Life (story) Books - How they can help Foster Children.

Life (story) Books: 'Making connections.'

The experiences of foster children almost always gives them a sense of missing pieces and a confused sense of who they are. Any child separated, even for relatively brief periods, needs to be able to have and keep anchors to their past such as photographs, toys and other things that might seem unimportant to anyone else.

Life (story) Books help put all the memories and pieces together in a way that helps a foster child make sense and ultimately feel good about themselves and their history. Steve, a foster carer recalled that several years after he was fostered, he read his social services fostering file and found a copy of his Life Book which he had forgotten all about. The best thing for him was that one of his foster carers had written that as a young child, he learned to whistle 'all things bright and beautiful' and everyone would cheer. This was his favourite piece of information which he cherishes today.

"I’m grateful to everyone who bothered to complete the Book. No one can understand how much people like me who have lost so much, benefit from the childhood picture painted by the book which I carry in my heart today for myself and my children. My life would have been different without the information on my birth family which helped me to connect with my history and feel more of a whole person."

Life (story) Books are important to all looked after children. They show foster children that people who cared for them know that their biological connections are important and that by making the effort to keep making entries in the book throughout a child's time 'in care' and during every placement move, the children will be assured that their history will never be forgotten.

LifeBooks help reduce confusion and myths which frees up a foster child to pay better attention in school or be more available to focus on developing talents or following interests. Good Life (story) Books help answer questions, increase self-esteem, and provide children with information about the truth.

Children need to feel proud of their strengths and those of their birth parents. A Life (story) Book with information about birth parents helps in those difficult adolescent years when identity issues begin to come to the fore.

Good Life (story) Books contain what would also be important to people ten or twenty years later in life. They include school work, certificates, birth certificate, locks of hair, and even baby teeth, all momentos which increases a Life (story) Book’s value. The Book fills in gaps with facts, descriptions, events, art work and photos, and if little is available, words can create pictures.

Foster carers often have unique opportunities to, with permission, get photos of birth parents, wider family and significant places and events. All absolutely huge pieces of information for foster children who need as much information as possible to enable them to identify and connect with their history and the attachment figures so that the risk of emotional problems later in life can be reduced and they can move on to becoming emotionally healthy adults.

The skill to creating a useful and treasured Life (story) Book is to involve the foster child from the start, and then for everyone involved in the child's history to make sure it is kept up to date and the child feels complete ownership. When a child moves on, always making sure to give it to him or her, or to the social worker.

If the Book only has a few pages, it is proof to the child or adult that people have cared and loved them and thought them precious enough to deserve their treasured Life (story) Book.

Note In the UK we tend to use the term; Life Story Books. Children understand the term 'story' as something fictional, hence the (brackets).

Simply Fostering helps people looking to foster find foster children. They also offer free help and advice to those who are thinking of becoming involved in fostering.