I will recommend this book to all pastors and parents working with students and kids. It is very practical and important.

I didn't know that the book had a religious foundation when I asked to read it via Netgalley and while it's present and the authors' experiences are based in religion, all of the sharing is grounded in information and research that many rural and urban educators and people that work with kids already know from ACES to trauma-informed care and education. It's good to have reminders, new ways to think about the same things, and refine our ability to connect and help.

It was a text that is invaluable to remind that it's both the external and the internal that we're working on when working with kids and how we can move the needle for compassion and understanding.

Caring for Kids from Hard Places by Jayne & David Schooler is a book for Christian teachers & church youth leaders who desire to care more effectively for children and teens who have experienced deep suffering.

Anyone will be more trauma informed, confident, and inspired about why this matters after reading this book. I don’t know of any other books that address this topic so accessibly & from a Christian perspective that isn't written for parents so it fills a big gap! As an adoptive parent, I feel the need for this every day and already ordered extra copies to give away.

The authors collected the important things to know on this topic and organized it in an understandable, easily accessible way.

The final chapter covers caring for yourself and is quite good, although I have one small point of disagreement. They subscribe to a body + soul + spirit paradigm which complicates our understanding of humanity, and (in my limited understanding) can’t be backed up by scripture. Scripture conceives of a simpler paradigm in which we are made up of two parts: body (material) + soul/spirit (immaterial). We are embodied souls.

BUT even though the authors spent time defining humans with 3 categories, functionally, they worked from only two, go figure. 😂

All in all, it’s a small complaint and I will definitely be recommending this book. 4.5 stars.

Caring for Kids from Hard Places Is a must read for foster parents, adoptive parents, and basically anyone who is interacting children (and people) from hard places! This book contained a lot of information I already knew, as well as new information, and information I needed reminders on! I received an e-copy of this from netgalley but there is no doubt I will be purchasing a hard copy to have on hand as well. I will be recommending this to others!
All thoughts are my own

I pulled this book as a resource for my continuing education as a CASA. This book offered up some great feedback for anyone who works with children - regardless of the venue (school, church, foster care, etc.), though in some spaces felt redundant or dry. As practically every person who works with children will at some point work with a traumatized child, it's good to understand that their behavior is actually their voice and some good ways that we as the adults in their lives can help them to better process their trauma and feel safe. Using both science and scripture, and examples from their own past and from others they've counseled, Jayne and David Schooler give great insight into how trauma impacts one's brain and behavior. They give good guidelines on how to respond to trauma-induced behaviors and tools for helping others process, as well as great guidelines for setting up one's space to limit the number of behavioral issues from traumatized children. This book had lots of great ideas and options for working with children with difficult pasts. Special thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance e-copy of this book. I was under no obligation to provide a review and the thoughts contained herein are my own.

That is really sad to imagine outside there, so many kids are having hard experience from the post-traumatic story they have ever lived. This book will help us to really care, really really care, for them.