Building a Home Within: Meeting the Emotional Needs of Children and Youth in Foster Care

All children need stable, lasting relationships with caring adults to ensure their healthy emotional, cognitive, and social development. But for children and adolescents in foster care, these essential relationships are often absent. This book presents a proven solution based on over 10 years of groundbreaking work by the Children's Psychotherapy Project (CPP): When young people work with the same therapist for as long as they need to, they'll make better progress toward developing strong, healthy relationships and hope for the future. More than a dozen experts from the CPP give psychologists, social workers, counselors, and program administrators a complete, research–supported introduction to this successful "one child, one therapist, for as long as it takes" model as they share their triumphs and challenges. Through the lessons these therapists learned as they donated their time to weekly psychotherapy sessions, readers will gain new insight on how to build positive relationships with children. They'll learn how to address various aspects of foster care, including

• the neuropsychological effects of foster care on children
  
  
• the specific challenges of preschool children in foster care
  
  
• kinship care
  
  
• reunification with parents
  
  
• foster children and the educational system
  
  
• collaboration between public and private forces
  
  
• the transition out of foster care at age 18

With a combined emphasis on biological, psychological, and social aspects that sets it apart from other books on the subject, this candid and compelling resource will help therapists fully address the emotional needs of children and adolescents in foster care.

P.S. Perfect for professional development! Includes case studies for discussion and extended therapy-in-action scripts that show how children speak and how to respond.

*Royalties from the sale of this book will support the programs of A Home Within, a non-profit organization building lasting relationships for foster youth—one hour at a time.

Toni Vaughn Heineman, D.M.H., is the founder of the Children's Psychotherapy Project (CPP) and Executive Director of A Home Within, the national nonprofit organization that houses the 12 chapters of CPP across the United States. She received her master's degree in social work from the University of California, Berkeley, and her doctoral degree in mental health from the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Heineman has taught for the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute, and many local and national training programs. She is the author of numerous articles and presentations about clinical work with foster children and of The Abused Child: Psychodynamic Understanding and Treatment (The Guilford Press, 1998). Dr. Heineman has been in private practice in San Francisco since the late 1970s and is Associate Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.

Diane Ehrensaft, Ph.D., is a senior clinician and founding member of the Children's Psychotherapy Project and Vice President of the board of directors of A Home Within. A developmental and clinical psychologist, she received her doctoral degree from the University of Michigan. She has lectured and published nationally and internationally on the subject of parenting and child development. Dr. Ehrensaft has served on the faculty of The Wright Institute in Berkeley, the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, and the University of California, Berkeley, and has been in private clinical practice in the San Francisco Bay Area since the late 1970s. She is the author of Mommies, Daddies, Donors, Surrogates: Answering Tough Questions and Building Strong Families (The Guilford Press, 2005); Spoiling Childhood: How Well-Meaning Parents Are Giving Children Too Much but Not What They Need (The Guilford Press, 1997); and Parenting Together: Men and Women Sharing the Care of Their Children (The Free Press, 1987).