The Imprint Weekly

In this deeply personal episode of InnerViews, host Ivory Bennett welcomes back Dr. Alison Davis for an honest conversation about single motherhood, parenting children who have experienced trauma, and the village so many families are searching for. Together, they explore matrescence, caregiver well-being, emotional safety, and the realities of raising children while navigating healing of your own....

On this week’s episode we are joined by Wendy Smith, author of the new book "Before Their Crimes: What We're Misunderstanding About Child Trauma, Youth Crime, and the Path to Healing." Smith, who is a veteran psychotherapist and former professor and dean at the University of Southern California School of Social Work, talked about the visit to one of California’s prisons that sparked...

On this month’s Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we start by discussing a new announcement by the First Lady enabling states to start and contribute to Trump Accounts for kids in foster care. We also discuss a new bill that would significantly alter a major federal welfare program, new research on child brain development, and several other headlines.  Reading Room Melania Trump Urg...

On this week’s podcast we talk to Anthony Pierro, executive director of Strategies for Youth (SFY), a national policy and training organization dedicated to improving interactions between law enforcement and youth. Pierro took the helm at SFY last year from its founder, Lisa Thurau. We talked about Pierro’s career as a juvenile prosecutor on the New Jersey shore, and how that informed his approach...

On today’s episode we are joined by David Muhammad, founder and executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. We talked to Muhammad about “high risk, hard to reach youth,” which is a term he and fellow justice reformer Vinny Schiraldi have coined to describe the relatively small group of youth they believe should be the focus of the next phase of youth justice reform. T...

In this powerful episode of InnerViews , Ivory Bennett sits down with author, musician, and creative visionary Qpidluv for a deeply honest conversation about foster care, masculinity, identity, and healing through storytelling. From entering foster care as an infant to creating The Safe Home Chronicles and the Forever Home Project , Qpidluv reflects on survival, imagination, and the search for bel...

On this week’s Headlines edition of the podcast, we discuss the latest on the Trump administration’s A Home for Every Child initiative and some child welfare bills moving in Congress. We also discuss The Imprint’s recent reporting on parental relinquishments, a law in Oklahoma prompted by a child fentanyl death, foster youth and chronic absenteeism, and more.  Thanks to iFoster for sponsoring this...

In 2021, Christopher Baker-Scott joined The Imprint Weekly Podcast to talk about Sun Scholars, a new nonprofit he started to help support Connecticut foster youth on college campuses. Unlike many school-based approaches around the country, Sun Scholars is a centrally located organization serving youth on a number of campuses around the state.  Five years later, Baker-Scott joined us to talk about...

On this week’s episode, we were joined by Sixto Cancel, founder and CEO of Think of Us, and Sharon McDaniel, founder and CEO of A Second Chance. We talked first about their relatively new joint venture between the two organizations called Fashion Forward Kinspire, which is entering its second year of helping expose youth in kinship or foster care to the world of fashion culminating with a trip to...

In this episode of InnerViews , Ivory Bennett sits down with Nesta N. Johnson to explore what it means to reach an “It Gets Better” era after surviving systems and trauma. Together, they unpack the slow, nonlinear journey toward healing, the power of storytelling as both release and responsibility, and what it means to hold hope for the next generation. This conversation is honest, grounding, and...

Alex Adams, assistant secretary in charge of the Administration for Children and Families, joined the podcast last year to discuss his background and the child welfare goals for President Trump’s second term.  This week he returned to discuss his first six months on the job. We discussed the early going of the A Home for Every Child initiative, his decision to rescind the “designated placement” ru...

On this week’s episode, The Imprint’s Nancy Marie Spears sits down with reporter Suzette Brewer to discuss her recent two-part series on the tragic past and promising future of birth justice for the Native American community. The series examines the use of sterilization on Indigenous women, a practice many believe was intended to facilitate the dying out of tribes, and the more recent efforts to b...

In this episode of InnerViews , Ivory speaks with Tishon Sudlow and Sarah Robinson about youth voice, credible messengers, and community-led change in Brooklyn. Through artivism and coalition-building, they explore how young people transform lived experience into advocacy, healing, and action. This conversation highlights the power of storytelling as both resistance and restoration.

On this week’s episode we are joined by Marc Schindler of Georgetown’s Center for Youth Justice, to discuss the Forgotten Children’s Initiative, which was born of research that he led about the history of the Maryland House of Reformation & Instruction for Colored Children between 1877-1939. As part of that research, it was discovered that more than 300 children are buried in an unmarked cemet...

On this week’s episode we start by discussing the new update to Who Cares, which is The Imprint’s project on foster care capacity data around the country, and how it connects to the Trump administration’s central child welfare goal for the president’s second term. We also review some recent Trump administration actions related to LGBTQ youth in foster care, and what some recent research on juvenil...

On this week’s episode we talk to Naomi Goldstein, who for nearly two decades led the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). We discussed the way that the federal government decides what to research and how it gets the job done. And why she thinks the Trump administration’s recent decision to decentralize research at ACF is a mistake.  Na...

On this week’s episode we talk to Marsha Levick, co-founder of the Juvenile Law Center, who stepped down last year after serving for decades as the organization’s chief legal officer. We discussed the origins of the center and how it survived, how to write a good amicus brief, the Kids for Cash scandal and more.  Marsha Levick is a co-founder and former chief legal officer for the Juvenile Law Cen...

InnerViews is trying something new. In this special episode, we bring you the audio from Youth Voices Rising’s powerful webinar, Love Shouldn’t Hurt . Panelists with lived child welfare experience reflect on how trauma, housing instability, and system involvement can shape beliefs about love and safety. This honest conversation explores survival-based relationships, healing, and what it takes to b...

On this Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we start with a discussion of three medication-assisted treatments for substance use that the Trump administration has cleared for federal child welfare funding. Also discussed on this episode: new national data on abuse and neglect investigations, Georgia’s budget woes, and two alarming indicators of the workforce crisis in youth justice. ...

On this week’s episode we talk to Don Wells, the Chief Empowerment Officer at Just In Time, which is a San Diego based organization working to support and mentor older foster youth on their path to adulthood.  President Trump signed an executive order on foster care at the end of 2025 which instructed his Department of Health and Human Services on some priorities for federal policy around improved...

In this restorative Season 3 premiere of InnerViews, host Ivory Bennett reunites with Dr. Alison Davis for a soulful conversation on renewal, emotional safety, and intentional becoming. Together, they reflect on the lessons of the past season, explore what no longer serves them, and name what deserves to be carried forward. This episode invites listeners to pause, breathe, and consider how healing...

Last week, the Baltimore Sun’s Jean Marbella reported on a lawsuit filed on behalf of youth in the state’s foster care system who had been left in hospital wards with no plan for a return to the community.  While the lawsuit focuses on events in the past two years, this has been a problem for far longer than that in Maryland. In 2022, we were joined by Erin Dorrien and Carrie Etheridge to discuss...

In our first podcast of 2026, we discuss new data on the administration’s goal of A Home for Every Child, a new leader for the U.S. Children’s Bureau, Trump’s freezing of safety net funds in five states, and more.  Reading Room Why We Are Putting the PIP on a PIP  https://imprintnews.org/opinion/why-we-are-putting-the-pip-on-a-pip/269784 How States Stack Up on Trump’s “A Home for Every Child” Agen...

As always, we were fortunate to have some amazing guests join us this year on The Imprint Weekly Podcast. In this episode we feature clips of 12 great interviews from 2025.  If you enjoy this podcast, or the great work our reporters do at The Imprint and Fostering Families Today, and the work that our Youth Voices Rising team does, please consider making a donation. And if you do so this month, du...

We will post our annual “Best of The Imprint Weekly Podcast” show next, but this is the last new episode of 2025. Frequent guest Marina Nitze, a child welfare and tech expert, joined to discuss the flurry of federal activity on child welfare since the end of the federal shutdown.  Marina Nitze is a crisis engineer helping organizations solve mission-critical challenges, with a particular focus on...