Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption, Foster & Kinship Care

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Question: We are seriously considering becoming foster parents.  We have 2 children by birth, and I am really worried about how this will affect them and what I can do to prevent some of the negative effects.

Resources:

• The Impact of Fostering and Adoption on Kids Already in the Family (Resource)
• Talking with your Resident Kids about Foster Care or Kinship Care (Resource)
• What You Should Know About Disrupting Birth Order in Adoption & Foster Care

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Foster families are doing significant work to support both the children in their homes and the parents of those kids. What do they need to thrive in this work? We talk with Cathleen Bearse, a licensed therapist, foster mom, and the creator of Fearless Fostering. She supports foster and adoptive parents with practical tools, emotional guidance, and trauma-informed strategies with her real-life experiences and clinical expertise.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Your organization is called ‘Fearless Fostering’ – what does that mean to you right now in the work that you do with foster families every day?
• What makes fostering profoundly worth it in your life and in your family, even when it’s hard?
• What are some unexpected joys in fostering that people don’t hear about enough?
• When things feel heavy, how do you recommend resource parents reconnect with their ‘why’?
• What are the challenges that catch foster parents off guard the most?
• Where do you see foster parents becoming depleted or overwhelmed?
• What is often misunderstood about the emotional weight of fostering?
• How does isolation show up in foster parenting?
• How can fostering strain a household without the right support?
• What patterns have you seen in marriages or partnerships under stress?
• How does chronic stress show up in foster parents’ mental and physical health?
  • What early warning signs should families not ignore?
• If you could give every foster parent four supports, what would they be?
  • Community
  • Therapeutic Space
  • Permission to Unschedule
• Permission to Focus on “Just You”
• What does realistic self-care actually look like for foster parents?
• Where should foster parents begin if they realize they need more support?
• How can they pursue continuing education without becoming overwhelmed?
• What would you say to someone who wants to foster but fears they aren’t strong enough?
• What is one message you want every foster parent to hear today?
• Finally, what would a strengthened foster family look like five years from now if we truly supported them well?

Resources:

• Self-care for Foster Parents
• What is Respite Care and How Do I Access It?
• What Foster Parents Want You to Know About Fostering

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Question: I’m new to raising my grandchild and still learning about trauma. People keep saying it changes a child’s brain, but I don’t really understand what that means. What does trauma actually do to the brain, and how does that show up in behavior at home or school?

Resources:

• The Three Es: Understanding the Impacts of Trauma
• A Conversation with Dr. Bruce Perry About Trauma
• How Trauma Impacts a Child's Development
• Meeting Children Where They Are: The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Have you considered fostering? What might be holding you back? Join us for a conversation with Laura, the Foster Parent Partner, to explore what it takes to be ready to foster, what the licensing and placement process looks like, and how to navigate relationships with the child's birth parents while providing a safe place for the child to land. Laura is the author of First Time Fostering and brings awareness and advocacy for foster families to social media spaces.

In this episode, we talk about:

• How can someone tell if fostering might be the right step for them?
• What are some common misconceptions about foster parenting that you often hear from people who are just starting to explore it?
• What mindset shifts do people often need to make before stepping into foster parenting, especially around trauma and reunification?
• Once someone decides to move forward, what does the licensing process look like?
• What tends to surprise people about that process?
• How should families prepare the people already in their lives—a partner, kids in the home, or extended family—for fostering?
• What kind of support system do new foster parents need?
• How can they start building that before they get their first placement?
• When you're waiting for your first placement, what are some basics you should have ready in their home?
• What is it actually like to get that first placement call and welcome a child into your home?
• In those first hours and days, what are some practical ways foster parents can help a child feel safe and supported?
• It’s important to remember that reunification is the goal of foster care. What does co-parenting mean for foster parents? Why is it a crucial element of fostering?
• In foster care, children often still have relationships with their families, especially when reunification is still the goal. How can foster parents begin building a respectful relationship with a child’s parent?
• How can foster parents help facilitate connection or healing with the child’s parents?
• How do foster parents navigate the reality and emotions of a child leaving their home, for another placement, or for reunification?
• How should they support their resident children for that loss?
• What are some of the other hard realities of foster parenting that people should be prepared for?
• What would you want a newly licensed foster parent to know before they say yes to their first placement?
• What keeps you anchored in this work and committed to supporting others?

Resources:

• Becoming a Foster Parent
• What Foster Care Alumni Want You to Know
• 23 Crucial Questions to Ask at Foster Care Placement Meetings
• Welcoming an Older Child to Your Family

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Question: How do I delicately share information about my child’s birth parent with my child, when we know their biological parent has a long history of arrest? They are not a safe adult for my child to maintain a relationship with. Our family is struggling with how to balance the message that the adoption plan was made out of love for the child and not wanting to cast a negative message about the child’s birth parent, even though we know there is a history of some very violent acts. We want this child to know and understand why the birth parent is not part of their life.

