Showing posts with label lifebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lifebook. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Life Books: Part II (the cover letter & template)

So, I know what your questions are about Life Books... What should I write in the Life Book?  What do I include?  I don't have baby pics or bio family pics, what then?

My answers... be as bland as possible when discussing why the children where in care.  I use words like "wrong choices" and "big problems" (these are direct from books I have read to my children about Foster Care and Adoption:  Maybe Days, Families Change, Kids Need to be Safe, and The Star).  Do not write specifically about what "choices" or "problems" the birth family had... these are questions that can be answered as the child asks and your answers can be suitable to the child's age (for our children with their young ages.. "big problem" suffices to squelch the curiosity).

Pictures:  Stalk social media... yup, right click and/or print screen work wonders for pictures.  Or if you still don't have anything, then have the child draw pictures if they are old enough.  And if you still come up short then you can always add artwork they've done, just to make the pages look "perty".

The big thing I like to have in my Life Books is a Cover Letter.. and Introduction to the book if you would.  Here are the links to a blanket letter and a template for a Life Book (from MixBook).

Good Luck, Enjoy, and don't be afraid to Be Creative... at best they'll have a complete book with pictures of everyone and information about them and at worst they'll have a book that documents their time with you as their Foster Family.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Life Books: Where to begin?!?

So part of a child's journey in life inevitably involves the creation of a "Baby Book" of sorts.. It tells them their story through words and/or pictures.  In the Foster Care world and even Adoption, we call these books "Life Books".

I have created three, and I have to say that "A"arron's is by far the best... probably because it looks like a baby book.  It covers the first year of his life, his milestones through his adoption date.  For "C"indy and "B"ella I am missing all of their milestones and baby pictures.  I do have pictures of their birth families from physical photos given to them while they were in foster care... but the books still seem incomplete.

At some point, I found this fabulous letter from a CaseWorker as an introduction to the Life Book.  I was able to copy and paste it and edit it to my liking.  But now that I am working on my fourth and fifth Life Books.. that letter is NO WHERE to be found.  {so much for my wonderful Google skills}

There are websites that you can order Life Books from and even suggestions on what to do (personally, I prefer Shutterfly hard cover books -- sometimes there are Groupons for them for only $10 plus shipping -- I have a fear that pictures/pages can get removed from a binder and then the child has nothing).


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