INNOVATE!
Innovate! Podcast
Welcome to INNOVATE! Podcast host Angela Tucker sits down with Re-Envisioning Foster Care Champions - visionary leaders using their lived experience expertise to improve life outcomes for our nation's children and youth in foster care. They are creating a Culture of Possibility, changing the foster care narrative & leading the nation forward. To learn more about INNOVATE!, the Re-Envisioning Foster Care Movement & the Treehouse Foundation, go to treehousefoundation.net.
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Top 10 INNOVATE! Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best INNOVATE! episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to INNOVATE! for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite INNOVATE! episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
03/09/22 • 30 min
In our final episode of the season, Angela wraps up the series speaking with Amanda Metivier, the Associate Director of the Child Welfare Academy at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, and Steve Pemberton, the Chief Human Resources Officer at Workhuman and the author of two books, A Chance in the World and The Lighthouse Effect.
Welcome to INNOVATE! In Season One, host Angela Tucker highlights 20 REFCA Champions who are inspiring a Re-Envisioning of Foster Care in America. These visionary leaders are using their wisdom, expertise and lived experiences in foster care to transform the foster care narrative from Alaska to New York, California to Missouri, the Pacific Northwest to New England.
To learn more about INNOVATE!, the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) Movement and the Treehouse Foundation, go to treehousefoundation.net. As always, be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast to be notified when new episodes are released.
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ABOUT THE HOST:
INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.
She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.
Angela has produced The Adopted Life 3-part web series where she interviews transracially adopted youth. She is the host of The Adoptee Next Door podcast
where she amplifies adult adoptee voices to showcase the wide spectrum of experiences. Her own adoption experience searching for and reuniting with her birth family is the subject of the documentary CLOSURE.
Angela's first book is scheduled for publication in spring 2023 (Beacon Press).
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Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
Distributed by smallhand.us
05/04/22 • 30 min
Phoenix Santiago and Charles Lerner discuss the responsibilities we have to care for those who have experienced trauma under our watch. They ask the question "How dare we abdicate our responsibilities after the age of 18?" and discuss what it looks like to offer radical compassion.
Welcome back to INNOVATE! for Season Two! This season, host Angela Tucker highlights REFCA Champions who are inspiring a Re-Envisioning of Foster Care in America. These visionary leaders are using their wisdom, expertise and lived experiences in foster care to transform the foster care narrative from Alaska to New York, California to Missouri, the Pacific Northwest to New England.
To learn more about INNOVATE!, the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) Movement and the Treehouse Foundation, go to treehousefoundation.net. As always, be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast to be notified when new episodes are released.
***
ABOUT THE HOST:
INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.
She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.
Angela has produced The Adopted Life 3-part web series where she interviews transracially adopted youth. She is the host of The Adoptee Next Door podcast where she amplifies adult adoptee voices to showcase the wide spectrum of experiences. Her own adoption experience searching for and reuniting with her birth family is the subject of the documentary CLOSURE.
Angela's first book is scheduled for publication in spring 2023 (Beacon Press).
***
Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
Distributed by smallhand.us
S3E8: Healed People Heal People
INNOVATE!
07/08/23 • 38 min
2023 REFCA Champion Keri Hope Richmond is a change maker, storyteller, and a passionate advocate for children and families. She is the manager of child welfare policy for the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Executive Director of Unbelievably Resilient (UR) - a nonprofit that is fully staffed by professionals with lived experience and works to rewrite the foster care narrative.
Keri helps people with lived experience not let their foster care experience define them. To move through the pain and to find purpose in it. To find hope, to carry hope, and to heal while dealing with the reality of living in foster care.
Keri has been an intern on Capitol Hill and is currently working with the White House and legislators to make meaningful national change for child welfare. She is truly leading the nation forward.
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We’re excited to let INNOVATE! listeners know we’re going to finish up Season 3 of INNOVATE! at the 9th national Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America conference on November 3rd & 4th in Boston.
For the first time ever, we’ll be on stage in front of a live audience and I’ll be interviewing 2 more visionary REFCA Champions to find out how they are using their wisdom, lived experience, and award-winning ideas to inspire a Re-Envisioning of Foster Care.
We hope you’ll join us!
REFCA2023 is a two-day event that is being planned AND presented by REFCA Champions from across the country. Please come meet us and hear our visions for creating a more just and equitable child welfare system. Together we can create resources that help children, youth & families thrive.
Early Bird Registration will begin shortly. Go to www.treehousefoundation.net for more information.
***
ABOUT THE HOST:
INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.
She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.
Angela is the author of You Should Be Grateful: Stories Of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. She has hosted the previous two seasons of INNOVATE!, and currently works as the Executive Director of the Adoptee Mentoring Society.
