Dr. Jill Duerr Berrick, Distinguished Professor of Social Welfare and Zellerbach Family Professor, hosted a conversation with author and activist MarkDaley about his new book, Safe: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Family.Safe analyzes the foster care system's structural inequities through the lens of Daley's experience as a new foster parent to an infant and toddler.
Foster Care: Additional Readings and Resources
Explore these resources curated by the UC Berkeley Library:
Non-fiction
The Impossible Imperative: Navigating the Competing Principles of Child Protection, by Jill Duerr Berrick (UC Berkeley Libraries)
“The Impossible Imperative brings to life the daily efforts of child welfare professionals working on behalf of vulnerable children and families. Stories that highlight the work, written by child welfare staff on the front lines, speak to the competing principles that shape everyday decisions. The book shows that, rather than being a simple task of protecting children, the field of child welfare is shaped by a series of competing ideas. The text features eight principles that undergird child protection practice, all of which are typically in conflict with others. These principles guide practice and direct the course of policymaking, but when liberated from their aspirational context and placed in the real world, they are fraught with contradiction. The Impossible Imperative is designed to inspire a lively debate about the fundamental nature of child welfare and about the principles that serve as the foundation for the work. It can be used as a teaching tool for aspiring professionals and as motivation to those looking to social work to make a difference in the world.” (Publisher’s description)
Shattered Bonds: The Color Of Child Welfare, by Dorothy Roberts (UC Berkeley Libraries)
“The story of foster care in the United States is the story of the failure of the social safety net to aid poor, largely black, parents in their attempt to make a home for their children. Shattered Bonds tells this story as no other book has before — from the perspective of a prominent black, female legal theoretician. The current state of the child-welfare system in America is a well-known tragedy. Thousands of children every year are removed from their parents’ homes, often for little reason other than the endemic poverty that afflicts women and children more than any other group in the United States. Dorothy Roberts, an acclaimed legal scholar and social critic, reveals the racial politics of child welfare in America through extensive legal research and original interviews with Chicago families in the foster care system. She describes the racial imbalance in foster care, the concentration of state intervention in certain neighborhoods, the alarming percentages of children in substitute care, the difficulty that poor and black families have in meeting state’s standards for regaining custody of children placed in foster care, and the relationship between state supervision of families and continuing racial inequality.” (Publisher’s description)
To the End of June: The Intimate Life of American Foster Care, by Cris Beam (UC Berkeley Libraries)
“Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? Cris Beam, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care, looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is To The End of June, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children at critical points in their search for a stable, loving family.” (Author’s website)
Memoir
Safe: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Family, by Mark Daley
“At nearly forty years old, Mark Daley was at the top of his game––the owner of a booming business, a roster of celebrity clients, and newly married to Jason, the man of his dreams––but Mark yearned for more, a family. At odds with biology, Jason and Mark flirted with surrogacy before ultimately deciding to strive for adoption through the foster care system…Daley takes us on a suspenseful journey as he and Jason grapple with [their children’s] potential reunification with their biological family, and learn brutal lessons about sacrifice, acceptance, and healing along the way. Daley’s witty, compassionate voice grabs readers from the first page, as he faces the honest, heartrending, and sometimes sidesplitting challenges of parenting and loving children whose future with him hangs in the balance.” (Author's website) Coming to the library soon!
