Foster Trauma

Many foster and adoptive parents are raising children with complex emotional trauma, desperate for answers to heal their families. Caught off guard, these families find themselves with shattered dreams, shattered homes, and shattered hearts, with nowhere to turn for answers. Extended family members, friends, and the greater community don't understand the challenges and can, sometimes, add to the problems these families face, prolonging the healing process for all.

Understanding addiction is no longer just about understanding neurons or genes, broken brain functioning, learning, or faulty choices. Oliver J. Morgan provides a fresh take on addiction and recovery by presenting a more inclusive framework than traditional understanding. Cutting-edge work in attachment, interpersonal neurobiology, and trauma is integrated with ecological-systems thinking to provide a consilient and comprehensive picture of addiction.

Traumatic life experiences can be devastating, and they inevitably shape who you are. Such events can also become a powerful force that awakens you to an undercurrent of your own aliveness. Trauma recovery involves learning to trust in your capacity for new growth. In order to grow, we must make use of our suffering in order to find our happiness. Within this audiobook, you will find an invitation to see yourself as the hero or heroine of your own life journey. A hero's journey involves walking into the darkness on a quest for wholeness. 

Just as you prepared your home to welcome a new child, it is important to prepare your heart and mind - especially if the child has suffered from a background of trauma. Perhaps your invitation for love is met with hostility and you find that this new member of your family rejects connection. It’s critical to acknowledge the effects of trauma on a child’s ability to attach. Mike and Kristin Berry realized this when they became adoptive and foster parents. They now offer guidance from their own journey to others parenting a child who has experienced past trauma. 

Children who have been adopted and/or shuttled through the foster-care system experience trauma at a much higher rate than other kids, which can make it difficult for them to trust, relax, regulate their emotions, and connect with their new families. As a parent, learning how to heal attachment trauma, attune to your child's needs, identify triggers, and create felt safety is essential to providing the loving, supportive, and stable home they need to thrive. Written for parents of adopted and foster kids of all ages, this book offers resources for handling common concerns.

With a bachelor's and master's degree in education and over 30 years of experience, plus training in trauma sensitivity, author and mother of two, Jennifer Alushan, is ready to give parents and caregivers proven techniques to effectively understand and authentically interact with children so the healing process can begin.