Describes the "predictable and understandable developmental stages and challenges for all adopted people."--Jacket.

The Spirit of Adoption explores many of the complexities inherent in adoption and its relationship to spirituality, challenging us to move beyond the common mythologies about adoption to consider the more difficult questions adoption raises about the nature of God, family, culture, loss, and joy. Rather than hearing from experts in adoption, this collection uses the narratives of birth parents, adoptive parents, and adoptees themselves, bearing witness to the ways adoption shapes its participants' spiritual lives. By allowing others to narrate their spiritual journeys through adoption, we hope to proclaim that adoption can be a wonderful, powerful, hopeful experience, and one that is difficult, painful, despairing--and that these paradoxes of adoption might be held together in God's hand.

Everyone is part of a family, but what constitutes a family is one of the most hotly debated issues in the United States today. Battleground: The Family provides extensive coverage of those critical issues in U. S. culture concerning current and future family life, such as dating, marriage, parenting, work and family, abuse, and divorce. The scholarly contributors to this set provide unbiased coverage on these often incendiary topics, allowing students to assess the role of these controversies in their own lives. Entries thoroughly introduce the topic of concern, describe the problem as it currently exists, provide context for the controversies surrounding it, synthesize the current knowledge on the topic, and guide the reader to additional areas for consideration. Battleground: The Family serves as a starting point for those advanced high school and beginning undergraduate students who wish to pursue a more detailed study of family controversies and cultural concerns for classroom assignments. Non-specialist readers will also find this a useful resource in critically assessing current trends and conflicts in constituent groups' conceptions of family.

This volume examines adoption as a way of understanding the practices and ideology of kinship and family more generally. Adoption allows a window onto discussions of what constitute family or kin, the role of biological connectedness, oversight of parenting practices by the state, and the role of race, gender, sexuality, and socio-economic class in the building of families. The book focuses primarily on adoption practices in the US but will also use examples of adoption and fostering across cultures to put those American adoption practices into a comparative context. While reviewing practices of and issues surrounding adoption, the authors highlight the ways these practices and discussions allow us greater insight into overall practices of kinship and family.

The Family in Law provides a jurisprudential analysis of current family law, connecting doctrinal discourse with sociological, historical and economic analyses of the institution of family. The law's focus on the nuclear family as the default model is central to the book's discourse, which contains in-depth discussions of the key areas of family law - marriage, divorce, children and property matters. Written for Australian legal actors - whether students, academics or professionals - readers are encouraged to question current frameworks, critique well-known cases and make informed conclusions on whether changes could be made to engender a fairer and more equitable society. In developing doctrinal analysis within a theoretical framework, The Family in Law challenges the conventional boundaries of family law, providing readers with both a solid foundation and a multi-layered perspective to their understanding of the topic.

While most mental health and behavioral health professionals have encountered adoption triad members—birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted persons—in their clinical practice, the vast majority have had no formal or informal training on adoption issues. The Handbook of Adoption: Implications for Researchers, Practitioners, and Families is the first book to specifically address the many dimensions of adoption-related issues which can and do affect adoption triad members, specifically in the United States. Key Features: Includes contributions from nationally known experts: Prominent authors who are directly involved in adoption-related research and practice provide insight from personal and professional experience. Theory and real-life examples come together in the "Treatment Issues" and in the "Training and Education" sections of each chapter. Reviews the major theoretical, historical, and research issues of adoption: The book begins by addressing the historical and theoretical issues surrounding adoption, thus providing the reader with a comprehensive review of the adoption landscape from past to present and setting the stage for topics addressed in the remainder of the book. Reflects upon many issues affecting adoption triad members: The contributing authors address issues pertaining to transracial adoption; special issues in adoption such as foster care, single parents, and special needs; training and education issues; assessment and treatment issues; and much more. Intended Audience: This extensive resource is designed for researchers, practitioners, students and families interested in learning more about and working with adoption triad members. It will be particularly relevant in counselor education programs, departments of social work and policy, and marriage and family counseling programs which emphasize developing clinical skills with a variety of clients.