Adopting and Advocating for the Special Needs Child bridges the gap between the desire to help a waiting child and the reality of America's special needs adoption system. It is designed to be used by adoption professionals and adoptive parents, to help them get started, keep going, and locate whatever additional information and support they need. The authors are adoption professionals, long-time support volunteers, child advocates, and mothers of a total of 21 children, 13 of them adopted children with special needs. Tens of thousands of children in the United States alone are waiting in foster care for parents, and many Americans, single and married, want to open their hearts and homes to these children who wait. A landmark 1980 federal law made adopting and raising special needs children affordable even for people of limited means. What could be easier than matching these kids to these families? The reality is that many prospective adopters never complete the adoption process because of red tape, regulations, and institutional lethargy. Among the adults who complete a homestudy or placement, lack of support services and advocacy training sometimes leads to heartbreak and adoption failure—not a happy ending. Adopting and Advocating for the Special Needs Child bridges the gap between the desire to help a waiting child and the reality of America's special needs adoption system. It is designed to be used by adoption professionals and adoptive parents, to help them get started, keep going, and locate whatever additional information and support they need. The authors are adoption professionals, long-time support volunteers, child advocates, and mothers of a total of 23 children, 14 of them adopted children with special needs.

Without avoiding the grim statistics, this book reveals the real hope that hurting children can be healed through adoptive and foster parents, social workers, and others who care. Includes information on foreign adoptions.

The Oxford Handbook of Children and the Law presents cutting-edge interdisciplinary scholarship on a broad range of topics covering the life course of humans from before birth to adulthood, by leading scholars in each area. Authors present and analyze the law and science pertaining to reproduction; prenatal life (including fetal exposure to toxic substances and abortion); parentage (including biology-based rights, background checks on birth parents, adoption, ART, and surrogacy); infant development; child maltreatment (including corporal punishment and religious defences to abuse and neglect); the child protection system and foster care; child custody disputes between parents; schooling (including financing, resegregation, religious expression in public schools, at-risk students, special education, regulating private schools, and homeschooling); delinquency; minimum-age laws; and child advocacy. It is an essential resource for scholars and professionals interested in the intersection of children and the law.

Previous edition, 1st, published in 1995.

Practical, easy-to-follow guidelines for anyone interested in adopting a child; More than 1,200 Internet sites at your fingertips that will increase your chances of finding the child for you; Simple techniques thousands of parents have used to successfully adopt with the help of the Internet; Includes writing and posting a Dear Birth Parent letter that works; Details warning signs of scams and how to pinpoint individuals who can hinder your adoption; New financial resources for your adoption available on the web; Filled with helpful advice on safe and affordable adoptions, how to find birth mothers and how to safely network and screen professionals within the adoption community.

When you are starting to learn about autism, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. You might have heard negative things about autism, or feel worried about your child's future. But it is going to be okay. Your kid is still the same kid they were before you knew they were autistic. All the things you love about them haven't changed. Now that you know that they are autistic, you are going to be able to understand them better. That's what this booklet is for. We'll tell you the facts about autism. We'll talk about how to find good services, and about your kid's rights in school. Most importantly, we'll talk about how to support your autistic child as they learn and grow.