Kate Cairns is a social worker by profession. She has also, along with her husband and birth children, fostered 12 children over a 25-year period, who remain part of their family group.
This is a special book, compassionate and highly readable. The author's commitment to traumatised children and helping families care for them shines through as she draws upon the wealth of her personal and professional experience to offer a compelling insight into the realities of family life with children who have lived through overwhelming stress.
In part one, Making Love, she shows in a range of vividly described scenarios the rage, fear and grief experienced by traumatised children in everyday situations, the resilience they demonstrated, and how the family responded.
In part two, Making Sense, Kate draws on the knowledge and ideas absorbed from theory and research, clearly explained, that helped her make sense of this experience. This section deals with:
Feelings The search for common ground and self-assertive and self-transcending emotions.
Attachment Formative experience, including signs and indicators of insecurely attached children and approaches to living and working with children with unmet attachment needs.
Trauma Transformative experience, the effects of trauma, disruption of normal functioning and how to deal with a range of behaviours.
Resilience Affirmative experience, including promoting personal resilience with children who find solitude difficult, encouraging social inclusion and personal and social efficacy, and the development of tranquillity, joy and a sense of wonder.
She offers suggestions for families and agencies on what may be observed in children with unmet attachment needs and post traumatic disorders, and what can be done to promote recovery and develop resilience. Anyone caring or working with children separated from their families will find much in this remarkable book that is inspiring, illuminating and affirmative. The index will help the reader locate ideas and topics within the text and there is an extensive list of references for anyone interested in reading further.
PS. We should like to point out that anyone at BAAF who has read this book so far has been gripped and moved by it - we think you will be too!
