintain a healthy family with children who have experienced trauma.

Your church needs orphans as much as orphans need your church. Find out why and how you can get involved in Until Every Child Is Home.

Maggie Hartley is one of the UK's most prolific foster mothers. These heartwarming and inspiring short stories show the power of a foster mother's love, and her determination to help the children who come into her care. Includes 'Too Scared to Cry', 'The Girl No One Wanted' and 'A Family for Christmas'.

Adopting or fostering a child brings its own unique set of challenges only another parent facing the same uphill climb could possibly understand. From parenting children with traumatic pasts, to dealing with attachment issues, to raising a children with special needs, it can sometimes be a struggle just getting through the day. Mike Berry knows the loneliness and isolation you can easily feel in your particular parenting role - because he's been there.

Filled with real-life stories and practical advice, Called to Care starts by helping you honestly assess your motivation to help - sometimes the wrong motivation sets the stage for an unsuccessful experience. From there, the book shows what adoption and foster care really look like in a variety of situations, from domestic and international adoptions to short-term foster care and foster-to-adopt arrangements. Also included is how churches and individuals can minister to refugees.

Abandoned as infants, twins Peter and Rory have never known a real family. While Peter wants nothing more than to escape his abusive adoptive father, Rory struggles to not get kicked out of her twelfth foster home since she was separated from Peter seven years ago. All that changes when magical birds appear offering to help them reunite...and return them to the home they never knew. But fate is cruel. They arrive on the planet Inara, on opposing sides of a brutal war. It is up to them to uncover the real enemy if they ever want to see each other again.

Carly and Chak She’s a spoiled princess who's only home for the holidays—and a disbursement from her trust fund on approval of her father. The sooner she’s back in New York, the better. If only she hadn’t run into him. He's so full of himself. He’s a cowboy who loves his job at the competitor's winery. There’s nothing more than he loves than his work and his latest promotion that put him in charge. And now that his heroics are leading to fostering the girl he saved, he wants to live in Cortez forever and she's a New York party girl. If he’s got all this going for him, why is ...

How do you continue living when your worst fear has been realized? Bret and his sons were interrupted by banging on the door. Minutes later he was in handcuffs and the boys were pushed toward their estranged mother. Called the silver bullet effect, their mother had called with false allegations to illegally gain possession of their sons and smuggle them out of the country.

Hoping to ditch two months of chicken coops, kale, and her parents’ antiscreen rules, Mac MacLeod sets out to win a citywide food cart scavenger hunt and the money she needs for the summer coding camp of her dreams. But Mac discovers more than just clues during her cross-city sprint - like how her weird parents might not be the worst thing compared to the circumstances of those around her.

Noche tras noche, día tras día, te enfrentas a la peor pesadilla de cada padre. No lo haces porque eres excepcional o fuerte o inteligente. Lo haces porque estás obligado a hacerlo. Lo haces porque recuperar a tu hijo es tu primer pensamiento en la mañana, el último pensamiento en la noche y en cada momento intermedio.