S3E7: Soul Family - Young People Choose Their Circle of Caring Adults

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.

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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 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.

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Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer