CRB Ongoing Member Training

To receive training credit for the book you have read, write and sent to the CRB office a brief review that covers the following:

1. Briefly what the book is about.

2. Why you think the book is or is not relevant to the work of CRB.

As space allows, reviews will be printed in Inside CRB.

Training credit:

2 training units for each review of a Juvenile/Young Adult book.

4 training units for each review of a Adult Fiction or Memoir or Adult Nonfiction-General book of 100 pages or less.

6 training units for each review of a Adult Nonfiction-General that is more than 100 pages.

2 training credits for CRB-approved videos.

Public library catalogs searched for availability information: Aztec, Bloomfield, Belen, Rio Grande Valley (Albuquerque/Rio Rancho), Socorro, Bosque Farms, Los Lunas, Carlsbad, Hobbs, Lovington, Farmington, Roswell, Santa Fe (including Oliver LaFarge, Santa Fe branch). Books may also be available at other libraries throughout the state.

Juvenile/Young Adult

Adam and Eve and Pinch-me, by Julie Johnston. 1994.

“Fifteen-year-old Sara Moone, abandoned at birth and shunted from one foster home to another, finds that she cannot remain aloof from her latest family.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Belen Public Library, Lovington Public Library, Hobbs Public Library, Bloomfield Public Library, Roswell Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

All About Adoption: How Families Are Made and How Kids Feel About It, by Mark Nemiroff and Jane Annunziata. 2004. 48 pages.

“Using simple language, describes the stages of the adoption process and discusses complex feelings commonly felt by adopted children.”

Available at Socorro Public Library, Farmington Public Library

Angel Baker, Thief, by Jeannette Eyerly. 1984.

“Fifteen-year-old Angel, released on probation to a foster family after being convicted of shoplifting, is anxious to make a fresh start and to be accepted by her new family and friends.”

Children’s fiction.

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Farmington Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

Ann Aurelia and Dorothy, by Natalie Savage Carlson. 1968.

“Ann Aurelia finally finds a foster mother she really likes and a friend who is lots of fun, but when her real mother comes back to claim her, she must decide with whom she wants to live.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Santa Fe Public Library

Anna Casey’s Place in the World, by Adrian Fogelin. 2001.

“Anna, a twelve year old girl with strong survival instincts, tries to adjust to life in a Florida foster home in a strange neighborhood with an overly tidy single woman and Eb, another foster child who is not at all sure he wants to stay there.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Belen Public Library, Hobbs Public Library, Farmington Public Library, Roswell Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

Cady, by Lillian Eige. 1987.

“Having been shuffled from one relative to another all his life, twelve-year-old Cady eventually finds acceptance and love in a foster home and an understanding of the father he has never known.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System

Dakota Dream, by James Bennett. 1994.

“After being shuttled between foster homes and institutions for most of his life, fifteen-year-old Floyd Rayfield escapes from a mental institution to a Sioux reservation, desperately seeking a family and a home.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Carlsbad Public Library, Hobbs Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

A Forever Family, by Roslyn Banish with Jennifer Jordan-Wong. 1992.

“Eight-year-old Jennifer Jordan-Wong describes her adoption by a family after four years of living as a foster child with many different families.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Roswell Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson. 1978.

“An eleven-year-old foster child tries to cope with her longings and fears as she schemes against everyone who tries to be friendly.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Belen Public Library, Los Lunas Public Library, Carlsbad Public Library, Aztec Public Library, Bloomfield Public Library, Farmington Public Library, Roswell Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

Grover G. Graham and Me, Mary Quattlebaum. 2001.

“In his eighth foster home since the death of his great-grandmother, eleven-year-old Ben becomes very attached to a baby living with the same family and worries when the baby’s biological mother takes him away.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Farmington Public Library, Roswell Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

Adult Nonfiction—General

Adoption and Foster Care, by Kathlyn Gay. 1990. 128 pp.

“Describes how these placement systems work and reveals the feelings of young people who find homes through adoption and foster care.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Santa Fe Public Library

Adoption Crisis: The Truth behind Adoption and Foster Care, by Carole A. McKelvey and JoEllen Stevens. 1994. 221 pages.

Contents: The adoption overview -- The baby chase -- Foster care system problems -- Adoptive system problems -- Half-truths and lawsuits -- Attachment issues -- Challenged children -- Foreign adoption -- The genetic influence -- The multicultural debate -- The adoption triad: loss and healing -- Closing thoughts.

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, UNM-Valencia Campus, Hobbs Public Library, Roswell Public Library

American Dream – Three Women, ten Kids, and a Nation’s Drive to End Welfare, by Jason DeParle. 2004. 422 pages.

A moving and informed examination of the challenges, complexities, successes and failures involved in fixing our nation’s ailing welfare system. This glimpse at the difficult lives of these three women and their children provides a marvelous family history that reveals how “the story of welfare” is painfully “tangled in the story of race.”

Assessing the Long-term Effects of Foster Care, by Thomas P. McDonald, Reva I. Allen, Alex Westerfelt, and Irving Piliavin. 1997. 232 pages.

“What lasting impact has foster care had on the lives of adults who were in care as children? That’s the question this book, which reviews the findings of 29 out-of-home studies published between 1960 and 1992, seeks to answer.”

Available from CRB office

Child Abuse, edited by Bryan J. Grapes. 2001. 160 pages.

“Three major sections explore the dimensions of the problem, its causes, and possible remedies. Risk factors such as substance abuse and addiction, poverty, a parental history of childhood victimization, and parental cohabitation are discussed. The family preservation philosophy, the status of the foster-care system, mandatory reporting laws, and proposals to license parenthood are also considered. A chapter devoted to sexual abuse probes the arguments for and against community notification, indefinite confinement, and castration of sex offenders. Pulling no punches, this title covers its subject well.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Belen Public Library, Socorro Public Library, UNM-Valencia Campus, Lovington Public Library, Aztec Public Library

Child Abuse, Domestic Violence and Animal Abuse, edited by Frank R. Ascione and Phil Arkow. 1999. 380 pages.

Evidence is mounting that animal abuse often predicts the potential for other violent acts. The book is an interdisciplinary sourcebook of original essays that examine the relations between animal maltreatment and human interpersonal violence. The essays examine contemporary research, encourage cross-disciplinary interactions and describe innovative programs in the field today. The book also includes vivid first-person accounts from “survivors” of abuse.

Child Welfare, A Source Book of Knowledge and Practice, edited by Frank Maidman. 1984.

Chapters include: Child Welfare Problems and Practice, Child Protection: Issues and Practice, A View of Community Work, Working with Neglecting Families, Physical Child Abuse, Sexual Abuse in the Family, Social Work Practice and Foster Care, Casework to Foster Parents and Children, Residential Child Care, Adolescent Problems, Adoption, Working with Unmarried Parents

Available from CRB office

Children Can’t Wait, Reducing Delays in Out-of-Home Care, edited by Katharine Cahn and Paul Johnson. 1993.

“Children can’t wait; they can’t stop growing up while people whose job it is to help them get their act together. Every day, they are forming their idea of the world as a secure place or an insecure one. Too many vulnerable children experience added insecurity – and bear its imprint on their developing personalities – because of preventable delays in the process of achieving permanency. This book describes collaborative projects in several states that changed laws and administrative codes, improved child welfare practice, built interagency communication and cooperation, and increased resources to help children and families.”

Available from CRB office

Fostering Changes: Treating Attachment-Disordered Foster Children, by Richard J. Delaney. 1998. 104 pages.

“‘Fostering Changes’ is a ‘must read’ book for anyone who works with or lives with the abused or neglected child who is in foster care or in an adoptive placement. It does a superb job of explaining 1) how the abused or neglected child develops a negative working model of the world; 2) how this negative working model is reenacted in future placements; and 3) the effects of the reenactment on the current caregiving family and helping adults. Dr. Delaney then follows up with suggestions for ways to intervene with problematic behaviors.”

