Each year tens of thousands of teenagers are released from the foster care system in the United States without high school degrees, homes, or strong family relationships. Two to four years after discharge, half of these young people still do not have either a high school diploma or equivalency degree, and fewer than ten percent enter college. Nearly a third end up on public assistance within fifteen months, and eventually more than a third will be arrested or convicted of a crime. In this richly detailed and often surprising exploration of the foster care system, Betsy Krebs and Paul Pitcoff argue that the existing foster care system sets teens up to fail by inadequately preparing them for adult life. They contend that the primary goal of foster care for teenagers should be preparation for a fully productive adult life, and that current policies and practice are misguided. The authors draw on their fifteen years of experience working with teens and the foster care system to introduce new ways to empower teens to be responsible for themselves and to identify and develop their potential. They also explore what sorts of resources-legal, financial, and human-will need to come from inside and outside the system to ensure that more teens reach successful independence. Ultimately, Krebs and Pitcoff argue that change must include the participation of caring communities of volunteers who want to see disadvantaged youth succeed, as well as the use of creative approaches such as the Socratic Method to help teens to take control of their lives. Bringing together a series of inspiring, real-life accounts, Beyond the Foster Care System introduces readers to a number of dynamic young people who have participated in the Youth Advocacy Center's programs. Their stories demonstrate that alternatives to the standard way of providing foster care are not only imaginable, but possible. With the practical improvements Krebs and Pitcoff outline, teens can learn the skills of effective self-advocacy, become better prepared for the transition to independence, and avoid becoming the statistics that foster care has so often produced in the past.

The adoption agency made a mistake. A mother welcomed in a child who brought fear and destruction into the home. She wrestles with God, doctors, and social workers over what to do next. Quick-thinking, leaps of faith, and some dark humor challenges readers to ask themselves: Do I have what it takes to raise a child with a harrowing past… or an uncertain future? Un-Adoptable? reveals deeply personal questions that arise when pursuing this parenting path. Ratings & Awards: 5-Star Rating from Reader's Favorite. TOP 5 finalist for parenting books in 2020 National Indie Excellence Awards. TOP 10 for books on fostering & TOP 100 for memoirs. (WattPad.com preview release) Nominated for BookLife (in association with Publisher's Weekly) annual award for parenting and family books. Reviews: “A candid and courageous account. I was awed by the accounts described in such detail and psychological insight, she could teach a class in child psychopathology.” - Dr. P. L. Herold, Professor of Psychology, Cal-State. "This book is a must-read for everyone who is currently providing care or considering foster care or adoption. In addition, social workers, therapists, church officials, and medical practitioners will benefit from seeing their impact on our families." - Lesia Knudsen About the Author: Janelle Molony, M.S.L., advocates for adoptions of special needs children. She writes encouraging, faith-based stories for national parenting publications and online (www.AdoptionToLife.com / @AdoptionToLife).

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 minuscule chance of graduating college and a great risk of being homeless, jobless, and on drugs, Tori overcame every negative stereotype and assumption that attacked her identity. However, Tori will tell you she did not overcome. Christ did. In the face of the storm, Jesus made a way for Tori to find profound hope, deep faith, renewed purpose, and a loving family, too. After so many years of being on one side of foster care as a child, Tori is now on the other side as a foster mom, adoptive mom, and biological mom. On top of that, she became a Track and Field All-American in college and now works with nonprofits, ministries, and beyond advocating for foster care reform, adoption advocacy, and help for vulnerable populations. If you want to hear the true tale of an unlikely overcomer, this book is for you. If you want to learn more about the foster care system from a former foster youth’s perspective, this book is for you. If you want to better dwell in the reality of your own spiritual adoption by our Heavenly Father and better understand the orphan and the widow that He loves dearly, this book is for you. Ultimately, if you want to remember who God is, and what He can do through the most unlikely of people, Fostered is for you.

When Deborah Gold and her husband signed up to foster parent in their rural mountain community, they did not foresee that it would lead to a roller-coaster fifteen years of involvement with a traumatized yet resilient birth family. They fell in love with Michael (a toddler when he came to them), yet they had to reckon with the knowledge that he could leave their lives at any time. In Counting Down, Gold tells the story of forging a family within a confounding system. We meet social workers, a birth mother with the courage to give her children the childhood she never had herself, and a father parenting from prison. We also encounter members of a remarkable fellowship of Appalachian foster parents—gay, straight, right, left, evangelical, and atheist—united by love, loss, and quality hand-me-downs. Gold’s memoir is one of the few books to deliver a foster parent’s perspective (and, through Michael’s own poetry and essays, that of a former foster child). In it, she shakes up common assumptions and offers a powerfully frank and hopeful look at an experience often portrayed as bleak.