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Searching to be Found: Understanding and Helping Adopted and Looked After Children with Attention Difficulties

Author(s) : Randy Lee Comfort

Reviews and Endorsements

'Children who are fostered or adopted often face severe difficulties at school. Their attainment usually falls far below their ability and their behaviour can be baffling and frustrating to teachers and carers, but few of the books about attachment problems and attention deficit disorders are of much help to those who come into daily contact with these children and whose task is to care for and educate them. Dr Randy Comfort is uniquely qualified to provide both theoretical understanding and practical strategies from her long experience as a psychologist and director of "Our Place", the pioneering centre in Bristol for families who foster or adopt. She writes about real children, interpreting their behaviour from their own point of view and showing how they have been helped. Foster carers, adoptive parents and teachers who struggle to understand and cope with children whose unhappiness takes the form of hyperactivity and inability to focus on learning will find this book an invaluable resource.'
- Professor Sonia Jackson, OBE

'Searching to Be Found is an innovative yet practical guide for parents and teachers of adopted and looked after children with attention difficulties. It beautifully integrates neurodevelopmental science with the distinctive, difficult experiences encountered by adopted/looked after children to help carers and teachers better understand these children's challenging behaviours. Randy Lee Comfort skillfully translates research- based knowledge into useful guidance and advice. Her vivid examples and vignettes of life with these children ring true for any carer who has lived through their trials and triumphs.

'With insight and compassion, Dr Comfort de-mystifies the triggers that spark children's meltdowns. She helps parents and teachers anticipate and cope with problems that can derail a child, a family and a classroom. This book's dual focus on home and school permits carers and teachers to partner in proactive approaches that will be helpful to adopted/looked after children and those with ADHD in promoting their wellbeing and integration with home and school.

"Searching to Be Found" is essential reading for the adults involved with adopted/looked after children. This book offers the context for parents' and teachers' decision-making. It focuses on coping with the process of caring for these children over time, noting the predictable nature of set-backs and crises. Dr Comfort does not sugar-coat the difficulties. She helps the carer see that despite setbacks in the short term, they and their children can achieve balance in the long term.'
- Judith silver, Ph.d., director, starting Young Program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

'Living and working with children and young people who find it difficult to self-regulate is a great challenge to parents and professionals. Dr Comfort draws from her extensive knowledge and her many years experience of supporting adoptive and foster families to produce a book that will help anyone facing these challenges. She offers explanations and addresses key issues in living and working with the children. This book will provide support, guidance and hope to parents who often feel exhausted and despairing under the relentless pressure of life with a child with difficulties of attention and arousal. And it will inform and enhance the work of the professionals who support children and families, including social workers, foster carers, teachers and health professionals.'
- Kate Cairns, social worker and carer