Nell Bernstein, with the support of the Pacific News Service, has put together a book that looks at the Foster Care system through the words of young people in it. Ms. Bernstein spent a year interviewing and surveying kids caught up in the Foster Care system and has turned those interviews into a powerful discussion of what foster care is about in our society and how it impacts those it intends to help.
    It was about 20 years ago that I began my full-time focus on social services working with young people caught up in what we euphemistically called the juvenile justice system. The first "kid" I met was celebrating his 14th birthday in the Juvenile Detention Center in Gainesville after running away from his most recent foster home placement. He recently celebrated his 34th birthday in a maximum security prison in Florida finding comfort in the relatively recent success of his battle to get access to protease inhibitor therapy in the Florida prison system.
    This book, recent life changes for me, and another recent book have lead me to a renewed soul-searching that I think will lead me to a simpler, rejuvenated life direction. I'll reflect on the presentations in this book here.