Kids who enter foster care often get tossed into an ever-changing web of people, places and plans. At the center of that wheel, walking alongside the child through it all, is their CASA. In this episode, Executive Director of CASA for Kids in Flathead County, Cindy Basnett, explains the role and heart behind the volunteers who help set the trajectory of a child’s journey through foster care.

To learn more about CASAs or to start the process of becoming one, visit https://www.montanacasagal.org/.

James and Ashley Newell join us in the midst of a chaotic season of their parenting journey. The adoptive parents of two boys from foster care, this couple gets really real about the awkwardness, uncertainty, growth and goodness they’ve met along the way. And they share how all of it together worked to prompt them to start all over again. See how God prepared two ordinary people for an extraordinary journey. 

“Adversity and trauma don't define the outcome of a life — rather, they describe an experience.” Researcher, missionary, author and marriage/family therapist Nicole Wilke dares to describe the formula for resilience, or the capacity to overcome adversity. In this episode, she draws on her real-world experience, professional knowledge and biblical faith to explore the science and scripture behind resilience. 

Follow Nicole online at her personal Instagram: dr.nicolewilke, and through the Christian Alliance for Orphans Instagram: cafoalliance 

Check out Nicole's newest books on resilience, "Overcoming: What Scripture & Science Say About Resilience" and "Caleb Koala's Comeback Ride: A Journey to Overcoming."  here.

Scripts Blog Post - From one parent to another: Scripts for building resilience in our kids

Scripts Resource - TBRI® Life Values Printable Resource

Additional Resource — Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO): https://cafo.org/ 

Fear. Anger. Failure. Danica Montana went through a wide range of emotions when Child Family Services removed her children from her. Above all, she couldn’t believe that she had repeated the same cycle she’d grown up in, neglect and abuse that leads to devastation. Vulnerable and eye-opening, this is the rarely heard perspective of a birth mom’s journey as she’s lost and fought to regain her children from foster care. 

Visit our website to read the story of another birth parent who fought for his daughter and the role one selfless family played in reuniting them. 

How do you see and respond to the birth parents who hurt a child you love? Author, speaker and foster mom, Jamie Finn, asks the big questions in this probing discussion of her own foster care journey. Jamie boldly digs into the root of what foster care is truly about, what makes it possible and why it’s worth it. Listen as she exposes the heart position necessary to love, lament and persevere like Christ.

Get Jamie's new book: ⁠Filled: 60 Devotions for the Foster Parent's Heart⁠

Connect with Jamie online:

fosterthefamilyblog.com

Facebook: @fosterthefamilyblog

Instagram: @fosterthefamilyblog

Foster care means constant decision-making, and how you approach those decisions makes all the difference, according to Corree Roofener. Foster mom and host of The Courage Coalition Podcast, Corree invites parents to name the beliefs and values that drive them. Getting to know yourself, she says, can help you identify ways to care for your own soul on this often-self-sacrificial journey. 

Follow Corree online @

Facebook: corree.roofener

Instagram: correeroofenercoach

Fostering teens can feel like a huge undertaking. After all, you only have so many years to prepare them to head out into the world. Right? Author and mom of 11 children, Beth Guckenberger, says wrong. In reality, there is no finish line for parents. Because “children aren’t projects to be finished but people to be healed.” Hear real stories of what it’s like to raise teens in foster care. 

To learn more about Beth and Back2Back Ministries, visit ⁠https://back2back.org/

Phill and Emily Christiansen have a message for those who are hesitant to step into foster care. “To be a Christ-follower is to say yes to the uncomfortable.” Pastor Phill and Emily discuss how foster care became their family’s mission. In this episode they discuss the combined difficulties and blessings of navigating sibling dynamics, birth families, loss and love.

To learn more about foster care, visit childbridgemontana.org/foster.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I just don’t like my child?” Co-author of “The Connected Parent,” Lisa Qualls, tackles the problem of blocked care – the breakdown in connection between a foster parent and a child in their care. In this episode, Lisa explains the brain science behind blocked care, removes the shame around it and lays out practical steps a parent can take to heal it.

Find Lisa online:

Instagram: @lisacqualls

Facebook: OneThankfulMom

Website: ⁠https://www.lisacqualls.com/⁠

Tori Hope Petersen struggled to make sense of the events that led her into foster care. After abuse and neglect tore her family apart, she bounced between 10 different foster homes before the age of 18. Tori Hope grappled with the idea of God as darkness closed in around her. But God was not done writing her story, and ultimately drew her to Himself through the faith of her last foster family. 

To learn more about Tori, visit her website at https://www.torihopepetersen.com/

To purchase Tori's book, Fostered, visit https://www.torihopepetersen.com/fosteredbook