The number of traumatized children in foster care and adoptive families is on the rise every year. In times like these, social work practitioners rarely have sufficient time to plan out each of their sessions. This book makes it possible. Life Story Work with Children who are Fostered or Adopted: Creative Activites and Ideas is a brief and accessible resource guide to life story work. Focused on methods and activities that have been tried and tested by social workers and therapists, these are simple activities that require minimal resources that range from how to build the foundation to Life Story Work to boosting a child's self-esteem and identity. The chapters are categorized in a way that makes it easy for the practitioner to identify which method will be appropriate for the stage of the work they are undertaking. This book will be a vital resource for social workers, foster caregivers, students and any frontline practitioner involved in working with traumatized children.

Through words, pictures, photographs, certificates and other 'little treasures', a Life Story Book provides a detailed account of the child's early history and a chronology of their life. Fully updated, this clear and concise book shows a unique family-friendly way to compile a Life Story Book which promotes a sense of permanency for the child, and encourages attachments within new families. Joy Rees' influential model works chronologically backwards rather than forwards, aiming to reinforce the child's sense of belonging and security before addressing the child's past and early trauma. The book contains simple explanations of complex concepts, practical examples, helpful suggestions and includes some simple checklists. This new edition has been expanded to include fostered children and those living in kinship care or with a special guardian. Perfect for social workers, adoption agencies, adoptive parents, foster carers and kinship carers, Life Story Books for Adopted and Fostered Children is a refreshing, innovative and common-sense guide.

This new book from life work expert Joy Rees explains the value of effective and meaningful life work with children who are fostered and adopted, and how best to carry this out. This book will help social work professionals, foster carers and adopters to understand the many aspects of life work and to consider the important contributions they can all make to this task. Life work is about helping children to know and to understand their personal stories and the life experiences that have shaped them. Enabling children to reach their potential and achieve the best possible outcome is the common goal, and this is best achieved by using the collaborative approach to life work advocated in this book

This concise book shows a new family-friendly way to compile a Life Story Book that promotes a sense of permanency for the child, and encourages attachments within the adoptive family. Joy Rees' improved model works chronologically backwards rather than forwards, aiming to reinforce the child's sense of security within the adoptive family.

Life story work is one of the key therapeutic approaches to working with adopted or fostered children. While it sounds simple, there is much more to this work than producing photo albums or memory boxes for children. This accessible book is full of tried and tested activities and creative ideas for professionals, parents and carers who may have little time and few resources, but who need to carry out life story work that works for children. The authors describe the optimum conditions in which to carry out life story work and feature activities to accompany each of the necessary stages: creating a sense of safety, emotional literacy, building resilience, exploring identity, sharing information and looking to the future. This book will be a vital tool for social workers, foster carers, adopters, students and any frontline practitioners involved in working with traumatised children.

This authoritative guide will help anyone who wants to use life story work as a way of helping children. This comprehensively revised and attractively illustrated edition has been updated in light of all recent legislation. It incorporates substantial new material from other contributors and presents an assortment of useful techniques and exercises for adults working with children in different settings. The authors also explain how new interactive media can be particularly helpful for many children, and describes successful interactive resources.

Life story work allows care-experienced and adopted young people to understand their histories and come to terms with their feelings about the past. This accessible guide helps therapists and social care professionals to develop their skills to support children and families through their life story journey. It builds on the fundamental 6-step model for practice to incorporate elements from a variety of therapeutic approaches, from DDP to creative therapies. Theoretical explanations, case vignettes, and practical suggestions provide guidance on practice-based issues in life story work, such as working with parent/carer-child dyads, incorporating a birth family perspective, talking about traumatic stories, managing endings and constructing the life story book. Essential reading for anyone undertaking life story work, this guide enhances a time-tested model with up-to-date research and new ideas for overcoming the most common challenges practitioners face when delivering life story work.