Hope’s Boy, by Andrew Bridge (UC Berkeley Libraries)
“From the moment he was born, Andrew Bridge and his mother, Hope, shared a love so deep that it felt like nothing else mattered. Trapped in desperate poverty and confronted with unthinkable tragedies, all Andrew ever wanted was to be with his mom. But as her mental health steadily declined, and with no one else left to care for him, authorities arrived and tore Andrew from his screaming mother’s arms. In that moment, the life he knew came crashing down around him. He was only seven years old. Hope was institutionalized, and Andrew was placed in what would be his devastating reality for the next eleven years–foster care. After surviving one of our country’s most notorious children’s facilities, Andrew was thrust into a savagely loveless foster family that refused to accept him as one of their own. Deprived of the nurturing he needed, Andrew clung to academics and the kindness of teachers. All the while, he refused to surrender the love he held for his mother in his heart. Ultimately, Andrew earned a scholarship to Wesleyan, went on to Harvard Law School, and became a Fulbright Scholar. Andrew has dedicated his life’s work to helping children living in poverty and in the foster care system. He defied the staggering odds set against him, and here in this heart-wrenching, brutally honest, and inspirational memoir, he reveals who Hope’s boy really is.” (Publisher’s description)
Another Place at the Table, by Kathy Harrison (UC Berkeley Libraries’ link to order)
“It's 1988, and Harrison, a happily married mother of three, takes a job with Head Start, working with at-risk four-year-olds. Her heart goes out to the foster kids; before long, she and her husband take state training and adopt two sisters. Five children make a big family, but Harrison finds it tough to turn her back on needy children. She and her husband start accepting emergency care 'hot-line' foster children, too; soon, Harrison quits her day job and becomes a full-time—overtime, really—foster parent. In addition to a stay-at-home mom's usual duties, Harrison is caring for children with serious emotional baggage and often complex medical problems…How do you 'give enough"' to each child so they get a healthy sense of family, 'without loving them too much to let them go in the end?' With over half a million American children in foster care today, Harrison's personal but vitally important account should be read by public policy makers and by anyone with a spare room in their home.” (Publisher’s Weekly)
Fiction
The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (UC Berkeley Libraries)
“The Victorian language of flowers was used to convey romantic expressions: honeysuckle for devotion, asters for patience, and red roses for love. But for Victoria Jones, it’s been more useful in communicating mistrust and solitude. After a childhood spent in the foster-care system, she is unable to get close to anybody, and her only connection to the world is through flowers and their meanings. Now eighteen and emancipated from the system with nowhere to go, Victoria realizes she has a gift for helping others through the flowers she chooses for them. But an unexpected encounter with a mysterious stranger has her questioning what’s been missing in her life. And when she’s forced to confront a painful secret from her past, she must decide whether it’s worth risking everything for a second chance at happiness.” (Publisher’s description)
White Oleander, by Janet Fitch(UC Berkeley Libraries; also a feature film available on many streaming services)
“Astrid is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who wields her luminous beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery – but their idyll is shattered when Astrid’s mother falls apart over a lover. Deranged by rejection, Ingrid murders the man, and is sentenced to life in prison. White Oleander is the unforgettable story of Astrid’s journey through a series of foster homes and her efforts to find a place for herself in impossible circumstances. Each home is its own universe, with a new set of laws and lessons to be learned. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless child in an indifferent world can become.” (Publisher’s description)
Videos and Movies
Instant Family (widely available on streaming services)
“Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne…play a suburban couple whose lives are irrevocably changed after they adopt three siblings who are all foster children. It’s a personal film for [screenwriter Seth] Anders and his wife, Beth, who adopted three foster children of their own a little more than six years ago, and whose experiences serve as the loose basis for the movie.” (Boston.com)
ReMoved (short film)
“ReMoved follows the emotional journey of a nine-year old girl who is taken from her abusive birth home and placed in the tumultuous foster care system. This short film will help foster carers understand the experiences of many children coming from home[s] of neglect and abuse, and the accompanying children’s emotions. All from a child’s point of view.” (Social Workers' Toolbox)
Additional Reading Lists
- Top Ten Books if You’re Thinking of Fostering, Seattle YMCA
- Foster Care Awareness, Los Angeles County Library
- Books About Adoption and Foster Care, Staff-created list, King County Library System
- Recommended Reading, Adoptive and Foster Family Coalition of New York
- Books Useful in the Advocacy for Foster Children, Court Appointed Special Advocates of Arizona
Questions or suggestions? Contact Ann Glusker, librarian for the School of Social Welfare, glusker@berkeley.edu