Available from Amazon.com for about $11

The Healing Power of the Family: Illustrated Overview of Life with the Disturbed Foster or Adopted Child, by Richard J. Delaney and Terry McNerney. 1997. 123 pages.

“A non-technical, user-friendly approach to the understanding and treatment of disturbed foster and adopted children . . . addresses tell-tale ‘survival behaviors’ displayed by troubled, formerly abused children; the predictable, devastating impact of the disturbed child on the foster or adoptive family; and the unique family-based strategies which focus on curing disruptive behaviors while building bridges between child and family.

The Heart Knows Something Different: Teenage Voices from the Foster Care System, edited by Al Desetta. 1996. 272 pages.

“The 57 essays are divided into four sections. The first deals with the individual situations responsible for a child’s placement in foster care. Next come pieces on living in that system. The third section deals with self-awareness, and the last looks to the future. Some of the stories are told with humor, some with anger, and many with pain, but all resonate with unflinching honesty. Whether the teen is a runaway, an orphan to AIDS or drugs, or a victim of abuse, each has had to work through his or her own situation. What is clearly missing from all of the writings is any trace of self-pity, although many of the young people express regret or even remorse for their past lives.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Hobbs Public Library, College of the Southwest, Santa Fe Public Library

Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them, by James Garbarino. 2000. 288 pages.

“In the past few years our national consciousness has been altered by haunting images of mass slaughters in American high schools, carried out by troubled young boys with guns. It's now clear that no matter where we live or how hard we try as parents, our children are likely to be going to school with boys who are capable of getting guns and pulling triggers. What has caused teen violence to spread from the urban war-zones of large cities right into the country's heartland? And what can we do to stop this terrifying trend?
James Garbarino, Ph.D., Cornell University professor and nationally noted psychologist, insists that there are things that we, both as individuals and as a society, can do. In a richly anecdotal style he outlines warning signs that parents and teachers can recognize, and suggests steps that can be taken to turn angry and unhappy boys away from violent action. Full of insight, vivid individual portraits, practical advice and considered hope, this is one of the most important and original books ever written about boys.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, College of the Southwest Library, Farmington Public Library, Bloomfield Public Library, Roswell Public Library, UNM-Valencia Campus, Santa Fe Public Library

The Lost Children of Wilder: The Epic Struggle to Change Foster Care, by Nina Bernstein. 2001. 482 pages.

“At age 12, Shirley Wilder ran away from an abusive home and landed in New York City’s foster-care system. By age 13, she was named the plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit that challenged the city’s 150-year-old system as unconstitutional. At 14, Shirley gave birth to a son, Lamont, who was soon swept up in the same system. This absorbing account by New York Times reporter Nina Bernstein follows the threads of the tragic lives of Shirley and Lamont Wilder and the lawsuit that bears their name. In the process it illuminates the city’s--and the nation’s--dysfunctional social welfare system and its impact on the children it purportedly helps.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, College of the Southwest, Farmington Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

On Their Own: What happens to kids when they age out of the foster care system, by Martha Shirk and Gary Stangler. 2004. 305 pages.

Eye opening experiences of 10 children from various states, who age out often without a diploma, driving license and work skills. The chapters explore whether they continue with SIL, or not, and the outcome of their lives.

Raising Cain: Caring for Troubled Youngsters/Repairing Our Troubled System, by Richard J. Delaney & Terry McNerney. 1998. 135 pages.

“If we ask foster and adoptive parent to raise society's most jeopardized children - its abused and neglected youngsters - our system must better attend to the best interests of its children and of those who care for ‘Cain.’ Raising Cain offers a format and interventions to raise Cain better, and challenges certain systemic failures which neglect the best interests of foster and adoptive children. It protests, confronts and 'raises Cain' about fundamental, but repairable flaws in our present-day system of care.”

