The Unofficial Guide to Adopting a Child [Paperback]

Andrea DellaVecchio (Author)

Book Description

Series: Unofficial Guides | Publication Date: January 2000

The process of adoption - be it an open or a closed adoption, domestic or international - is seldom simple, short, or standardized. It can often take many years of frustrating and expensive searching before parents can bring an infant or child home, and once they do, they face a whole new set of challenges as they learn together to be a family.

The Unofficial Guide to Adopting a Child gives prospective adoptive parents the inside scoop on:
* How long it will really take to adopt, and how much it will cost
* What the challelnges are for single people, older couples, and gay lesbian couples seeking to adopt
* What the all-important home study entails -- from writing the autobiographical statement to creating a child-friendly atmosphere
* What questions to ask agency personnel and birth parents -- and what questions to refuse to answer

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

The process of adoption - be it an open or a closed adoption, domestic or international - is seldom simple, short, or standardized. It can often take many years of frustrating and expensive searching before parents can bring an infant or child home, and once they do, they face a whole new set of challenges as they learn together to be a family.

About the Author

About the Author Andrea DellaVecchio, MA, M.Ed., is the coordinator of the Vermont Adoptive Parent Support Network. She is currently involved with several projects in her home state of Vermont dedicated to giving voice to parents of challenging adopted children and to teaching the community how to help these children. Ms. DellaVecchio is also a member of the Court Improvement Project of the Vermont State Initiative on Protecting Abused and Neglected Children. In conjunction with Casey Family Services, a post-adoption program, she has developed an educational curriculum to help teachers who work with children with Reactive Attachment Disorder and is participating in training workshops statewide. She has worked with the Federation of Families for Mental Health to develop a video for the secondary caregivers of adopted children with attachment issues. A 20-year veteran of teaching middle-school English in the United States, Ms. DellaVecchio spent two years teaching English to educators in Asia. She is the author of numerous articles for a variety of professional journals and newspapers such as the Glens Falls Business Journal and the Saratogian. She and her husband, Tony, are the parents of two daughters who were adopted.

Product Details

• Paperback: 560 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (January 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0028634942
• ISBN-13: 978-0028634944
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,326,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Fringe therapies and beliefs about adoption, June 15, 2005

By 

Jean Mercer - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unofficial Guide to Adopting a Child (Paperback)

This well-meaning book unfortunately presents an entire chapter on ideas about Reactive Attachment Disorder derived from the belief system of a "fringe therapy" and not on scientific understanding of early personality development. In a list of organizations that are sources of help for adoptive parents, the book includes the "Attachment Center at Evergreen", at the time of publication a hotbed of treatments involving physical restraint and emotional intimidation of children. A child's death at the hands of therapists occurred in the year that this book was published and was connected with some of the ideas discussed
by the author. I would hope that a revised version of this publication would be more cautious about this topic. Meanwhile, readers should be warned that this edition's discussion of Reactive Attachment Disorder, and of the whole issue of attachment, is profoundly inaccurate and deceptive.

Jean Mercer, Ph.D.
President, New Jersey Association for Infant Mental Health

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unofficial Guide to Adopting a Child is my official resource, July 22, 2000

By 

Cybrnurse "Cybrnurse" (Granite Bay, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Unofficial Guide to Adopting a Child (Paperback)

The Unofficial Guide to Adopting a child is a extremely helpful resource. I appreciated the fact the author is the coordinator of the Vermont Adoptive Parent Support Network and is involved in adoptive training and workshops for parents and professionals. She is experienced in the challenging needs of adoptive children and has inside information. I like the way the book was formatted.

The book gives you comprehensive coverage of the necessary and vital information you'll need in order to decide if foreign or domestic adoption is right for you and if so how to go about it step by step. The information is up to date and presented in a sensible, concise, readable and applicable fashion.

I also felt the special features like: what to watch out for, moneysavers, timesavers and bright ideas were extemely pertinent and helpful. There is a very complete appendix in the back of the book with many valuable resources for both domestic and foreign adoption included.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone considering or in the process of adopting a child.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unofficial Guide to Adopting a Child is my official resource, July 22, 2000

By 

Cybrnurse "Cybrnurse" (Granite Bay, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Unofficial Guide to Adopting a Child (Paperback)

The Unofficial Guide to Adopting a child is a extremely helpful resource. I appreciated the fact the author is the coordinator of the Vermont Adoptive Parent Support Network and is involved in adoptive training and workshops for parents and professionals. She is experienced in the challenging needs of adoptive children and has inside information. I like the way the book was formatted.

The book gives you comprehensive coverage of the necessary and vital information you'll need in order to decide if foreign or domestic adoption is right for you and if so how to go about it step by step. The information is up to date and presented in a sensible, concise, readable and applicable fashion.

I also felt the special features like: what to watch out for, moneysavers, timesavers and bright ideas were extemely pertinent and helpful. There is a very complete appendix in the back of the book with many valuable resources for both domestic and foreign adoption included.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone considering or in the process of adopting a child.