Fostering Voices Podcast

Gaelin Elmore is a young man who grew up in Illinois and Wisconsin, went to the University of Minnesota, and then signed with the Cincinnati Bengals. But in the midst of all that, were abusive years in foster care, and struggling with his family.  Tune in to hear all about Gaelin's journey. Special shout out to Ms Karen, and Ms Barbara, and the janitors, and other fantastic educators and workers at the Montessori school that Gaelin was able to go to. Educators and adults have such a wonderful opportunity to speak words of life into the lives of children who may be going through really hard and dark days! Something that made a giant impact on him, through the school, and all the amazing people that worked there, was that they saw the human in the individual. People didn't quite know what was going on behind the scenes, but they were so kind, and strict, and provided such a safe and healthy learning environment. Good Word of the Day "Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and pa

Arizona Association for Foster and Adoptive Parents (aka AZAFFAP) is a fantastic organization here in Arizona, that stands to create a community of support for foster and adoptive parents. They are for families, by families!  This interview is with the wonderful Kristi Sharp, the office administrator at AZAFFAP, and she is also a former foster parent. If you join AZAFFAP, Kristi will be your point of contact, and I am so thankful that she is so great at her job!  There are 2 levels of memberships - a basic one, which is FREE! And this membership comes with emails and resources to help you on your foster care journey. The next membership is $35 for a single adult, or $50 for a couple. This membership comes with extra perks that far exceed $50! Some of those perks include: - Annual Shoes Giveaway: Foster children, and any other children living in the home, are able to go to DSW or WSS to pick out a new pair of shoes! - Recycle Your Bicycle: Foster children, and any other children living in the home, are able to

This episode features an interview with JT and Ashley Pals, new parents to their precious son, Case. Case is also on the podcast, which is why there are baby noises every now and again. He is a bit more vocal in the beginning, but keep on listening as he is enthralled with his own story for most of the rest of the podcast! We like to give voice to all members of the family, whenever possible. :) So the Pals' journey to adopt started with their decision to adopt in 2017, after they babysat our sweet Evie for us a handful of times. Of course they had thought about it before, but the time finally felt right for them to move forward with this decision. Especially since they had waited for years to be able to have a family. The process was long, filled with paper work and hurrying up and waiting. It wasn't until June 2019 that they finally got a call that they had been matched with a family! They brought Case home after he was born in July, and had to wait 72 hours for the birth family to legally and officially si

Have you ever been under investigation as a foster family? We have! And we are here to share about it. Not the details of our investigation per se, but definitely what happened when we found out, and how it panned out. Listen to the episode to hear alllllll about it! So, we have been a foster family for over 5 years now. And we made the decision to only foster babies for several reasons. A big reason - they can't talk. We have A LOT of talkers in this house, and we didn't feel like we needed to hear more words. Also, we are afraid of things like THIS. Having allegations made up about us. Not to say that is something that definitely happens when you have older kids. But We only fostered babies and never had this. Then we started fostering older kids and BLAMO! Investigation. Our Investigation Story Last year we decided to take in older children - and 2 of them! And what a glorious decision that was. Unicorn and Mermaid have been great additions to our family, and we are thankful for them. But their mom

Jacob's Hope is an organization here in Arizona, that seeks to provide care, support, and education for newborns who have been substance exposed. It started from the hearts of Jo and Brian Jones, who adopted their son, Jacob, who was substance exposed. This week we had the pleasure of interviewing Jo, the president and co-founder of Jacob's Hope, as well as Syria Watson, the community relations liaison. Syria also happens to be our aunt, and Jo is also a great friend of hers, and Chris' grandmother and Jo's mom have been best friends for over 40 years! Small world! As foster parents, we can have our substance exposed children receive care and treatment at Jacob's Hope. You can call 480-398-7373. But the best thing for you to do is to take your baby to the pediatrician, or the hospital, to receive a diagnosis for your child.  To learn more about Jacob's Hope and their amazing team, and what they do, check out their website. Though they are currently not in need of volunteers to hold the babies, they are always

Episode 81 marks the first episode of Season 5, and we are so excited for a brand new season, featuring new episodes and new interviews! The biggest news from our off season is that we acquired a Podcast Sponsor! We are so very thankful for Showit for walking alongside our podcast, and foster care journey, and supporting us! Showit is a premier website builder for photographers. Although admittedly- anyone who needs a website can benefit from the beautiful designs, and mobile-responsive layout of all Showit sites. Our website is powered by Showit! And one of our sweet co-workers at Showit - Josh Ahles, worked on some backend stuff on our site, so we are thankful that it is working better than before! So if you are looking for a website, check out Showit! If you need someone to help you with it, hit up Josh! We also know a ton of other website designers, so seriously, reach out if this is something you are interested in. This episode talks about our 6 week break from the podcast, where we got to relax, and res

