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You could spend months doing research on adoption, and never even come close to finding all the information. Below are some additional good sources for information.
A great source of information has changed names. The National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information is now Child Welfare Information Gateway. There are, literally, thousands of articles on this site. It does have great search feature to allow you to easily find what you are looking for.
To find your state chapter of the National Foster Parents Association, go to. This will help you to connect with other foster parents, or pre-adoptive parents.
Go to this website to find more information on foster care and foster care to adoption. There are sub sections on therapeutic foster care, respite care, emergency care and other topics. Being knowledgeable on these will help you decipher your child’s file when you are reading it.
There are great suggestions on obtaining information on your child on the child welfare site. There is a list of questions to ask about behaviors, medical history, social history, and other issues.
Fostering Families Today Magazine
1-888-924-6736
This magazine has great articles that are fairly short, and easy to read. They are pertinent to both foster and adoptive parents, and allows foster parents to earn continuing education credits. It also contains additional articles on the website.
Foster Care Base payments- updated 10-30-06 contains a chart showing current foster care rates, and the source of information. The North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) has loads of information on their website.
Adoption.com – This website is loaded with information, articles, forums and many other things that are valuable in adoption and particularly foster care adoption, some of them written by yours truly. There are forums and articles for every type of special needs adoption you might encounter. Whether it is medically fragile children, drug or alcohol exposure, emotional needs, or physical disabilities, you can find information you’re looking for.
Attachment & Trauma Network – Of course I recommend this group. I love the people involved. ATN is focused on parent support. The people involved are all parenting special needs kids. There are on-line support groups, articles, referrals for therapists, and so much more. You will find people who understand the trial, tribulations and joy of parenting kids just like yours.
Even this is a small list of the resources you can find. To list all the resources and information available would take weeks of blogs.
If there is something special you want to know about feel free to ask and I’ll answer all questions to the best of my ability.
I’m glad you are sending people to good resources who are contemplating adoption. My husband and I have been therapeutic foster parents and have adopted two children from foster care. Here is a great mini-course that is totally free about fostering to adopt at http://www.adoptioncounts.com. It is from a parent’s perspective.