Mike Thomas MSW, CQSW is consultant for external foster care, Mary Walsh Institute. He has been involved in childcare for 25 years and in foster care since 1984, first as a worker and since 1987 also as a foster carer. He has worked in both the public and independent fostering sectors. Terry Philpot is author and editor of several books, including (with Anthony Douglas) Adoption: Changing Families, Changing Times. He co-authored the previous four books in the Delivering Recovery series. He writes occasionally for The Tablet, the Guardian and other publications, and has won several awards for his journalism.

• Foreword. Acknowledgements. A Note on Terminology. Introduction. Chapter 1: The Context of Family Placement. Chapter 2: Children and Their Histories. Chapter 3: The Carers. Chapter 4: Fostering, Loss and Opportunity. Chapter 5: Practising to Make Perfect: Introduction and the Practice Family. Chapter 6: How Placements Can Succeed. Chapter 7: Toward Independence. Endnotes. References. The Story of SACCS. The Authors. Subject Index. Author Index.

This perceptively small book contains a welth of information and a host of well-researched and -documented initiatives setting out the central issues in fostering traumatised children...The statistics on foster carers are helpfully set out, giving timely reminders about how organisations can learn to keep their foster carers and looking at the fact that most foster carers have altruistic motives...This book reinforces the fact that foster carers need a status that reflects their standing within the Child Care Team. They should be treated as fellow professionals, given full information about their children and know that what they say and feel is important...This neat little book holds a wealth of information not just helpful to foster carers and social workers but to anyone reparenting or step-parenting a chnild or becoming an adoptive parent.