Today is Chris' 40th birthday! And that's why we are releasing episode 80 on a Thursday, instead of a Saturday morning! We actually had a really hard time getting this episode up, so we are just counting our blessings that this is finally happening. This week we recap this AhMazing year that we had, and leave you with words of encouragement for the year ahead! Some of our highlights include our 2 former foster placements getting adopted (getting ready to be adopted). And all the fun travel we were able to squeeze into the year (Thailand as a family of 6 was a big one! You can hear more about it on this episode ). And a big one that we haven't mentioned before, is that Chris has just led our family so beautifully and so powerfully this year. He actually donated his kidney last month, to a man who had been on dialysis for the last 14 months. We did not know that 20 people a day die while waiting for an organ transplant. And there are over 113,000 people waiting for an organ donation in the US. You can read more

Thanksgiving has come and gone, but we are truly in the thick of the holidays! We get this season can be SO STRESSFUL for so many people, but it doesn't have to be that way if we can plan appropriately (or as much as possible.) Don't forget to create some margin for your family! It's easy to get wrapped up in all of the holiday parties and events, but don't forget to intentionally make time to be home, have dinner as a family, and REST. This is good for you as the parent, but also good for your kids! It is also important to Over-Communicate with your kids! Tell them what is happening today, tomorrow, and what things are expected of them. Whether that's dress code, food choices, people they are going to encounter, etc. Episodes 38 and 39 feature Christie Priem, a speech-language pathologist, and even though we spoke primarily on detecting developmental delays in children, she also gave so many great tips on avoiding, and dealing with behaviors in all children. So those episodes are definitely worth a listen if

This week's episode talks about national adoption month and thanksgiving! National Adoption Month and Day! November 23rd 2019 is National Adoption Day, which is so exciting as we know this is a huge day for families who are adopting children out of foster care! And National Adoption Month was created to promote adoption via foster care.  We are thankful for all the families that we know who have adopted - whether locally or internationally. Adoption is a multi-faceted and emotionally-charged topic, but when done with grace and humility, that's when the adoption triad can really thrive! Adoption Triad We have spoken about the adoption triad in passing several times, and it involves the Adoptee (person who was adopted), the Bio family, and the Adoptive family. When each side of the triangle is strong, and willing to do what is best for the adoptee, the triangle can be successful! Name Change? In this episode, we also touched on whether or not adoptive families have changed their adopted children's given names.

Hey friends! Welcome back for another episode of the Fostering Voices podcast. This week we were late putting up this episode as we normally put them out on Saturday mornings before 9am. BUT, we did a keynote presentation at the Foster Arizona annual Gala, and that was on Saturday night, so we chose to release this episode a little later. Word to the wise: we are actually really robotic sounding in this, and I can very safely say that we did not sound that was when we actually presented it! There were lots of tears, and lots of award laughter. An all around success... :) There are technically 2 good words of the day in this episode: The Good Word of the Day #1: "Optimism for me isn't a passive expectation that things will get better; it's a conviction that we can make things better – that whatever suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don't lose hope and we don't look away." -Bill Gates #2: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may

This week's episode is brought to you straight from the Showit United conference, on our very short lunch break! I met Devin and Kathryn Robinson last year at this conference for photographers, and have had the pleasure of watching their journey from afar via Instagram. The Robinsons have been married for 7 years, full-time professional photographers for 4 years, and run an amazingly beautiful business called Anchor & Veil. They have been fostering for 7 months now, and have an 8 year old, 2 year old, and a 1 year old. They share very candidly, the highs and lows of their foster care journey. Big thanks to:  - ProLink Fence in North Carolina for providing the Robinsons with an INCREDIBLE new fence for their house.  - Children's Home Society is the agency that the Robinsons are licensed through, and they are so thankful for them. - Big shout out to Hickory Grove Baptist Church for their kindness and care for the Robinsons! Everyone can play a role in foster care, and we are thankful for the role all of the

This week's episode is dedicated to the books we've read this year. We made goals to read more books this year, and we did! Jihae has a goal of 19 for 2019, and Chris has already surpassed that, and Jihae just has 1 more to go. We apologize in advance for the audio issues. Not sure what happened, but it doesn't sound great, and we are sorry about that! 74 episodes in and we still aren't audio/technical wizards. We are actually replacing the original audio file, so if you listened to it before Friday the 8th of November, then you got the super crummy version of this episode. We are working on all these things! So, here is Chris' list of books that he read. The asterisk denotes that Jihae also read that book: Chris' books from 2019: 1- For Men Only- Jeff Feldhaun * 2 Team of Teams- General Stan McChrystal 3- Millionaire Next Door- Thomas J Stanley 4- Everyday millionaire - Chris Hogan (We mentioned "Thou Shalt Prosper" by Daniel Lapin, a great book we both read last year.) 5- You Can’t Make This Up- by Kevin Ha

This week's episode features our girl, Cate, who has been living with us for over a year! You can hear Cate's story on Episode 23, where she shares with the rough start that she had in life. Basic synopsis: Cate's parents dropped her and her 3 siblings off at her uncle's house, and never came back.  But Cate is a fighter, a hard worker, a grace-receiver and grace-giver, and she is not a victim of her circumstances, and she also happens to love mopping and sweeping, so she is basically the best person alive. Tune in to hear more about this gem of a human. The Good Word of the Day 12 Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. 13 Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. 14 And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, 

