To the End of June

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Beam presents both a sharp critique of foster care policies and a searching exploration of the meaning of family Publishers Weekly, starred reviewWho are the children of foster care What, as a country, do we owe them Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care, looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories The result is To the End of June, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children at the critical points in their search for a stable, loving family.The book mirrors the life cycle of a foster child and so begins with the removal of babies and kids from birth families There s a teenage birth mother in Texas who signs away her parental rights on a napkin only to later reconsider, crushing the hopes of her baby s adoptive parents Beam then paints an unprecedented portrait of the intricacies of growing up in the system the back and forth with agencies, the shuffling between pre adoptive homes and group homes, the emotionally charged tug of prospective adoptive parents and the fundamental pull of birth parents And then what happens as these system reared kids become adults Beam closely follows a group of teenagers in New York who are grappling with what aging out will mean for them and meets a woman who has parented eleven kids from the system, almost all over the age of eighteen, and all still in desperate need of a sense of home and belonging.Focusing intensely on a few foster families who are deeply invested in the system s success, To the End of June is essential for humanizing and challenging a broken system, while at the same time it is a tribute to resiliency and offers hope for real change. Free Read [ To the End of June ] author [ Cris Beam ] – kino-fada.fr I read this book because I was interested in adopting an older child I found it difficult to find books about this topic and was very surprised that none of the Barnes and Nobles in my area had even one book on foster care or older adoption Luckily my local bookstore Elliot Bay Books had at least two shelves of adoption books, though most of them are about infant adoption.I quickly disco...As a foster parent to teens, I was incredibly impressed by how well researched this book was It is so hard to find a realistic perspective on foster care so many things I see are either extremely demoralizing abuse in homes etc or unrealistically optimistic Cris Beam s book is neither, and while I kept wishing and hoping that she was going to say something that would give me somehope about the system than we currently have, I am deeply appreciative for her honesty throughout the proc As a foster parent to teens, I was incredibly impressed by how well researched this book was It is so hard to find a realistic perspective on foster care so many things I see are either extremely demoral...Fairly well written book about a heartbreaking subject abused, abandoned and anonymous children stuck in the country s foster care system I read some criticism of the author s clear political bias Set aside the fact that the author is, herself, a child of abandonment and a member of the LGBTQ community, how does one write about victimization and not have it come across as liberal minded This is about children who are often born victims, and the trajectory their lives follow because Fairly well written book about a heartbreaking subject abused, abandoned and anonymous children stuck in the country s foster care system I read some criticism of the author s clear political bias Set aside the fact that the author is, herself, a child of abandonment and a member of the LGBTQ community, how does one write about victimization and not have it come across as liberal minded This is about children who are often born victims, and the trajectory their lives follow because of it I thinkthan an agenda, the author had an arsenal of facts first hand and otherwise that illuminated a system that is not only broken, but continually being fixed by policy and decision makers who are themselves broken You have only to look at major and minor city streets littered in a real and symbolic way with loitering young people to know that what you re reading is true Some people characterize facts as agenda Wor...This is a compelling, though sobering, look at foster care and how it affects kids and families This book is best read to get a sense of the major issues in foster care, and for the personal stories of the people the author follows, and less so for specific information about how the system works.Foster care, as it turns out, is a big topic, so this book doesn t cover everything for instance, it focuses almost exclusively on New York It starts with the reasons kids are removed from their home This is a compelling, though sobering, look at foster care and how it affects kids and families This book is best read to get a sense of the major issues in foster care, and for the personal stories of the people the author follows, and less so for specific information about how the system works.Foster care, as it turns out, is a big topic, so this book doesn t cover everything for instance, it focuses almost exclusively on New York It starts with the reasons kids are removed from their homes muchoften for neglect than abuse, and neglect can mean anything from the parents being on drugs to a baby s mother being an impoverished teen who doesn t know how to care for a child Babies and very youn...It is possible I should have left this book at the library and never opened it because it brought up all kinds of raw, unresolved emotions related to our personal experiences with the foster care system The problems related to foster care are so complex and I have always complained that the privacy laws that are intended to protect the children in foster care actually don t they protect everyone else involved in the system This book did a remarkable job of breaking away these protections an It is possible I should have left this book at the library and never opened it because it brought up all kinds of raw, unres...This was not a book that outlines the policies and statistics of foster care Nor does it provide many suggestions for improvements But that s OK the author states at the very beginning that this book is anecdotal, but she hopes by bringing the stories of real people in, it will help people to discuss the policies and procedures of foster care.Despite the fact that this boo...Stumbled onto this book at the library while searching for parenting books Of course, my heart melted when I saw the cover As a new parent, I couldn t imagine my precious baby being passed between strangers It broke my heart to think about it Unfortunately, the author is crazy uber liberal I later discovered she wrote a prior book for parents foster parents promoting the transgender lifestyle for teens She colors her writing with bias She displays sympathy to rule breakers and actively lay Stumbled onto this book at the library while searching for parenting books Of course, my heart melted when I saw the cover As a new parent, ...I read nonfiction regularly, but I amlikely to gulp mysteries and fantasies than nonfiction I gobbled Cris Beam s To the End of June The Intimate Life of AmericanFoster Care She compellingly and insightfully combined case studies, statistics, and theory about foster care, especially about teenagers in foster care.Beam concluded that we both are failing at foster care e.g., no state meetsthan two of seven federal criteria for successful care , and that our failures have long ter I read nonfiction regularly, but I amlikely to gulp mysteries and fantasies than nonfiction I gobbled Cris Beam s To the End of June The Intimate Life of AmericanFoster Care She compellingly and insightfully combined case studies, statistics, and theory about ...This was a sobering book, but definitely worth reading The author says she primarily wrote this book to be descriptive rather than proscriptive and that s accurate It s mostly just descriptions of interviews and experiences with foster children and foster parents and some social workers in the New York City foster care system.In the epilogue she talks about how all these social programs food stamps, foster care, juvenile justice, homelessness, poverty in general are all interconnected She This was a sobering book, but definitely worth reading The author says she primarily wrote this book to be descriptive rather than proscriptive and that s accurate It s mostly just descriptions of interviews and experiences with foster children and foster parents and some social workers in the New York City foster care system.In the epilogue she talks about how all these social programs food stamps, foster care, juvenile justice, homelessness, poverty in general are all interconnected She talks about how social workers either get burned out and leave low pay, high stress, long hours ...deeply sad stories of kids in foster care in New York Author had been a foster parent herself and obviously did a thorough job of following up repeatedly with a few foster parents and the kids who cycle in and out of their lives Also brings out some of the unintended consequences of policies in this realm, systemic failures, pendulum swings fr...

To the End of June
  • 06 January 2017
  • ebook
  • 288 pages
  • 0547999534
  • Cris Beam
  • To the End of June