The Imprint Weekly

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...

On this week's episode, Imprint reporter Michael Fitzgerald was in Washington last week to interview Alex Adams, who was confirmed in October to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Family Support at the Administration for Children and Families. Fitzgerald asked Adams about a wide range of subjects. They discussed the administration’s goal of “A Home for Every Child” and how Adams plans to ac...

On this week’s podcast Maddy Day of Maddy Day and Associates joins to talk about what it takes to provide stability on college campuses for youth who have experienced aging out of foster care, homelessness or both. She is helping to coordinate a Congressional briefing planned for 2026 on the subject.  It’s Newsmatch season! Please consider donating to support this podcast and the incredible work t...

President Trump’s White House event announcing an executive order on foster care got a lot of attention. But it is not the only indicator of what the administration might have in mind for policy making in child welfare during his second term. We dive into the specifics of the executive order and several other interesting announcements from Trump’s team, then step back and try to describe the big p...

In this powerful season finale, Ivory reflects on a transformative year—motherhood through kinship adoption, buying her first home, navigating love, and preparing for preventive surgeries after testing BRCA2+. Joined by spiritual healer and author Lorna J. Hines, she explores faith, ancestry, and healing beyond appearance. This conversation offers gentle truth: you can struggle and still be sacred...

Barry Cooper is founder of the BRO Experience, a Brooklyn-based organization that uses cognitive behavioral therapy at the center of its approach to mental health support for young men of color. He is among this year’s winners of the David Prize, which each year goes to five New Yorkers with an extraordinary idea for change. Cooper joined us to discuss his own adolescence growing up in the Bedford...

On today’s episode we discuss some of the recent Imprint reporting on how the federal shutdown is impacting youth and family programs like food stamps and Head Start, and one state where the shutdown has prompted gatekeeping of child welfare services. We also review the child welfare priorities hinted at in a  Journalist and author Nell Bernstein joins to discuss her new book In Our Future We Are...

Latonia Rolbiecki, a Minnesota mother of three, died last month at the age of 48. Several years ago, Rolbiecki was the subject of an Imprint series about her fight to adopt her grandson after he was taken into foster care at birth.  Rolbiecki lost that legal battle, and her grandson was adopted by non-relative foster parents.  On this week’s episode we reflect back on the series, “Latonia vs. Chis...

In this episode of InnerViews , Ivory sits down with Realtor Joy Hill and Mortgage Banker David McGowan to discuss her journey to becoming a first-time homeowner—while navigating adversity, foster care advocacy, and single motherhood. Together, they unpack the realities of accessible homeownership, financial literacy, and breaking generational cycles. This episode is both informative and deeply pe...

On this week’s episode we present the second part of our career-spanning interview with Vinny Schiraldi, currently a visiting fellow with the Pinkerton Foundation. In part one we talked with Schiraldi about his formative years in youth justice and his first job leading a government agency.  We start part two with a job Schiraldi actually didn’t get: leading the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delin...

On this week’s episode we begin a two-part in-depth interview with Vinny Schiraldi, a firebrand for justice reform whose career has included leadership on alternatives to incarceration, advocacy, and government leadership. In part one we talk to Schiraldi, now a fellow with the Pinkerton Foundation, about his own formative impressions of the justice system as an adolescent growing up in Brooklyn....

On this week’s Headlines edition of Imprint Weekly Podcast, we discuss the implications of the government shutdown, the newest federal data on foster care, and promising research on home visiting programs. We also talk about recent headlines about the rollback of youth justice laws in D.C., chronic absenteeism in Georgia, and a college president looking to make his campus more supportive of foster...