***
Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
***
The Treehouse Foundation has been leading the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) movement since 2010. Please visit www.treehousefoundation.net for more information about the award-winning work of the Treehouse Team.
06/17/24 • 36 min
ReEnvisioning Foster Care Champion, Dakota Roundtree Swain, teaches Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and is the Diversity & Inclusion Manager at Harvard Medical School.
Dakota has a Ph.D. in Social Policy from Brandeis University and uses their understanding of policy to create pathways that help foster care alumni identify their dreams and develop the skills they need to achieve them.
Dakota has a strong desire to help young people who feel a responsibility to change the child welfare system learn about the policies that shaped their experiences in foster care. They do this so youth can understand "the why" behind decisions made on their behalf by legislators and child welfare professionals and move toward healing.
Having been a highly engaged youth advocate during their time in foster care, Dakota is working diligently to transform child welfare so that youth who are currently experiencing the system do not feel like “merchandise on a conveyor belt” - only valued for their stories.
***
ABOUT THE HOST:
INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.
She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.
Angela is the author of You Should Be Grateful: Stories Of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. She has hosted the previous two seasons of INNOVATE!, and currently works as the Executive Director of the Adoptee Mentoring Society.
***
Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
Beylen Curtis - Research Assistant
***
The Treehouse Foundation has been leading the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) movement since 2010. Please visit www.treehousefoundation.net for more information about the award-winning work of the Treehouse Team.
05/31/23 • 33 min
REFCA Champion Jasmine Snell has a dream: to create a primary school that supports two generations of Americans - children and their parents; a community based resource that is available to children experiencing foster care and their peers. While bringing her vision to fruition, Jas uses her lived experience to coach young people living in foster care as well as to mentor young adults experiencing substance dependence or who are on a mental health journey. Her stellar advocacy and visionary leadership are truly inspiring.
Welcome back to INNOVATE! for Season Three! This season, host Angela Tucker highlights REFCA Champions who are inspiring a Re-Envisioning of Foster Care in America. These visionary leaders are using their wisdom, expertise and lived experiences in foster care to transform the foster care narrative from Alaska to New York, California to Missouri, the Pacific Northwest to New England.
To learn more about INNOVATE!, the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) Movement and the Treehouse Foundation, go to treehousefoundation.net. As always, be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast to be notified when new episodes are released.
***
ABOUT THE HOST:
INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.
She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.
Angela is the author of You Should Be Grateful: Stories Of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. She has hosted the previous two seasons of INNOVATE!, and currently works as the Executive Director of the Adoptee Mentoring Society.
***
Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
01/18/22 • 28 min
In this episode, Angela navigates conversation around all things siblings - joined by guests Serita Cox and Lynn Price. Serita Cox is the Founder and CEO of iFoster, an organization that connects kids living in foster care with the products, services, knowledge, and supportive adults that can best help them reach their full potential. Lynn Price is the Founder of Camp To Belong, which reunites sisters and brothers who have been separated in foster care around the country and in Canada and Australia.
***
Welcome to INNOVATE! In Season One, host Angela Tucker highlights 20 REFCA Champions who are inspiring a Re-Envisioning of Foster Care in America. These visionary leaders are using their wisdom, expertise and lived experiences in foster care to transform the foster care narrative from Alaska to New York, California to Missouri, the Pacific Northwest to New England.
To learn more about INNOVATE!, the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) Movement and the Treehouse Foundation, go to treehousefoundation.net. As always, be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast to be notified when new episodes are released.
***
ABOUT THE HOST:
INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.
She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.
Angela has produced The Adopted Life 3-part web series where she interviews transracially adopted youth. She is the host of The Adoptee Next Door podcast where she amplifies adult adoptee voices to showcase the wide spectrum of experiences. Her own adoption experience searching for and reuniting with her birth family is the subject of the documentary CLOSURE.
Angela's first book is scheduled for publication in spring 2023 (Beacon Press).
***
Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
Distributed by smallhand.us
05/02/24 • 41 min
ReEnvisioning Foster Care Champion Gaelin Elmore is a former NFL player who chose to retire from football and become a full-time advocate for children and youth whose lives have been impacted by foster care. A visionary leader who experienced life in our nation’s child welfare system, Gaelin shares his wisdom, lived expertise, and award-winning ideas with child welfare professionals across the country. His frame: Belonging is a fundamental human need. Belonging helps us rise to our potential rather than fall to circumstance. Neuroscientists have found that belonging is connected to the same neuro networks that communicate hunger and thirst. It’s a scientific fact: Humans need to be connected to a group or a community of people who know us and care about us. Gaelin shares with Angela how the people in his life claimed him and helped him overcome the trauma he experienced, and how his belonging defines his advocacy and leadership.
***
ABOUT THE HOST:
INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.
She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.
Angela is the author of You Should Be Grateful: Stories Of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. She has hosted the previous two seasons of INNOVATE!, and currently works as the Executive Director of the Adoptee Mentoring Society.
