Let’s unpack the U.S. foster care system as we know it. Child welfare and public policy historian Catherine E. Rymph provides a lesson on the origins of foster care and its evolution into the complex system that it is today. Child welfare systems change leader Sixto Cancel shares about his personal experiences of racism and abuse while in foster care that led him to found Think of Us. How did poverty and neglect–the pretense for most foster care referrals–become conflated? What would happen if we provided families in need with resources instead of reporting them? 

Interviewer: Angela James, Senior Project Scientist, UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools

Guest speakers:

• Catherine E. Rymph, author of Raising Government Children: A History of Foster Care and the American Welfare State; Dean, University of Missouri Honors College
• Sixto Cancel, CEO & Founder, Think of Us 

Among Us is a podcast by the UCLA Center for the Transformation of Schools. Geneva Sum is the host and Creative Director. Angela James is the Interviewer. Elizabeth Windom is the Supervising Producer. Julia Windom is the Editor. Caitlyn McAloon is the Production Coordinator. J Woodward is the Senior Producer. Among Us is produced by Windhaven Productions and Bluejay Atlantic.

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Show Notes:

• Social Security Act of 1935
• ADC (Aid to Dependent Children)
• AFDC Foster Care (Aid to Families with Dependent Children) 1962 reform
• The Stuart Foundation
• The Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Thriving Families, Safer Children initiative
• A Foster Care System Where Every Child Has a Loving Home | Sixto Cancel | TED 
• Kinship Care
• The Family First Prevention Services Act
• A Second Chance, Inc.

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