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Life Books
by: Katie Stenton


Introduction
The Life Books community project focuses on the issue of life books for children who are dependents of the courts. A life book, a term used by the agency- California Department of Social Services, State Adoptions, is another way of speaking of a scrapbook. A life book is a book put together (by the foster care worker, foster care parents, adoption worker or adoptive parents) for children who are in foster homes or are going to be adopted. It consists of pictures, memorabilia, stories, etc., of the child's life. It is a tool used to show the importance of the child's past, and is also something very valuable for a child to have in the future. Instead of keeping the discussion of adoption taboo, it is an easy way to allow children to talk about their past, memories, and family. I found some information about life books and realized what a positive thing it is for children to have. I saw a real need for these to be available for all children who are dependents of the court, but the reality is that the social workers don't have enough time to put them together for their clients.

Statement of Need
Foster parents, adoption workers, adoptive parents and others all play a crucial part in a child's life. They can affect how the child may view themselves in the future according to the energy and time they put into that child. My research and interviews show that an adoptive child's low self esteem, identity and other issues relating to how they may negatively view themselves and their past, is most likely caused by the lack of focus, energy and time on the issue of adoption and the child's past. I believe there is a lack of education among foster and adoptive parents in the area of talking about a child's past and recognizing the importance of their birth family and others that may have been a part of their life.

Currently, social workers with the Department of Social Services balance caseloads of 50-60 adoptive children and/or families. The set amount of cases is supposed to range from 35-40, but for some reason nothing is ever done quickly to fix the matters at hand. The department has hired new workers and plans to hire more in the future. This weakness in the system has lead to the workers having to process the cases very quickly and sometimes not as efficiently as they would like in order to meet deadlines.

Another weakness stems from the foster care system and foster family agencies. The notion of taking pictures, gathering information and keepsakes that are important to children, does not seem to be stressed during the training of foster parents. I tend to think that those foster parents, who are educated in gathering things that are important to the child, have had experience, and just know to do these things, may be more likely to create a life book. However, most of the children coming from foster families do not have a life book started, or much emphasis placed on their past or the meaning of their past. Foster parents are wonderful people for taking children in need into their homes to feed them, clothe them and house them, but I have found through my research and interviews that foster children needs go way beyond this. They have real emotional needs that need to be addressed when they first come into care. I have found life books can be a great tool to use.

Description of the Intervention
For my intervention, I decided to share the importance of life books with perspective adoptive parents during a two-day homestudy training. I shared with the group what a life book is, the findings of my research and the importance of them developing a life book with their child. I had a foster/adoptive mother share her experiences of creating life books and the importance that she sees in them.

Evaluation of the Intervention
Our presentation lasted almost an hour with the expectation that we would only be speaking for about 30 minutes. I felt that I was able to clearly communicate with the group what I wanted to share. I had communicated with my guest speaker what I wanted her to share with the group and that she had about 10-15 minutes. She really enjoyed sharing, but I think I should have created an outline of the main points I wanted her to focus on in order to keep on track. Overall I think that people caught on to the importance of life books. As others shared or asked questions, it seemed that they really understood the importance of what we were sharing. One of the workers leading the training also shared her experiences with life books, which added a lot to the presentation. If I had to do this project again, I would present with this worker as she did a great job of communicating and seemed to be on the same train of thought as me.

Reflections on the Project
Looking back over the course of this project, I see that it has taken a lot of time and energy to successfully come to a finish. I would definitely suggest picking something that you are interested in and that you would enjoy doing. I have a real interest in this topic and it was actually fun putting it together. I have learned a great deal in the process of doing a project like this and feel that it is a good experience for social work students.

I had also wanted to do another intervention, which included writing a letter to a foster agency, share my research and encourage them to share with their foster parents the importance of starting life books. I made attempts to do this by contacting the supervisor at a foster agency and explaining my idea, but due to a lack of time I was unable to complete this.

References

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