Developing Adoption Support and Therapy : New Approaches for Practice

This book explores the challenges of adoption and how best to support families coping with these demands. Angie Hart and Barry Luckock draw together adoptive parents' experiences, professional practice and empirical research to provide an integrative account of adoption support services.

Adoption is currently taking centre stage in family policy in the UK and USA, with new legislation that places emphasis on providing and maintaining permanent family homes for children separated from their families of origin. This book explores the challenges of adoption and how best to support families coping with these demands. Angie Hart and Barry Luckock draw together adoptive parents'' experiences, professional practice and empirical research to provide an integrative account of adoption support services. Using three fictional families, they illustrate issues such as the adoption of older children, single, lesbian and gay adoptive parenting and the importance of openness in adoptive relationships. The authors bring sociological and anthropological perspectives to bear on current developmental psychology models of trauma and attachment and examine the effectiveness of various therapeutic interventions. Developing Adoption Support and Therapy will make current research and legislation on adoption support accessible to therapists, parents, social work practitioners and managers alike.