Preparing for Adoption: Everything Adopting Parents Need to Know about Preparations, Introductions and the First Few Weeks

The ideal first book for prospective adopters.

When you decide to adopt a child, you might assume that all the important work begins when the child comes to live with you. In fact the preparation stage before is crucial in ensuring that the adopted child will arrive to a safe and secure family. Preparing for Adoption provides clear advice on how to prepare for your adoptive child and create a strong foundation for a healthy and loving relationship. Julia Davis explains how many different factors can shape preparations for adoption, such as finding out about your child's history and using this information to establish a family environment which will meet your child's specific attachment needs. There is also advice on how to prepare your home to create a sense of safety for your child and how to prepare your family to support you as adoptive parents.

Primarily for adopters, foster carers and professionals supporting adopters, this book offers ideas and strategies to help parents prepare a happy and settled home for children before their arrival and ways to parent them in the early days of becoming a family that addresses their attachment needs.

Julia Davis is a Child and Family Therapist at therapeutic adoption agency Adoptionplus and a Senior Practitioner in an Adoption Team. She has worked for many years in the adoption field as a social worker and play therapist preparing children for adoption and supporting them through their moves to new families, and also has extensive experience of training and advising practitioners, adopters and foster carers.