***
Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
Beylen Curtis - Research Assistant
***
The Treehouse Foundation has been leading the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) movement since 2010. Please visit www.treehousefoundation.net for more information about the award-winning work of the Treehouse Team.
06/12/23 • 28 min
REFCA Champion Patty Chin is a visionary advocate for young people in foster care. Using her lived expertise, she created a compelling new option to support the needs of the 20,000 youth who age out of foster care every year without the benefit of a legal, permanent family. It’s called Soul Family.
SOUL Family allows a young person to identify and design their chosen circle of caring adults who have a legal role in their lives. SOUL Family adults provide support, opportunity, unity and legal relationships for young people ages 16 and older as they move from foster care to adulthood. At this critical point of development, young people need the anchor of a nurturing, lifelong family. Patty is working with the Annie E. Casey Foundation to pilot the SOUL Family model.
Welcome back to INNOVATE! for Season Three! This season, host Angela Tucker highlights REFCA Champions who are inspiring a Re-Envisioning of Foster Care in America. These visionary leaders are using their wisdom, expertise and lived experiences in foster care to transform the foster care narrative from Alaska to New York, California to Missouri, the Pacific Northwest to New England.
To learn more about INNOVATE!, the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) Movement and the Treehouse Foundation, go to treehousefoundation.net. As always, be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast to be notified when new episodes are released.
***
ABOUT THE HOST:
INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.
She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.
Angela is the author of You Should Be Grateful: Stories Of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. She has hosted the previous two seasons of INNOVATE!, and currently works as the Executive Director of the Adoptee Mentoring Society.
***
Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
05/29/23 • 28 min
REFCA Champion Carloe Moser discusses the ways that the Crosby Scholars LIGHHT Program in Winston-Salem, North Carolina helps young people living in foster care see a light at the end of the tunnel while facing racism, classism, conflict, and discord; to give them hope and a way forward.
Carloe has seen the way the streets can be a battlefield. The way they can prevent youth in foster care from dreaming about and/or applying to college. That battlefield is where he works every day. It’s where he shares his wisdom and lived expertise with youth. And, where he focuses on changing the foster care narrative.
Welcome back to INNOVATE! for Season Three! This season, host Angela Tucker highlights REFCA Champions who are inspiring a Re-Envisioning of Foster Care in America. These visionary leaders are using their wisdom, expertise and lived experiences in foster care to transform the foster care narrative from Alaska to New York, California to Missouri, the Pacific Northwest to New England.
To learn more about INNOVATE!, the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) Movement and the Treehouse Foundation, go to treehousefoundation.net. As always, be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast to be notified when new episodes are released.
***
ABOUT THE HOST:
INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.
She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.
Angela is the author of You Should Be Grateful: Stories Of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. She has hosted the previous two seasons of INNOVATE!, and currently works as the Executive Director of the Adoptee Mentoring Society.
***
Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
06/08/22 • 30 min
Michael Williams and Jarel Skinner-Melendez discuss re-envisioning the way we approach the system of care stemmning from their belief that one system can’t fit all. They discuss ways the system can offer teenagers the right response when they fail - because trying new things is an integral part of being a teenager.
Welcome back to INNOVATE! for Season Two! This season, host Angela Tucker highlights REFCA Champions who are inspiring a Re-Envisioning of Foster Care in America. These visionary leaders are using their wisdom, expertise and lived experiences in foster care to transform the foster care narrative from Alaska to New York, California to Missouri, the Pacific Northwest to New England.
To learn more about INNOVATE!, the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) Movement and the Treehouse Foundation, go to treehousefoundation.net. As always, be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast to be notified when new episodes are released.
***
ABOUT THE HOST:
INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.
She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.
Angela has produced The Adopted Life 3-part web series where she interviews transracially adopted youth. She is the host of The Adoptee Next Door podcast where she amplifies adult adoptee voices to showcase the wide spectrum of experiences. Her own adoption experience searching for and reuniting with her birth family is the subject of the documentary CLOSURE.
Angela's first book is scheduled for publication in spring 2023 (Beacon Press).
***
Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
Distributed by smallhand.us
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FAQ
How many episodes does INNOVATE! have?
INNOVATE! currently has 33 episodes available.
What topics does INNOVATE! cover?
The podcast is about Kids & Family, Foster Care and Podcasts.
What is the most popular episode on INNOVATE!?
The episode title 'S3E6: How Mandatory Reporters Could Become Mandated Supporters' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on INNOVATE!?
The average episode length on INNOVATE! is 31 minutes.
How often are episodes of INNOVATE! released?
Episodes of INNOVATE! are typically released every 7 days.
When was the first episode of INNOVATE!?
The first episode of INNOVATE! was released on Jan 18, 2022.
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