Support our podcast and listen with a purpose! - https://theforgotteninitiative.org/team310/ Did you know that May is National Foster Care Awareness Month? To help raise awareness of this community that we love so dearly, things are looking a little different this month on the podcast. Every week this month, we are highlighting stories from each perspective of the foster care community—agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children—because every member of the foster care community matters and has a story to tell.

In this episode, I am joined by Tiffany Shaw. Tiffany is a biological parent whose three children entered foster care after she was reported to the Department of Children and Family Services as a result of drug addiction. Today, she graciously shares with us the difficult circumstances that led to her relapse and homelessness, as well as the significant relationship that led to her recovery from drugs and reunification with her children. Tiffany’s story is full of redemption, and I am so grateful for her willingness to join me for this conversation.

https://theforgotteninitiative.org/team310

Did you know that May is National Foster Care Awareness Month? To help raise awareness of this community that we love so dearly, things are looking a little different this month on the podcast. Every week this month, we are highlighting stories from each perspective of the foster care community—agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children—because every member of the foster care community matters and has a story to tell.

In this episode, I’m talking with Jessica Mathisen. In addition to being a foster parent, she is an author and the Executive Director of Restoration Women, an organization that equips women in Athens, GA with life and job skills to empower them to walk in freedom and bring restoration to their homes and community. Today, Jessica openly shares about her fostering journey, how she’s learned to navigate fear and insecurity, how she finds the strength to face each day as a foster parent, the immeasurable value she has found in community, and more. I loved this episode and hope it’s an encouragement to you!

Today, I’m talking with Delaney Burns, who is an agency worker. Delaney grew up in a home where her parents fostered, which solidified her interest in becoming a foster care caseworker. In this episode, she shares openly about the hardest parts of her job, what a day in her life looks like, what she’s been learning through navigating hard situations, and the hope she holds on to through it all.

https://theforgotteninitiative.org/team310/ 

For so many in the foster care community, the passion for foster care or adoption started through awareness at an early age. This is the story for Jessie Barnes. While other teenagers were searching for music videos, she was searching for adoption stories and begging her parents to consider adoption, leading her mom to suggest she take licensing classes (as a high schooler!) to learn about foster care as well. When Jessie grew up and had a family of her own, she became a foster parent herself, and is now a TFI Advocate launching a foster care ministry in Dubuque, Iowa.

In today’s episode, Jessie shares how God placed the passion for foster care in her heart, how her involvement has shifted with each season of life, her journey of battling feelings of inadequacy, what her experience has been like in partnering with TFI, and how she is learning to live with God-confidence. Jessie has such a beautiful heart for this work, and you don’t want to miss this one!

(P.S. Applications to become a TFI Advocate are officially OPEN in the month of April! Apply today!)

Foster care is hard, and it can often feel confusing. It can be even more confusing when you’re rooting for reunification, and alternative outcomes you weren’t prepared for are pursued.

Dorothy Mendoza and her husband, Chris, began fostering because they wanted to see children reunified with their biological parents. In their first 3 years as foster parents, they fostered 9 children, and only one of those cases ended in reunification, while the others ended in an alternative outcome (not reunification or adoption by the foster parents). This was a surprise to them that brought its own challenging emotions and difficult choices. In today’s episode, Dorothy and I talk about what some alternative outcomes are, how to navigate hard transitions and goodbyes in foster care, why we should run towards brokenness, and much more. I hope this episode is an encouragement to you!

Jamie Finn is back on the podcast this week! On top of being a foster parent, Jamie is the host of the Real Mom Podcast, co-founder of Goods & Better, and the director of Foster the Family. Most recently, Jamie authored Foster the Family: Encouragement, Hope, and Practical Help for the Christian Foster Parent, which covers the rewards and challenges in foster care that can leave you feeling depleted, alone, and discouraged. In this episode, we talk with Jamie about the process of writing her new book, the ins and outs of being a foster parent, how God has been continuing to grow her personally, the right motivation for self-care, and how we can still trust God when the brokenness of the system feels heavy.

With 20,000 teens aging out of the foster care system each year and many of them unprepared to navigate adult life, this is a real crisis. The need for families who are passionate about teen foster children is great. In today’s episode, we are talking with Peter Amico. Peter and his wife are foster parents who are passionate about finding families that are willing to show up for teens in the foster care system. Peter and I talk about the unique challenges teens in foster care face, the most important thing you can do when caring for teens in foster care, an exhortation to the Church, and much more. I know you’ll find today’s episode challenging and filled with so much truth.

If you are part of the foster care community, you likely have seen the impact trauma has on a child. It can affect how a child learns, their ability to feel safe, how they view the world, and even cause them to question who they are. In this episode, we are joined by Tina Bauer. Tina was a former foster youth who was adopted at the age of four along with her biological brother and has spent a lifetime sorting through the trauma in her past. Now, she is a proud college graduate, third-grade teacher, and has been married for over two years.

In today’s episode, Tina graciously shares her story with us, how her adoptive parents gently helped her navigate her past, advice for foster and adoptive parents, and more. Tina is an incredible woman, and I am so grateful to be sharing her story with you today.

Today I have a story of abundant resilience and defiant hope to share with you. In this episode we get to hear from Sandhya Oaks, a Transracial Adoptee adopted from India at the age of one. When she turned 18 years old, after years of experiencing trauma, Sandhya was disowned by her adoptive family. As she has intentionally worked on healing from the past of being an orphan for the first year of her life and from the pain her adoptive family brought, Sandhya has learned the importance of addressing the pain of the past and redeeming her perspective of forgiveness. This episode is powerful, and we are so grateful to Sandhya for sharing her story and being open about her journey of healing.

Brandon and Cherith Craft are no strangers to doing hard things. In fact, it is such a part of who they are that they put it in their family mantra: “We’re Crafts. We do hard things and we try new things.” But when God nudged them to start foster care nearly 10 years ago, their initial response was, We don’t think we can do this right now. Several years later, God would prompt them again to foster and this time their answer would change. Through fostering five children in five years and becoming TFI Advocates in Baton Rouge, LA, they’ve learned to do the hard things, rely on God, and listen to what their family needs in every season. I know their story will be an encouragement to you today!