Returning to Care, Discharge and Reentry in Foster Care, by Trudy Festinger with the assistance of Michael Botsko. 1994. 97 pages.

“This book presents a detailed picture of 254 children and families at the time of discharge from foster homes and group facilities in 19 child welfare agencies in New York City. It examines whether children who reentered care within a year of discharge, their caregivers, or their situations differed in any way from those who did not reenter.”

Available from CRB office

Safe Passage To Permanency, Guidelines to Foster Care Review, by National Association of Foster Care Reviewers

Chapters include: Foundations of Foster Care Review Systems, Organization of Foster Care Review Systems, Responsibilities & Training of Foster Care Reviewers & Participants, The Process of Conducting Individual Foster Care Reviews, Using Data from Foster Care Reviews for Improved Outcomes

Available from CRB office

Sexual, Physical, and Emotional Abuse in Out-of-Home Care: Prevention Skills for At-Risk Children, by Toni Cavanagh Johnson and associates. 1997. 118 pages.

Available at Socorro Public Library

Troubled Transplants: Unconventional Strategies for Helping Disturbed Foster & Adopted Children, by Richard J., Ph.D. Delaney, Frank R. Kunstal. 1997. 180 pages.

“Provides insights into the negative impact of the disturbed child on the foster or adoptive family. It presents practical - if unconventional - treatment strategies for addressing the puzzling, exhausting problems of today’s foster and adoptive children.”

Available from Amazon.com for about $11

Walk a Mile in My Shoes: A Book about Biological Parents for Foster Parents and Social Workers, by Judith Lee and Danielle Nisivoccia. 1990. 87 pp.

“A powerful, meaningful, 85-page treatise on understanding the feelings of biological parents and their children when children must be transferred to foster care. A “user friendly” guidebook to easing the transition and helping all parties understand one another better.”

Available from Amazon.com for $2.50 and up

When Home Is No Haven: Child Placement Issues, by Albert J. Solnit. 1992. 184 pages.

“A 26-year-old woman gives her children Valium and whiskey and lacerates their wrists. Her husband witnesses this, then goes bowling. Should these parents retain custody of their children? A trio of child-care professionals here provides practical guidelines for social workers and others who must determine what to do for abused and neglected children. Solnit, Connecticut's commissioner of mental health as well as a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Yale; Nordhaus, Yale professor of social work; and Lord, Yale Child Study Center researcher, discuss the handling of 35 cases in Connecticut. Their analysis is dispassionate, but the facts remain disturbing.”

Available at Hobbs Public Library

Adult Memoirs

Another Place at the Table: A Story of Shattered Childhoods Redeemed of Love, by Kathy Harrison. 2003. 224 pp.

“With so much awful publicity surrounding foster parenting, Harrison's story of opening her home to foster children, three of whom she later adopted, is tender and inspiring. It is also filled with heartbreaking truths about abused and neglected children and a social service system that is overburdened and occasionally negligent itself. For 13 years, Harrison, along with her husband, three biological sons, and three adopted daughters, has fostered abandoned infants, runaway teens, disabled preschoolers, and children discharged from psychiatric hospitals.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Hobbs Public Library, Roswell Public Library

A Child Called “It”: An Abused Child’s Journey From Victim to Victor, by David J. Pelzer. 1995. 195 pages.

“Mother had even stopped using my name, referring to me only as ‘the boy.’ Later on the term ‘boy’ became too personal for Mother and she began referring to me as ‘it.’” David Pelzer tells of alienation from his brothers, “I was not allowed to eat with the family. I was not allowed to play with my brothers nor even look at them.” Severe starvation was one of David’s punishments. “At night I was so hungry my stomach growled as if I were a hungry bear. At night I lay awake thinking of food.” When David resorted to stealing food at school, his mother had a solution. “She told me to shove my finger down my throat.”

Available from CRB office and in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Belen Public Library, Socorro Public Library, UNM-Valencia Campus, Carlsbad Public Library, Aztec Public Library, Bloomfield Public Library, Farmington Public Library, Roswell Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

Finding Fish: A Memoir, by Antwone Q. Fisher. 2001. 352 pp.

