In this brief, Child Trends researchers evaluate two family finding approaches - one with a focus on children "new to out-of-home care" and the other focusing on children who have been "lingering" in foster care. Child welfare agencies implementing - or planning to implement - family finding should examine the implications of serving differing target populations and their capacity to support the different approaches. Four key issues were identified which agencies may want to consider in implementing family finding.

Since most parents love their children as much as they can, and in similar ways or reaction to how they were loved --  "Setting YourSelf Free" examines what gets in the way of the development of dignity, and shows that it is malignant, invisible cycles of emotional abuse.  Emotional abuse is always part of physical and sexual abuse, but also appears separately and invisibly, growing in intensity as generations pass, unless there is intervention.  Five cycles or patterns of emotional abuse are codified:  rage, enmeshment, rejection/abandonment, severe neglect, and extreme over-protection and overindulgence.   The book, with exercises, shows how emotional abuse, without intervention destroy marriages, families, friendships work settings, and communities.