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Lifebooks are well-established as effective tools for helping children in family foster care cope with past events and future plans. The here-and-now process described in this article concerns the child's present life and is more accessible for both the child and the worker than traditional lifebooks. Case examples demonstrate the model's effectiveness in each phase of the worker's encounters with the child. Limitations of the model are discussed.
The recent sharp increase in the total number of children in family foster care from 275,000 in 1985 to over 400,000 in 1992 underscores the importance of family foster care workers' interventions with children on their caseload [U.S. Government Accounting Office 1993]. Individual case circumstances vary widely, but each child's entry into care is a sudden and dramatic change in his or her life-a crisis that challenges the child's sense of identity. Lifebooks have been advanced as a casework tool to help the child in care "come to terms with the past, and prepare for the future," and in doing so, to address the "central issue" of identity [Wheeler 1978:1].
This article proposes a different use of the lifebook than has been discussed in the literature. This different use incorporates an understanding of the child's present cognitive and emotional capacities; a reexamination of the question of how a child in family foster care-or anyone for that matter-defines and understands his or her own life; and a realistic consideration of the limitations of the worker's time, energy, and training. This lifebook focuses on the here and now and makes use of the relationship between the worker and the child. While not specifically therapeutic in its goals, it seeks to help the child make connections between his or her present experiences, emotional needs, and past events.
Following a review of the literature concerning lifebooks, also referred to as life story books, the characteristics that distinguish the here-and-now model from other lifebook formulations are discussed, followed by suggestions for the beginning, ongoing, and ending stages of work. Examples of how the process may unfold with children in care are given, including how the worker may capitalize on information and feelings that the child expresses. Limitations of the approach are indicated, especially with regard to the age of the child...