What happens to a child when bonding is disrupted? How can bonding be defined objectively and offered in court in a verifiable and evidentiary way? Here is a manual about how to find the best permanent homes for foster children within one year or less. This is a must book for attorneys, judges, caseworkers, therapists, and foster/adopt parents. Considerable research is provided to show the dire consequences that occur when bonding is ignored. Foster children are significantly more apt to experience incarceration, and to suffer from mental illness and homelessness as adults. To prevent this, a...

Multiple placements, delay in achieving deadlines, and emancipation have increased the burdens on already vulnerable foster children. The child welfare and court systems, despite good laws and policies, have generally failed to provide children with permanent homes in a developmentally timely manner. Ignorance of the nature and critical importance of bonding is a major cause of this lack of success. Attachment and bonding are words that have been used loosely to describe a variety of personal relationships, beginning with the theories of Bowlby and Ainsworth. Bonding is defined in practical...