Kids and Lifebooks: Tips for Social Workers

Every child who is adopted from foster care deserves a clear and detailed record of their life prior to adoption. As a foster child awaits a forever family, a life book can help them understand the past and prepare to move forward.

Once a child is placed with a permanent family, life books are a connection to the past that can inform and enhance the future. Crafted with care, lifebooks are an invaluable tool in helping children through difficult life transitions and allowing them to take ownership of their unique stories.

Simply put, a life book is a book that presents the life story of a child. Like other books, lifebooks can contain images, artwork, text, and other meaningful keepsakes that convey information about a child’s personal history. What child doesn’t like being the lead in their own story for an audience of their choosing?

It’s very simple at first…until you start to factor in abuse and neglect, multiple placements, losses and complaints, complicated legalities, and disruptions. How can you translate abuse, drugs, and rejection into appropriate terms and images for a five-year-old? You may need to learn some new skills, but a well-constructed life book can hold a story of even the deepest loss and grief.

key components

When I was a new adoption worker, the experienced writers in my office created a kind of lifebook template/checklist. All our life books included:

or information about the birth of the child

or a copy of the child’s birth certificate

or biological family information

o why the child entered foster care

or a history of different investments

or a worker’s blessing page

To boost children’s self-esteem, our template included a very animated birth page. A common phrase was: “When you were born, the doctors exclaimed oooh and aaah…”.

Although I believed in all the components of the book of life, I never liked this line. To me, it just didn’t ring true. Many of our children were drug addicted little babies fighting for their lives. Life books are supposed to be about truth.

Truths of the book of life.

Because life books are historical documents, it is never okay to lie. Sometimes, however, you may not know much about a particular event, for example the time the child was born. In such circumstances, you may need to say, “I bet…”.

For example:

I bet your birth mom was happy to give birth to such a beautiful girl, but she may also have been feeling sad and confused because of her bad drug problems.

Official documents, such as birth certificates and hospital birth records, are a great source of factual information, and children love to see important papers that validate their very existence. Foster children sometimes need to be reminded that they, like everyone else, began life at birth.

Another way to promote the truth of the book of life is to involve the child. After all, this is his story. Grab crayons and markers and find a quiet space. Young children can enjoy dictating while writing; Pretend they are guests on a talk show and interview them. Other children may want to write their own words and you can turn them into neat printed pages.

Some truths are difficult to explain and accept. But if an event is an important part of the child’s story, include what you can in a developmentally appropriate way. A teenager may be able to understand “sexual abuse” and a biological father who was “addicted to cocaine and alcohol,” but a younger child may better understand phrases like “touching himself badly” and “couldn’t avoid bad drugs.” “.

Omissions tell a child that things are so bad they can’t be shared. The child can then fill in the blanks with much more frightening imaginations and a sense of guilt or shame. Truth leads to healing, and troubling past events can, over time, fade and become “just the way they are.”

Family history

Think about your family for a minute. What relatives do you take next? Whose athleticism matches yours? Whose laugh echoes yours in the same jokes? Whose nose is (for better or worse) glued to your face?

Much of our identity comes from being part of the generations that came before us. Children who live with their biological family can see the characteristics that they share with their relatives. They also hear and relive family stories at the dinner table, at family gatherings, and through shared memories.

Children who are adopted from foster care may have vivid memories of their birth family, but relatively few positive stories or happy moments shared. Once the biological family is out of their lives, they lose important connections.

Can you imagine going through life without meeting anyone who looks like you? Imagine what it’s like to go through a major life event, having a baby or getting screened for cancer, without knowing your family’s medical history?

Lifebooks can help answer questions that keep kids, teens, and adults up at night wondering. Adoption social workers often have access to detailed social histories, old medical records, and other social workers who once worked with birth parents. If visits to birth parents are still taking place, you have a golden opportunity to collect important data and images.

In my opinion, any chance to obtain information or images should be considered as a last chance. Additional family photos and details about the birth family will be a treasure to the child and to those who will be her parents for the rest of their lives.

And let’s not forget the brothers; they have a special magic of their own. A simple page with siblings’ names, ages, photos, and locations can work wonders.

asking why

One of the most difficult and critical parts of life books answers the question: Why don’t I live with my biological family?

It’s not wise to tell a child that their biological father was sick (unless it’s an honest part of the story). Don’t sick people usually get better? And if mom gets better, shouldn’t the kid come home? What if mom doesn’t get better? Is she dead or is she dying? Why give the child this concern?

I tell children that their biological father, biological mother (or other caregiver) had adult problems and was unable to take care of themselves. In fact, the caregiver took such poor care of himself that he couldn’t care for a child, any child, at that point in his life.

By placing the responsibility squarely on the adult, we can help children resolve meaningless thoughts that are evidenced in rhymes like, “Step on a crack and break your mother’s back.” Many children with histories of abuse believe they were bad or were somehow responsible for being separated from their birth families. As social workers, we must ensure that children do not carry this burden of false guilt throughout life.

I often ask kids directly, “Why do you think you’re not living with your birth family?” In 10 minutes, I get more information from this question than most therapists in 10 sessions. Depending on the circumstances, I will then discuss each child’s specific situation.

Investments

Location pages are usually the simplest. Start with here and now; make a page about the child’s current school, favorite foods, good friends, favorite sports and activities. Get all the photos you can. Do the same for previous placements in foster homes, group homes, or emergency shelters.

If the child is about to enter an adoptive placement, a favorite page might be one that commemorates when the adoptive parents and child first met. Interview the parents and the child separately and then share your quotes. Now you are accumulating text for the book of life.

Look for school report cards, awards, and positive quotes from teachers and foster parents. Rewards and praise can help children feel good about who they are, a feeling that can give them ego strength to deal with difficult transitions.

Worker’s Blessing Page

As a social worker, you have probably worked with this child for months, if not years. Just before you give the child up for adoption, take the time to write a page for the end of the life book. Talk about the child’s strengths and what you think is special about him. Include a funny story or thought.

It is important to give a child permission to move on and be happy. This is a powerful message for the years to come.

Doing it

A team approach to life books can be very rewarding. If the foster parents can capture a few moments of the child’s life, perhaps take a photo of the birth family and share a photo of the foster family as well, then the lifebook has begun. Social workers and therapists can add to the registry.

When the child is adopted, carefully transfer the book to the adoptive family. Train adoptive parents to keep the life book in a special and safe place. If the child wants the book in her room, make a copy of the original for her to keep. The child decides when the life book comes out and parents should never share the book without the child’s permission.

The book may become part of adoption anniversary celebrations, provide help with an assignment from the school family tree, open the door to conversations about adoption and identity as the child grows, and help to deal with the painful loss of his biological family. Then too, it may be something the boy can only appreciate once he starts his own family with her. The life book should be available when the child is ready.

Shortly after I began working on children’s life books, I heard from families whose children had had my first typewriting efforts. To my delight, they reported that life books became more valuable over time. Life books provide adoptive and foster children with crucial life-affirming information: basic facts about themselves, as well as an understanding of where they came from and why they have a new family. It also gave them permission to remember and mourn their losses and bond better with their new families. What a gift!