By Shaila Shah and foreword by Roger Morgan.

What is adoption? How is adoption different from fostering? How is adoption decided on? How will the right family be found? What happens on court? This new booklet for children and young people covers these, and other crucial questions on the adoption process and procedure.

Presented in accessible and jargon-free language, this booklet addresses all the issues required by the National Minimum Standards for Adoption and the accompanying Local Authority Adoption Service Regulations 2003. This requires that each local authority (not applicable in Scotland) must produce a written guide to the adoption service which will include - amongst the topics mentioned above - particular information about having access to the services of an independent advocate and on making a complaint. 

This colourful and fully illustrated booklet will appeal to children and hold their attention. Information about adoption is clearly set out and the text is enlivened by the inclusion of short teaser questions about adoption, quizzes about famous adopted people and easy-to-understand definitions about new words and terms that a child may come across but not understand. Pages have been left blank at the end of the booklet so that agencies can add their own local information.

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Adopted children need to maintain some degree of contact with their birth families in order to help them make lasting new connections. But making and managing contact arrangements with birth parents, wider birth family members and other people who are significant to the child is a hugely complex and challenging task. 

How is this best achieved? Who should have contact? How often, when and where? Should contact arrangements be face-to-face or indirect? Supervised, supported or independent? What does it feel like for all those involved? Arrangements must be driven by the childs needs, wishes and feelings - what happens when these inevitably change?

All the contributors to this anthology are involved in making, sustaining or evaluating contact arrangements, either as social workers, academics or adoptive parents. They offer examples of varied practice to explore what works and what does not and why. They describe many ways of remaining in touch but they all emphasise the same essential aspects of managing arrangements: flexibility and the opportunity to review arrangements as time goes on and circumstances change.

They all stress the importance of keeping the interests of the child in the forefront at all times. At the heart of the book, adopted children and young people and their families give their own opinions and share their own experiences, illuminating all that can be said about managing contact arrangements. No practitioner making contact plans for children can afford to be without this book!

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This book continues the story of Nutmeg, the small red squirrel who with his younger sister and brother, featured in the popular and well-received Nutmeg Gets Adopted (published by BAAF last year). Suitable for post-adoption work with children, this new story offers a practical way to identify, explore and understand painful feelings that are likely to surface following adoption - often triggered by seemingly happy events such as birthdays or contact with birth siblings, but also due to problems at school such as bullying and being behind their peers. 

Happily adopted children may at times experience 'butterflies in their tummies', 'muddled heads' making it difficult to think clearly, or angry reactions to siblings and friends and destructive impulses - but will be quite unable to explain their behaviour or strong feelings. This story will help parents and professionals working with children in this situation to understand what may be causing them to feel cross, confused and sad and to help them to heal by identifying and exploring possible reasons for their feelings. The benefits of tears, touching gently while talking with your child, and hugging with the whole family are also explained.

The colourful illustrations feature the delightful characters of the previous story and while the book can be used simply as a story, it can also be used as a workbook and as a tool for therapy. Again, the text is accompanied by practice guidelines which explain the significance of each stage of the story and thoughts and feelings which may be explored.

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This looks at adoption from the point of view of adoptive families. Here, for the first time their experiences, feelings and observations are brought together in one book which follows the adoption process - from the families' initial thoughts about adoption through to supporting their adopted child into adulthood.

A very good and worthwhile read.

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This is the book for anyone who has ever thought about adopting a child and wondered what it would involve. BAAF's best-selling guide describes what adoption means and how to go about it. This edition has been thoroughly revised following the new Adoption Standards for England and contains a new section on step-parent adoption.

Fully updated new edition of BAAF's best-selling short guide to adoption which answers many initial questions, tells you how to go about it and who to approach; This 'beginners guide' is the book for anyone who has ever thought of adopting a child, helping to explain the complicated process involved when finding new families for looked after children and providing information for people interested in adopting from overseas. Using a question and answer format, it describes in plain English why children need adoption, the kinds of children who are looking for new families, the reasons why people adopt and what sort of people adoption agencies are looking for and why. This edition includes a new section on step parent adoption. It then tells you how to go about it - including the legal aspects and the costs of adopting from both the UK and overseas. The guide also looks at what happens after adoption and the differences between adoption and fostering. It includes a comprehensive list of regional agencies throughout the UK (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) and how to apply to them, plus other useful addresses and suggestions for further reading.

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A guide to all aspects of adoption, including motivating factors - is adoption really "second best" for some couples, how the system works, including coping with frustration, delays and rejection, adopting from overseas and cultural issues. The book examines the current requirements about contact with natural parents, and the pressures they can bring for both adoptive and natural parents. There is a balanced mixture of the factual and the personal, making this a useful guide for anyone affected by adoption.

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This book tells the story of Nutmeg, a little squirrel, and his younger sister and brother who go to live with a new family after their birth mother realises that she cannot keep them safe. It will also help children waiting for an adoptive family, or recently placed in one, to make sense of their experiences and to realise that what went wrong in their birth family was not their fault. Beautifully illustrated in full colour, the book is intended to be read to or with children by their own social worker, their current carers or their adoptive parents. A great read.

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Waiting for the right home

When his parents split up, Daniel goes to live with his Mum and her new partner. When it doesn’t work out, Daniel moves to live with foster carers. Will Daniel stay there? Or will he go home? Simply told and suitable for use with children aged around four to eight.

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A collection of real-life stories of adopters which takes the reader through every stage of the adoption process starting with the moment when they decide that adoption is the right option for them to the stories of adoptees brought up by adoptive parents. Its aim is to inform and enlighten professionals, adopters, potential adopters and all those whose lives have in some way been touched by adoption or want to know more about it.

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This book made me think about issues my friends may have had to come to grips with - no matter how wonderful their adopted families may have been.

In a country like ours where the aftermath of adoption is still so much a 'taboo' subject, Nancy's book gives answers we don't always want to hear but which nevertheless help us to understand this complex and extremely emotional subject. I think it is a 'must' read for anyone involved in adoption.

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