Resources: 

• Talking with Young Children about Adoption and Birth Parents
• Using Lifebooks to Explain Complex Issues in Adoption to Kids
• Building the Framework for Adopted & Foster Children to Process the Hard Parts of Their Stories

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Join us for this interview with former NFL Running Back and Super Bowl Champion Ricky Watters. He is an adoptee, an adoptive dad, and author of a new children’s book on adoption, A Gift Called Shane.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How old were you when you learned you were adopted and how did you find out?
• When you discovered you were adopted, you mentioned in your NFL movie that it put a big chip on your shoulder. How has that chip served you well as an adoptive dad? 
• How has it been a detriment?
• Why did you decide to adopt?
• Why did you decide to adopt internationally?
• Did your experience with finding out late that you were adopted affect the way you discussed adoption with your son?
• Do you see any signs of a similar “chip” in your son that you had when you found out you were adopted? How do you help him navigate it for his own success?
• How did you prepare your biological son for the adoption of his brother? 
• How do you support your adopted son in his questions about identity, birth family, etc.?
• Are you in reunion with your biological family?
• How has your adoptive family handled your reunion with your birth family?
• How excited were you for fellow hometown boy Shady McCoy to get into the Eagles Hall of Fame?
• What was your experience with playing at Notre Dame? 

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Question: I’m an intern therapist working with kids involved in DHS and the foster system. Could you guys talk about what a kid in the system needs from therapy? Or like what helped them, what didn’t, what they needed in that space that their therapist didn’t provide?

Resources:

• Trauma-Informed Therapy: Finding the Right Fit for Your Family
• Therapists: Parents Should Be With Their Kids for Adoptive or Foster Therapy Sessions
• Finding an Adoption Competent Therapist

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Could you use a few new strategies to help your child improve misbehavior? Listen to this conversation with Dr. Casey Call, the Associate Director of Education at the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development at TCU and Associate Professor of Professional Practice in the TCU Department of Psychology. She will help us understand how to maintain connection while correcting challenging behaviors.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why and how should parents and caregivers work toward secure attachment with kids impacted by trauma? 
• What does it mean when we say we are rewiring the child’s brain for connection?
• What is the purpose of discipline? 
• How can parents and caregivers set a firm foundation of secure attachment if they also need to correct misbehavior or inappropriate behavior?
• Why do traditional or punishment-based disciplinary approaches not work for children impacted by trauma? 
• Why do kids impacted by trauma tend to respond better (meaning an improvement in behavior) to discipline that guides them to think about their choices and consequences?
• How can parents and caregivers maintain a safe, loving connection with firmness and kindness while still holding the goal of retraining a behavior?
• In this process, what does it mean to share our power?
• What is the “IDEAL” approach?
• What is a re-do? Why is it so powerful for re-training?
• What are a few practical ways that parents and caregivers can maintain attachment during these disciplinary or re-teaching processes?
• What are some of the common behaviors that drive parents crazy? 
• How can parents and caregivers maintain the intensity and pace of disciplining a child who has been impacted by trauma, without burning out?

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Question: My 2nd grader, adopted domestically, has some pretty big, hard behaviors, like tantrums, clingy whining, and difficulty cooperating or sharing. We know there was prenatal substance exposure. I feel stuck to help them with their big feelings and big behaviors — what do I do to help them day to day?

Resources:

• 5 Tips to Save Your Sanity While Raising Kids with Prenatal Substance Exposure
• Prenatal Exposure, Part 1: Parenting Babies Through Elementary Ages
• Tantrums, Meltdowns, Whining, Oh My! How to Parent Challenging Behaviors
• Free E-Guide: Navigating Challenging Behaviors - Practical Strategies for Families

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building

Drop us some Fan Mail. Thanks!

Join us for a conversation about why men in foster and kinship care matter - to the family unit, to the system, and most importantly, to the kids. Our guest is Tony Craddock, a Prevention Social Worker in Wake County, NC, with more than 25 years of experience supporting families. For the past decade, he has engaged kinship families and fathers through his co‑facilitation of the Kinship In Action Support Group.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What first drew you to working with families, and later to engaging fathers and kinship caregivers?
• Why is it so important that we intentionally engage and celebrate men — fathers, grandfathers, uncles, mentors — in foster and kinship care spaces?
• What positive differences have you seen in children’s lives when men are actively supported and involved in caregiving?
• What unique strengths do men bring to families in foster and kinship roles?
• What are some ways that normalizing men as caregivers helps not just families, but the larger community?
• What are some of the reasons you hear men sharing about their hesitation to step into these caregiving roles or to seek support when they take on such a role?
• Do you see common themes of how they describe their experiences of being welcomed — or not — into support spaces?
• What strategies have you found most effective for inviting and retaining men in support groups and similar caregiving networks?
• What role do their peers who are already plugged into their roles as caregivers play in encouraging or retaining engagement with newer father figures in your groups?
• What have you noticed in children’s emotional, behavioral, or developmental well-being when there’s consistent male involvement?
• How does having a balanced caregiving network, one that includes a multi-generational approach and welcomes both men and women, strengthen a family’s resilience?
• Who are the men — in your work or your life — who inspire you as caregivers and supporters?
• What advice would you give to a man who may already be a foster or kinship caregiver, but who also wants to step more intentionally into that role to make a difference for their child?
• If you could change one thing about how the system engages men in foster and kinship care, what would it be?
• Looking ahead, what gives you the most hope about supporting men in these spaces?
• What’s one message you’d like every listener — caregiver, professional, or community member — to walk away with today?

Resources

• Father Engagement Strategies
• The Vital Role of Men in Foster Care
• Finding Male Role Models for Kids of Single Moms
• Normalizing Men as Caregivers Helps Families and Society

Support the show

Please leave us a rating or review.  This podcast is produced by www.CreatingaFamily.org. We are a national non-profit with the mission to strengthen and inspire adoptive, foster & kinship parents and the professionals who support them.

Creating a Family brings you the following trauma-informed, expert-based content:

• Weekly podcasts
• Weekly articles/blog posts
• Resource pages on all aspects of family building