Customer Reviews

Families Change: A Book for Children Experiencing Termination of Parental Rights (Kids Are Important Series)

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Written by Julie Nelson, who has taught in at-risk early childhood settings for nearly 30 years, Families Change: A Book for Children Experiencing Termination of Parental Rights is a simple, softcover picturebook about the realities of when families have big problems and need to change so that kids can be safe. The illustrations, painted in warm colors, evoke a powerful sense of hearth and home while the text gently discusses difficult situations. "When families change, kids can remember the happy times and the sad and mad and scary times too. Kids can remember and love their birth families. Kids can love their new families too." The last few pages offer a serious message to parents, foster parents, social workers, teachers, and caregivers, offering basic information about how to support and encourage young children amidst the terrifying crossroad of the termination of parental rights, as well as a list of resources and organizations created to help such children and those who look after them. Highly recommended especially for sharing with children in foster care or other, similar situations.

With so few books available for foster children, this is an amazing resource! The concepts are presented in such gentle, reassuring, and child-friendly language. I think that books like this really help children to know that they are not the first or only child to go through the traumatic experience of being separated from their birth family (and possibly abuse and neglect). And when they know they are not alone, it may help them to believe it is not their fault. Once again, it is very well written, and the artwork is quite nice.

Christine Mitchell, author and illustrator of:

Family Day: Celebrating Ethan's Adoption Anniversary and

Welcome Home, Forever Child: A Celebration of Children Adopted as Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Beyond

I am a mental health clinician, providing mental health treatment to both children and adults who've experienced abuse & neglect. This book is a wonderful tool for assisting children in understanding what is happening to their families. It does a nice job of portraying outcomes in a "hopeful" light. Finally, it is a great tool for facilitating conversation with the less-enthused late school age child, who is not necessarily happy to be placed in mental health therapy.

There are so few books on adoption geared at kids who are old enough to remember their birth parents, this really is a good way of introducing the termination of parental rights process to "older" kids. We first met our kids when they were 6 and just turned 8, and they had gone through so many foster homes (8), they didn't know what to think of us, and they kept thinking we would get rid of them. They also were wrapping up visitation with their biological family so it was hard to know what to say about what was happening. This book shows them that they are not the only kids going through this process and helps give them an understanding of what is happening to them in the court system.

I use this book in my therapy practice when working with children in foster care or who have been adopted. It is an excellent way to introduce the topic and to help to normalize their experience.

This is a great book for foster families, adoptive families, & children whose grandparents have full custody. It's not a book for birth families in which one or both parent's rights have been or might be terminated. In that situation, this book would cause the family to fear the loss of parental rights.

This is an excellent resource for use by counselors or foster care workers to assist young children to understand Termination of Parental Rights. It is certainly written in a "child friendly" fashion, captures the feelings that might be experienced by children having family changes, and normalizes these changes for them.

As children move into the system their frightened searching eyes move your heart. More difficult to handle are the guarded faces of children shuffled from one temporary family to the next still waiting for a permanent home. The neglect or abuse from which they came becomes a faded memory that they feel would be better than this limbo. I established a supervised visitation program in our community and this book should have been on our shelves. The book's messages are clear and the art work is excellent. Highly recommended. Charlotte Hardwick, author of Win Your Child Custody War: Child Custody Help Source Book--A How-To System for People Serious About the Welfare of Their Child (12th Edition)