Foster Parenting Podcast

These are 40 of our own personal reasons to adopt through foster care. They’re not necessarily for you or anyone else, but they are what compels us. Celebrate National Adoption Month with us!

We recently were able to participate in the annual Together for Adoption Conference. This episode is based on the breakout session we led there.

We’ve heard a lot of stories about foster care. Sometimes the stories are in the news, sometimes we hear them from people we know, and sometimes strangers volunteer their perspectives. Rather than sweeping the dirt under the rug, we think we should talk about it.

So this episode is our attempt to confront negative stories about foster care experiences. We talk about abusive foster parents, delays in the adoption process, biased social workers and judges, and the pain of getting attached and having to say goodbye.

Come see us in person and enjoy other great speakers at the KidBridge Seminar in Rolling Hills Estates, CA on Saturday, October 29!

We recorded our 100th episode in front of an audience at Olive Crest Foster and Adoption Agency. It was such a pleasure to meet and connect with our listeners.

In this episode we tackle some of the toughest doubts and questions thrown at the foster care system. We respond to questions about inept social workers, the rights of birth parents and the limbo that kids are left in as they wait for the courts to decide their futures. We also share some thoughts on risk and what type of person it will take to reform the system.

“To Risk”

by William Arthur Ward

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement,
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return,
To live is to risk dying,
To hope is to risk despair,
To try is to risk failure.

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing.

He may avoid suffering and sorrow,
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live.

Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom.

Only a person who risks is free.

The pessimist complains about the wind;

The optimist expects it to change;

And the realist adjusts the sails.

Have you heard of special laws governing the adoption of children who are of Native American descent? In the US, children who are Native American fall under a specific law called the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which can govern their adoptive and foster placements.

T interviews Johnston Moore about ICWA. They discuss the origins and intentions of the federal law and its ongoing application. Originally created to ensure the rights of Native Americans, Moore says that the law is sometimes used to make decisions that may not be in the best interests of children.

Johnston Moore belongs to a network of activists working to amend the law. If you wish to contact him, he can be reached at http://www.home-4-ever.org

Many foster parents draw firm boundaries between themselves and their foster children’s birth parents. But is this right? In this interview with Saint Fults, a social worker in St. Louis, Missouri, we learn of another perspective of openness toward birth family relationships from the beginning of the child’s placement.

Fults advocates that foster parents should consider opening their lives more fully to birth families, including hosting visits in the foster home.

The perspective challenged us to think about what is truly best for the children in our care, and how a higher degree of openness in foster care might better set up birth families for successful reunification.