PVCC Puma Press: October 2002 Feature

To kids whose memories have been fragmented by time, a Life Book could be the first step toward making life long connections. The Life Book Program is a project run by Arizona's Children Association in which a volunteer is given the opportunity to create a scrapbook of a long-term foster child's life.

"Imagine never having seen a picture of yourself as a baby." This is one child's experience, says Annette Hill, Life Book Project coordinator and Special Programs Associate at Arizona's Children Association.

"This little girl told me she did not believe she had ever been a baby because no one had ever bothered to take baby pictures of her"" says Hill. "These kids were not raised with the advantages we consider normal. We try to help them understand that they matter, and that the bad things that happened to them were not their fault."

The Life Book program is important because some children in foster or adoptive homes lack the family history that most of us take for granted. A Life Book helps answer questions about family histories or events in a child's life and provides a sense of identity.

Life Books also help children to organize past events and milestones in chronological order, to regain a sense of permanency, self worth and to share their pasts with selected and trusted others.

Hill explains, "Some of these children have seen enough to fill 40 lifetimes, and to acknowledge their accomplishments and point out that they have survived substantially tragic events shows them that, ¨yeah things may have sucked then, but you survived! You are the hero of your book" the hero of your life!'"

For those interested in volunteering with Life Book, Hill offers this advice.

"Basically, a volunteer will call to schedule an appointment to meet with the child. We run a background check on volunteers, train them on the essentials, allow them to read the CPS files (child protective service files, some early enough that few have ever seen) and allow the volunteers to take it from there."

The CPS files must stay in the Arizona's Child Care facility, so the volunteer must set aside some time to come in and read them. Reading through the events of a foster child's life, Hill admits, can be emotionally trying.

"I encourage our volunteers to vent their anger on the first draft of the scrap book's text," she says.

Hill beams. "Now imagine someone has just told you that they are going to focus on you for six whole months, that you will both take pictures of everything and everyone that's important to you, of all the neat things you do and make a book about it! And at the end there's going to be a big party just for you, and you'll get to keep the book all about your life, continue writing, scrap booking and taking pictures for as long as you want! Just think of what this would mean to a child who has never felt like the star in anybody's life.

"This is great opportunity not only for the child but for anyone looking for experience in Psychology, Child development, Law, Writing"the list goes on," says Hill, "and anyone can volunteer."

If you enjoy writing, researching, illustrating, creating and working both independently and with others, consider volunteering for The Life Book Program. It is a six-month commitment so the ideal volunteer is a home-based individual, part time employee, full time employee with a flexible schedule or a student. Volunteers receive extensive training, work in pairs and generally work four to six or more hours per week. Hours are flexible.

If you have the time and commitment, you can create a special book for a child who will cherish it forever. All the materials are provided for you, and before being presented to the child at the ending ceremony, the Life Book is scanned into Arizona's Children Association to be archived electronically. In the event of any loss or damage to the original book, the child will always have a back up.

Arizona's Children Association is a state wide non-profit organization currently serving more than 22,000 children and their families annually. It was founded in 1912 and is dedicated to providing help and support to children through programs ranging from behavioral health, foster parent recruitment and training, adoption services for older children, personal history research for foster care children and most recently, The Life Book Program.

If you are interest in volunteering, making a donation or participating in one of the programs, please contact Annette Hill at Arizona's Children's Association, (602) 234-3733, ext.111.