Raising Shane

       Raising Shane:
       Foster Care and Adoption
                         of the
            Special Needs Child

                          by Kate Rosemary

$26 Including Shipping/Handling

Published by Westview, Inc.

ISBN: 978-1933912-49-3

List Price $24.95

8.25x11, 180 Pages

If you are thinking about fostering or adoption, this is a good book to start with. It doesn't offer

eautiful pictures of waiting infants or angelic toddlers. Those, you can get from any agency. Instead,

in fifty-two short chapters on different topics related to adoption and foster care, this book invites

you to consider and prepare for realistic possibilities your agency may not think to mention.

Each

ought-provoking topic is

illustrated with a poignant example from

hane

's life, and

followed by

worksheets on which the

reader is challenged to provide his or her own perspectives in response.

Shane was adopted in 1992, on the day before his tenth birthday. By that time, he had been in "the

system" for five years and had been moved

twenty-one

times. He had

a handful of

diagnoses, and no

hope that anyone would ever keep him. His goal was to get rejection over with as quickly as possible

and he worked hard to make that happen. It was over ten years before he

came to terms with the fact

that he had finally met someone who w

n't going to give up on him, no matter what

In the thirty years between 1977

and 2007, the author parented one birth son, two stepsons, three

foster daughte

rs, one foster son, and

three adopted sons. Most of these young people presented with

some combination of characteristics that

put them in a category known as "special needs" or "hard to

place." These characteristics included being

older than

five at the time of placement (the youngest was

six and the oldest eighteen), being in a racial

minority (one daughter and one son), and being part of a

sibling group (the two youngest brothers). Their

medical and psychiatric diagnoses include

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Reactive Attachment Disorder,

Major Depression, Physical Abuse, Manic

Depression with Psychotic Episodes, Hemophilia that resulted i

AIDS from a blood transfusion, Multiple

Personality Disorder (now known as Disassociative Identity

Disorder), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,

Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Addiction, Sexual Abuse,

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder,

Borderline Intellectual Functioning, Sociopathy, Hypertension,

Failure to Thrive, Hearing Impairment,

Rickets, and Polycystic Kidney Disease.

Some of the

stories are funny.

Some are tragic.

All are true.

"You Recycled My Dreams."
"What do you mean?"
"My parents didn't want me. You did."

Shane's house is currently unlivable as a result of the May 2010 floods which
ravaged Middle Tennessee. SBA estimated their damages at about $43,000,
but his adoptive mother did not qualify for an SBA loan; FEMA granted them
only $8,500 towards the repairs. Shane and his mother are currently living in
an 8'x32' FEMA trailer. If you would like to make a contribution to help them
recover from the devastation, you may do so using this PayPal account.
Thank you for your donation, which is not tax exempt.