A Comprehensive Guide to Creating Therapeutic Homes Where Healing Happens Naturally
Transform Your Foster Care Journey with Evidence-Based Tools
Every foster parent has received that midnight call: “We have a child who needs immediate placement. They’ve been violent at their last three homes. Are you willing to take them?” This book is for parents who want to say yes with confidence, equipped with the tools they need to help children heal.
Why This Book Matters
Traditional parenting methods often fail with children who have experienced trauma. Time-outs can trigger abandonment panic. Reward charts mean nothing to a brain in survival mode. Logical consequences fall flat when trauma has hijacked the child’s ability to think clearly.
Healing Together brings powerful Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) tools from clinical settings into your home, translating complex therapeutic concepts into practical strategies you can use every day.
What Makes This Different
This isn’t another parenting book filled with theories. It’s a practical roadmap created by understanding that:
- 50% of foster placements disrupt within the first year
- Research shows trauma-informed approaches increase placement stability by 60%
- Children need therapeutic environments, not just safe houses
What You’ll Learn
Core DBT Skills for Foster Families:
- Mindfulness: Creating present-moment awareness that calms trauma responses
- Emotion Regulation: Helping children understand and manage overwhelming feelings
- Distress Tolerance: Surviving crisis moments without making them worse
- Interpersonal Effectiveness: Building the trust and connection trauma has damaged
Practical Applications:
- How to create healing environments in your daily routines
- Age-specific strategies for children 3-18
- Crisis prevention and management techniques
- Self-care strategies to prevent caregiver burnout
- Building support systems that understand trauma
- Measuring progress in meaningful ways
Real Stories, Real Solutions
Follow families like:
- Maria and Tommy: Navigating food insecurity and separation anxiety
- Sarah and Maya: Building trust after multiple placement disruptions
- The Williams Family: Helping Marcus heal from witnessing domestic violence
- Tom, Rachel and Alex: Supporting a child with medical trauma and anxiety
Each chapter includes reflection questions, practical exercises, and step-by-step guidance you can implement immediately.
Who This Book Serves
Whether you’re a:
- New foster parent feeling overwhelmed
- Seasoned caregiver seeking fresh approaches
- Kinship provider navigating unexpected trauma
- Foster-to-adopt parent building attachment
- Professional supporting foster families
This book meets you where you are and guides you forward with compassion and expertise.
The Science Behind the Hope
Grounded in current neuroscience research about trauma’s impact on the developing brain, this book explains complex concepts in accessible language. You’ll understand why children behave the way they do and how to respond in ways that promote healing rather than re-traumatization.
Your Investment in Healing
This comprehensive 107-page guide would normally retail for $24.95, but we believe these tools should be accessible to every foster family. Download your free copy today and consider making a donation to help us continue providing trauma-informed resources to the foster care community.
What readers are saying: “Finally, a book that doesn’t just tell me what trauma looks like, but gives me specific tools for helping my child heal. The DBT strategies have transformed our home from a place of constant crisis to a space where genuine healing happens.”
“As a seasoned foster parent, I thought I’d seen it all. This book gave me new eyes to see behaviors as communication and new tools to respond with wisdom instead of just discipline.”
Download Your Free Copy
Click below to access your PDF and begin transforming your understanding of trauma, healing, and the incredible difference you can make in a child’s life.
Because every child deserves a chance to heal, and every foster parent deserves the tools to help them.
Cheryll Wagner
Therapeutic Foster Parent / ADHD Identity Crisis & Transformation Consultant
Cheryll Wagner brings decades of experience as a parent advocate navigating the special needs world, combined with her personal journey as a neurodiverse adult with ADHD. Drawing from extensive research into trauma-informed care and DBT principles, she has created this comprehensive guide by synthesizing insights from countless foster families, child development experts, and therapeutic practitioners. This book represents the collective wisdom of families who have shared their real-world experiences of creating healing homes for children who have experienced trauma.
Authors Note: This book was created through a collaborative process with AI technology. As a therapeutic foster parent with lived experience, I provided the frameworks, real-world insights, case studies, and practical wisdom. AI helped me articulate complex concepts, organize research, and translate my knowledge into accessible language. Every strategy has been tested in real homes with real children, but the writing process itself was a human-AI collaboration.