For: Stephen & Mary Perch.

For: Stephen & Mary Perch.

This practical book explains the process of adopting a child from Russia, from first contact with a Russian agency through bonding with the adopted child back at home. Karwowski provides a resource that parents can carry along as they navigate the paperwork, the home assessment, court hearings, medical exams, and financial components of what can otherwise seem like an overwhelming process. Herself the adoptive parent of two sons from Russia, the author also details common issues families face as they acclimate their new child to their home, family, and American culture. Aiming to break the process into manageable steps, Karwowski incorporates her own experience as a backdrop. Degreed in both psychology and sociology, she discusses sensitive issues regarding the child, which can include issues of abandonment, trust, and attachment. For all of these, she presents methods adoptive parents can use to see the signs and cope. She also addresses misconceptions commonly held about adoptions from Russia, the country to which she traveled four times across two years, to adopt her sons.

Adoption is practiced globally yielding a multidimensional area of study that cannot be characterized by a single movement or discipline. This handbook provides a central source of contemporary scholarship from a variety of disciplines with an international perspective and uses a multifaceted and interdisciplinary approach to ground adoption practices and activities in scientific research. Perspectives of birth/first parents, adoptive parents, and adopted persons are brought forth through a range of disciplinary and theoretical lenses. Beginning with background and context of adoption, including sociocultural and political contexts, the handbook then addresses the diversity of adoptive families in terms of family forms, attitudes about adoption, and characteristics of adopted children. Next, research examining the lived experience of adoption for birth parents, adoptive parents, and adopted individuals is presented. A variety of outcomes for internationally and domestically adopted children and adoptive families is then discussed and the handbook concludes by addressing the development, training, and implementation of adoption competent clinical practice. With cutting-edge research from top international scholars in a diversity of fields, The Routledge Handbook of Adoption should be considered essential reading for students, researchers, and practitioners across the fields of social work, sociology, psychology, medicine, family science, education, and demography. Interviews with chapter authors can be accessed as podcasts (https://anchor.fm/emily-helder) or as videos (https://bit.ly/2FIoi0a).

'Handbook of Adoption' addresses topics in adoption that reflect the many dimensions of theory, research, development, race adjustment and clinical practice which can affect adoption triad members.