According to Dr. Fahlberg, separation and loss is the defining issue for children entering (and leaving) care. For most of us, it's difficult to grasp its profound and enduring impact. Vera Fahlberg, well-known foster care specialist, foster parent, and pediatrician, invites parents and professionals to join her in learning from the stories of foster and adopted children. The stories are all extraordinarily different, and yet they all have one common bond: a deep sense of separation and loss.
Dr. Fahlberg lets these children's own words imprint us through a series of candid interviews she herself conducts. In them, children – and adults who were foster children – reveal their innermost feelings about being separated from their families. These honest interviews weave a human picture of trauma and broken attachments, but also of hope and understanding.
It's clear that Dr. Fahlberg's goal is not to engender sympathy for them, but to create an awareness of their histories and lives so that helpers can better understand and respond to their needs. As Dr. Fahlberg says, how parents interact with foster and adopted children can either make it much easier or much harder for them.
This training program consists of several interview segments. First, Dr. Fahlberg interviews three teens about their experiences of when entering care. Next she talks with three adults who spent most of their teen years in foster care. In the last segment, Dr. Fahlberg gets other perspectives from foster parents and a birth mother who had children in foster care. An important feature of this material is the relaxed, real-time nature of the interviews, which creates a compelling sense of space and substance for this subject matter. Each story, like each child, is very unique and important to understand in its own right, and teaches us effective ways to help children adjust to foster care.
The program is available on VHS and DVD and includes a companion viewer guide with synopses of the interviews, discussion points and exercises, discussion supplements, and a knowledge review questionnaire.
-- Caesar Pacifici, Ph.D.
