Every foster child deserves a voice. This is mine. In Just Another Slice, nine-year-old Sarah Bailey tries to survive in a family full of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse while at the same time trying to protect her younger brother Curtis. Sarah learns that asking for Just Another Slice of toast is not the only thing in her life she will be denied. Yet, in a world full of cruelty, she finds kindness and happiness in the most unsuspecting people, places, and things. Sarah and Curtis’s foster care story is based on actual events about Dr. Sharon Zaffarese-Dippold and her brother, Carl. In this book, Sarah and Curtis learn they are foster children. Join their journey of laughter, pain, hope, and resiliency. You will see, hear and feel what Sarah and Curtis does throughout this sad and inspiring story of not just surviving but thriving.

Presents a children's book that focuses on caring for one another and gives examples of helping someone, being a friend, and doing things for others at home, school, and in the community.

Trends and skills for those who offer pastoral care Christian pastoral care has changed a great deal in the past few decades in response to many factors in our rapidly changing world. In part 1 of Nurturing Hope, Lynne Baab discusses seven trends in pastoral care--shifts in who delivers pastoral care, the attitudes and commitments that undergird pastoral care, and societal trends that are shaping pastoral care today. She illustrates them with stories from diverse congregations where Christian caregivers are meeting those challenges in creative and exciting ways. In the second half of the book, Baab presents four practical, doable, energizing skills needed by pastoral carers in our time. Focusing on skills that help carers nurture connections between everyday life and Christian faith, she explores the need for carers to understand common stressors, listen, pray with others, and nurture their personal resilience. Grounded in an understanding of God as the true caregiver and healer, the author offers tips for readers who are training other pastoral carers or developing their own understanding and skills. Each chapter ends with discussion and reflection questions, making the book helpful for groups. Lynne Baab brings readers hope for their caring role and for their own spiritual journey.

Bringing together scholars from film and television studies, media and cultural studies, literary studies, medical humanities, and disability studies, Discourses of Care collectively examines how the analysis of media texts and practices can contribute to scholarship on and understandings of health and social care, and how existing research focusing on the ethics of care can inform our understanding of media. Featuring a critical introductory essay and 13 specially commissioned original chapters, this is the first edited collection to address the relationship between media and the concept and practice of care and caregiving. Contributors consider the representation of care and caregiving through a range of forms and practices – the television documentary, photography, film, non-theatrical cinema, tabloid media, autobiography, and public service broadcasting - and engage with the labour, as well as the practical and ethical dimensions of media production. Together, they offer an original and wide ranging exploration of the various ways in which media forms represent, articulate and operate within caring relationships and practices of care; whether this is between individuals, communities as well as audiences and institutions.

Prepare to swoon for this box set of sizzling romances set in the small town of Willow Cove! Featuring a sizzling love story between a brother and his sister's best friend and a romance between a man whose childhood crush finally notices him after a one-night stand, this collection is sure to make you fall head over heels. Complete Opposite She was everything he never knew he wanted. The oldest of four, Enzo Moretti has sacrificed his own needs for his family time and time again. Now that his siblings are on the right path, he’s ready to find his own happiness. During his local morning coffee run, he’s drawn to a redhead with a nice body. It’s not until she turns around that he realizes the auburn bombshell is none other than the formerly blonde Cami, the owner of the coffee shop and his baby sister’s best friend. Cami Martin seems to have her life together, which is what she’s made everyone believe. In reality, she’s tired, overworked, and unable to give up control on anything in her life. When she gets a flat tire, and her best friend’s gorgeous older brother helps her out, she doesn’t anticipate the single act to fuel a growing attraction to a man who has become a thorn in her side. As the two polar opposites spend more time together, they begin to discover that they have more in common than they ever imagined. But will the thing that brings them together be the very thing that tears them apart? Childhood Dream His dream just became a reality... Now what? After drinking one too many glasses of champagne at a wedding and sleeping with her best friend’s younger brother, Krissy Turner, does everything in her power to forget about the curly haired sex god. But after her business is vandalized, he offers his services to help paint the place and in return she agrees to sit for him as a portrait model. Up-and-coming artist, Tony Moretti, has been in love with his sister’s best friend most of his life. Creatively blocked and his passion lost, he looks to Krissy to ignite that spark inside of him again. Giving into their growing desires is inevitable. But when someone continues to terrorize Krissy, and she relies on Tony to comfort her, their relationship goes deeper than the heated chemistry between them. When Tony’s passion returns, and Krissy’s enemy is revealed, their love will be tested, but will love be enough to set them free? This hot and steamy small-town romance is the newest installment in Theresa Paolo’s Willow Cove Series set in the picturesque setting of coastal Maine.