“Baby Boy Fisher was raised in institutions from the moment of his birth in prison to a single mother. He ultimately came to live with a foster family, where he endured near-constant verbal and physical abuse. In his mid-teens he escaped and enlisted in the navy, where he became a man of the world, raised by the family he created for himself.

Finding Fish shows how, out of this unlikely mix of deprivation and hope, an artist was born —first as the child who painted the feelings his words dared not speak, then as a poet and storyteller who would eventually become one of Hollywood's most sought-after screenwriters.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Bosque Farms Public Library, Carlsbad Public Library, Hobbs Public Library, Aztec Public Library, Farmington Public Library, Roswell Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

I Speak for This Child: True Stories of a Child Advocate, by Gay Courter. 2001. 420 pages.

“In I Speak For This Child, best-selling novelist Gay Courter recounts her experiences as a Guardian ad Litem, a volunteer court-appointed advocate for children involved in Florida’s court system. Following her first tentative approach to her local Court Appointed Special Advocates program to her more determined efforts, we get an insider’s glimpse on this hidden world and learn what it takes to ensure that America’s most vulnerable citizens are treated with care and respect. Courter’s story is both heartbreaking and heartwarming, and is an inspiration for anyone who has ever looked up from a newspaper and wondered, ‘What can I do to help?’”

Available in Rio Grande Public Library System, Hobbs Public Library, Roswell Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

The Lost Boy, A Foster Child’s Search for the Love of a Family, by David J. Pelzer. 1997. 250 pages.

“Imagine a young boy who has never had a home. His only possessions are the old torn clothes he carries in a paper bag. His only world is isolation and fear. Although this young boy has been rescued from his alcoholic mother, the real hurt is just beginning – he has no place to call home. This is the long awaited sequel to A Child Called “It”. Answers will be exposed and new adventures revealed in this compelling story of his life as an adolescent. Now considered an F child – a foster child – young David experiences the instability of moving in and out of five different homes. Though many in society ridicule the foster care system and social service fields, Dave Pelzer is a living testament to the necessity of their existence.”

Available from CRB office and in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Belen Public Library, Socorro Public Library, Los Lunas Public Library, Carlsbad Public Library, Hobbs Public Library, Aztec Public Library, Bloomfield Public Library, Farmington Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

Turning Stones: My Days and Nights with Children at Risk; A Caseworker’s Story, by Marc Parent. 1998. 400 pages.

“Marc Parent worked for four years as a caseworker for Emergency Children's Services in New York, acting as the final protector of children from abusive parents, as "the one on the front line--the last hope for a kid in trouble." His job was to make house calls and decide if a child needed to be removed at once. He has selected eight cases illustrating the extreme pressures of the work and indicating why it is that the system so often fails in its mission. He recounts unsparingly how three years into his job he made a fatal mistake, failing to recognize the plight of a little boy who later died of starvation. This compelling account is an important documenting of the weaknesses of the child support system.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Hobbs Public Library, Roswell Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library

Adult Fiction

White Oleander, by Janet Fitch. 1999. 390 pages.

“Astrid Magnussen, the teenage narrator of Janet Fitch's engrossing first novel, White Oleander, has a mother who is as sharp as a new knife. An uncompromising poet, Ingrid despises weakness and self-pity, telling her daughter that they are descendants of Vikings, savages who fought fiercely to survive. And when one of Ingrid's boyfriends abandons her, she illustrates her point, killing the man with the poison of oleander flowers. This leads to a life sentence in prison, leaving Astrid to teach herself the art of survival in a string of Los Angeles foster homes.”

Available in Rio Grande Valley Library System, Carlsbad Public Library, Farmington Public Library, Aztec Public Library, Bloomfield Public Library, Roswell Public Library, Bosque Farms Public Library, Socorro Public Library, Santa Fe Public Library