We start off this episode with an apology and clarification! In episode 70, we talked about court, FCRBs, and TDMs. We completely forgot about CFTs! We have only been to one CFT and one TDM, and they were both for our 4th placement, and we just lumped them together. SO our apologies for our mistake, and thanks to Grace Sharp and Kristen Friend for lovingly pointing that out.  A CFT is a Child Family Team meeting. It usually happens near the beginning of a case, and it's purpose is to have all the team members discuss the family's strengths, needs, and problems. There is supposed to be discussion about how everyone will play a role in the lives of the children. We didn't get a lot out of our meeting, except that we were able to see some of the other team members (case workers, social workers), and also hear from other members on the phone (parents).  A TDM is a Team Decision-Making Meeting, and they are held for all decisions involving a child's removal, change of placement and permanency plan. The one we went

You may remember Maggie from Episode 33. She is the crazy lady who likes to just be surrounded by cute baby boys! Well, here we are, a year and a half later - and Maggie is still surrounded by cute baby boys! And in this year and a half, Maggie has grown a baby in her uterus, then a month before having this baby, she reunified her foster baby, Baby A, with his biological family, and had her final bio baby, and has gone to grief counseling to work through the hard parts of fostering! She shares 3 great tools she has learned in her grief journey: 1. Document document document. Have official statements in emails, CC your significant other on those emails, choose wise times to discuss together - but don't let that dominate your marriage and world. 2. Journal! Whether it's a document on your computer, or even in an email to yourself, or on paper with pen or pencil! Writing your thoughts and feelings can be very healing! 3. Boundaries. They are so simple yet so important. We had a podcast episode (40) talking about

Court in foster care can seem like a scary, gigantic ordeal. But it isn't, especially when you realize how little say that foster parents have in their foster child's court case.  This episode goes through our 5 years of court cases - which pretty much means nothing to you - since court is so different for everyone! But what you basically need to know is this- if you can go, THEN GO! Even if you don't have a chance to speak, you usually learn more about the case, and about the children you are caring for. This is also a great opportunity to meet the bio family, and possibly forge a relationship with them. FCRBs, aka Foster Care Review Boards, are an opportunity for foster parents to make a statement in front of a board of volunteers who work hard to get official statements in front of a judge. There is some debate whether these are given much weight or not, but that may depend on the judge. When given an opportunity to advocate for your foster child, we say to take it. We thought FCRBs were just for foster p

This week we talk about a marriage conference we went to earlier this year.  We talk about punching our sharks in the face, whether our sharks are shame, as Kara talked about in episode 66. Or maybe your shark is negativity, or hopelessness. Whatever it is - identify it, and beat it! We also learned about 'the edge effect' which happens in ecosystems where two edges meet each other: like water and land (aka beaches), or forest and desert. Or in marriage when one person joins another, or in foster care, where one family is joined by kids they don't know. The result can be messy, and chaotic, but also brimming with life and adventure! The Good Word of the Day: "so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of Go

This week's episode hits on a ton of different topics, as we interview Kristen Friend, a foster mom of a little over a year. In the intro though, we did get to hear from Chris, and he and Jihae shared their Highs and Lows. Having 9 people in the house is definitely starting to wear on everyone - but as we continue to have open conversations, and tweak what is working - and what is not, we are continuing to do well! We did mention this great meme about 'Fairnesss': A great visual to remember what we are trying to provide for every human in our house! WE just definitely do not have it figured out. But on to the interview! Kristen, and her husband Houston, are the Friends! That is their actual last name. They have been married for 7 years, and have been fostering a little over a year. They are currently with their 3rd placement.  We did hit on a vulnerable topic - and that is Infertility and Foster Care and what that has looked like for Kristen. Many people make assumptions that they are fostering so they can a

This week's episode continues our conversation on how to really connect with your child. Some food for thought: study your child(ren), and don't take everything they do so personally!! Good word of the Day: Shout for joy, you heavens;     rejoice, you earth;     burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts his people     and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. Isaiah 49:13 God has compassion on us, and we are to have compassion on others. Esther Wojcicki wrote this great article, talking about the importance of teaching our kids compassion. She had this great quote: "Kids are growing up feeling like they’re the center of the universe. As young adults, they’re not only lacking grit and independence; they’re wholly unprepared to take on causes that could make the world a better place." So let's all work at raising compassionate youth! If you want to connect on Social Media: Jihae Watson on Facebook Chris Watson on Facebook Fostering Voices on Instagram Jihae Watson on Instagram You can also ema

This week's episode features an interview with Kara Lackey, who with her husband, Jason, created the Know and Love Quiz! This quiz is a FREE resource for families to get to know and love their kids better, and to meet each child's unique needs. Although they started off on this journey to help themselves as parents, they instantly saw how great this would be for foster families, who may not know the history of the children who come into their homes - but they can still learn how to best speak to these kids' hearts. Know and Love Visit knowandlove.com to do a free assessment of your kids and their unique personalities! This website is full of amazing resources to help you understand the different ways that your children are wired, and how you can talk to them, and interact with them, in a way that they feel known and loved! This is a resource that is designed to help parents feel like they have some tools in their "emotional first aid kits" to help them understand their kids better. We as parents often,