The Compassionate Companion is a friendly guide for caregivers of children who have experienced trauma. The book includes almost everything a seasoned caregiver wishes they had known in advance of becoming a fostering, adoptive, or familial caregiver. It features insights from lived experiences and will help you make informed decisions and steps toward having a healthy child while maintaining one’s self-care, which is critical to being the best caregiver possible.
Carla A. Carlisle is a TEDx speaker, an award-winning author, a trauma expert, and a proud boy mom. As a keynote speaker, Carla provides workshops to help our community to become trauma informed and practice self-care. She incorporates her experiences penned in her memoir, Journey to the SON, as well her son, JC’s, in My Big Notebook to teach you how to cope and thrive beyond trauma. Carla is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. She’s earned an MS in human resources management from American University, an MS in organizational development from Johns Hopkins University, and a BA in sociology from Indiana University.
There are over 400,000 children in foster care in the US. Regardless of how dire the situation may be, it still hurts when a child is separated from their parents. With an average of three placements during their first year in care and an average of seven placements during their foster care journey, our in-care children are struggling. Let’s prepare for the task ahead—caring for a child in foster care and potentially becoming an adoptive parent. Together, we can change the trajectory of a child’s life. Let’s do this!