This box set collects the entire six book series The Travels of Scout Shannon. Under Falling Skies Scout's whole family died the day the Space Farers dropped an asteroid on their domed city. Now she lives alone, out in the wild with only her dogs for company. She prefers it that way. But Scout finds herself at a crossroads. One road leads back to a quiet life snug under the protective dome of a city. The other road leads to a life in the rebellion, a life of adventure and excitement but also danger. Dare she try to find the rebels hiding in the hills? Then a chance encounter with a stranger from the other side of the galaxy threatens to derail what remains of Scout's life. The entire galaxy awaits her, if she survives the next four days. In Quaking Hills Scout just wants to find the man who conned her mentor and leave her home world for good. Alas, the long-threatened war draws nearer and Scout finds herself caught in the middle, surrounded by rebels and bandits. Worse, she carries a pocketful of dangerous secrets with no one to entrust them to. And the hills keep shaking. Something lurks deep underground. Something massive. Something world-destroying. Scout leaves in three days. If she lives that long. Among Treacherous Stars Scout wants nothing more than to leave her home. She makes it as far as her own planet's orbit before the snares of bureaucracy close around her, trapping her on a space station populated by her people's oldest foe. Then her rescuer, her only friend in the galaxy, disappears, abducted by a group of strangers the moment he steps off his ship. Alone in a strange place, surrounded by the old enemies she knows and new enemies just making themselves known, Scout faces a challenge like none before. But with her dogs at her side, Scout stands prepared for anything. Against Impassable Barriers Caught between two factions of a powerful trade dynasty, Scout fights to remain free and to protect her friends. But the people trying to make her their pawn barely seem human to her eyes. Fight them? She can barely understand them. With friends on both sides of the planetary blockade, Scout just needs to find a way to get her friends stuck on the inside to those waiting for them on the outside. But foes also lurk on both sides. And they hide among her friends. How to tell friend from foe? Scout better learn before the enemies close in around her. Over Freezing Altitudes Having escaped yet another closing trap, Scout finds herself on a snowbound mountaintop far from civilization. With assassins eager to kill her, laying low on an alien world is the smartest play. But wherever Scout goes, trouble follows. And a hamlet in the mountains gets far more remote when girl assassins destroy the only means back to civilization. Now Scout and her dogs face a long, cold climb back to the frozen star port city, her only guide, a girl whose sister Scout killed when fighting for her life. Can she get to safety before the girl learns the truth about Scout? And what secrets of her own is this strange girl keeping? At Galactic Central Galactic Central, a collection of floating cities in a vast, manmade, planetless cloud. Scout longed to see it since she first heard of it. This place long represented her shining future. But in her less shiny present, she reaches it by smuggling herself aboard a cargo ship and hides in the lower sewer-like levels of the most opulent of the floating cities. Teams of girl assassins still hunt her. Worse, her friends are in danger and don't even know. Scout has to save her friends, because saving her friends means saving her entire planet from enslavement to the Tajaki trade dynasty. Caught between two sides of that dynasty, with a mysterious third party desperate to remove her from the galaxy, Scout is in way over her head. But with her friends, she just might see a path to victory for all of them.

Statistics and Health Care Fraud: How to Save Billions helps the public to become more informed citizens through discussions of real world health care examples and fraud assessment applications. The author presents statistical and analytical methods used in health care fraud audits without requiring any mathematical background. The public suffers from health care overpayments either directly as patients or indirectly as taxpayers, and fraud analytics provides ways to handle the large size and complexity of these claims. The book starts with a brief overview of global healthcare systems such as U.S. Medicare. This is followed by a discussion of medical overpayments and assessment initiatives using a variety of real world examples. The book covers subjects as: • Description and visualization of medical claims data • Prediction of fraudulent transactions • Detection of excessive billings • Revealing new fraud patterns • Challenges and opportunities with health care fraud analytics Dr. Tahir Ekin is the Brandon Dee Roberts Associate Professor of Quantitative Methods in McCoy College of Business, Texas State University. His previous work experience includes a working as a statistician on health care fraud detection. His scholarly work on health care fraud has been published in a variety of academic journals including International Statistical Review, The American Statistician, and Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry. He is a recipient of the Texas State University 2018 Presidential Distinction Award in Scholar Activities and the ASA/NISS y-Bis 2016 Best Paper Awards. He has developed and taught courses in the areas of business statistics, optimization, data mining and analytics. Dr. Ekin also serves as Vice President of the International Society for Business and Industrial Statistics.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber will take you on a journey with three heartwarming Blossom Street stories of love, family and second chances. SUMMER ON BLOSSOM STREET Knitting and life are both about beginnings—and endings. That's why Lydia Goetz, owner of A Good Yarn on Seattle's Blossom Street, offers a class called Knit to Quit. It's for people who want to quit something—or someone!—and start a new phase of their lives. But when your life—and your stitches—get snarled, your friends can always help! HANNAH'S LIST On the anniversary of his beloved wife's death, Dr. Michael Everett receives a letter Hannah wrote him. In it she reminds him of her love and makes one final request. An impossible request. I want you to marry again. She tells him he shouldn't spend the years he has left grieving—and she's chosen three women she asks him to consider. During the months that follow, he spends time with these three women, learning more about each of them…and about himself. Learning what Hannah already knew. He's a man who needs the completeness only love can offer. And Hannah's list leads him to the woman who can help him find it. A TURN IN THE ROAD In the middle of the year, in the middle of her life, Bethanne Hamlin takes a road trip with her daughter, Annie, and her former mother-in-law, Ruth. So, there they are, three women driving across America. They have their maps and their directions—but even the best-planned journey can take you to a turn in the road. Or lead to an unexpected encounter, like the day Bethanne meets a man named Max…

This is the concise, accessible guide for students and practitioners who want a comprehensive introduction to health and social care. Engaging practical features, such as user-focused case studies and reflective exercises, promote understanding of theoretical and conceptual knowledge. In turn, clear explanations of social policy theory help frame the policy and practice dilemmas faced by students, front-line workers and policy makers. Chapters cover partnership working and integrated care, independent living, disability and long-term conditions, discrimination, user involvement and support for carers. This new edition has been updated to cover key developments under the Coalition and beyond, including the 2012 Health Act, the 2014 Care Act, the Francis inquiry, the Winterbourne View abuse scandal, the integrated care agenda and the impact of austerity.