Son-Up, Son-Down (Triology, Book 3)

"Son-Up, Son-Down" is a novel about children in harm's way. The story, set in the mountains of western North Carolina, follows the early lives of two brothers, Jeffrey and Leeroy Swink, cast adrift in "the system" by an abusive and fragmented family; by parents who were, themselves, the products of dysfunctional families. It is a story of pain and failure, but also of help and hope. The book is the third in a set of three companion volumes written to illustrate the promise of a new and exciting approach to the care and treatment of troubled and troubling young people. That approach, Therapeutic Foster Care, has been conceived to combine all of the best, family-centered features of traditional foster care with the most current and vigorous youth treatment methods available. "Son-Up, Son-Down" offers a fictional account of the experiences of one family, the Swinks, with a foster family treatment program called Professional Parenting, a real program operated in Morganton, North Carolina, by the Bringing It All Back Home Study Center. It is intended to convey an intimate and realistic perspective on the lives of severely troubled youngsters and on the texture and complexity of the task of trying to help them.