Bonus Babies

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with foster care alum America Gutierrez.  America  is a passionate advocate for mental health, firmly guided by the belief that our voices are our most potent tools. With unwavering determination, she fearlessly shares her personal journey, notably her harrowing experiences within the foster care system. Through her advocacy efforts, she aims to illuminate crit...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with former foster youth and now child advocate Georgette Todd.  Georgette is a speaker, author, and a foster care and child abuse prevention advocate. Georgette spent her teenage years bouncing around from home to home in the broken foster care system before she emancipated at age 18, with no safety net or anyone to depend on. Through sheer determination, Geor...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with child advocate and mentor Ron Jenkins. Ron is a former foster youth who along with his siblings was placed in foster care after his mother died of cancer when he was two years old. He bounced around in foster care for several years until he  was adopted by a friend of his mom, but that didn't turn out well for any of the kids in that home. His foster...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with Dr. Lorry Leigh Belhumeur,   a renowned leader in the field of mental health and wellness, with over 30 years of experience serving children and their families. Dr. Lorry’s unwavering commitment to empowering young individuals and the adults who care for them, along with her exceptional leadership skills, has positioned her as a highly respected figure in...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with advocate Paul L. Freese, Jr. Paul has worked as a public interest attorney for more than 25 years and provides consulting on holistic innovations and solutions to poverty, with special focus upon traumatized populations.   He specializes in strategic project development to achieve upstream early intervention impact.  He has devoted his career to humanizing...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with creative and foster care alumni Jeremy Buchanan. Jeremy  was raised in Illinois, Georgia, and California. He moved around a lot as a kid and attended more elementary schools than he can even count. He was first placed in foster care as a young boy and then again as a teenager when he became a "runner" as he says. Not one of his many foster homes...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with Reverand Barbara Lane.  Rev. Lane is the  author of "Broken Water: An Extraordinary True Story." Barbara is the ninth of eleven sisters, abandoned by their birth parents, who were all placed in St. Dominic’s Orphanage in St. Louis, then eventually separated into different homes and finally reunited 43 years later. Her book tells the powerful true...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with Charity Chandler-Cole . Charity is an author, scholar and activist and "... the CEO of CASA of Los Angeles, Court Appointed Special Advocates for youth impacted by the Foster Care and Juvenile Justice Systems. Born and raised in Los Angeles and having harshly endured its child welfare and juvenile justice systems, she has spent over a decade helping t...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with award-winning musician and adoptee Mike Wiskar. Mike is a Leo-nominated composer, songwriter, independent music producer, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist. He was also adopted as a baby and raised in a caring home by a family who loved him very much. Even so, he longed to know his birth family and finally met his bio mom and his extended family only rec...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with adoptive dad to one and foster dad to many Peter Mutabazi. "As a child I ran away from an abusive home and was helped by the kindness of strangers. As an adult I found myself in a position of being able to help foster children, so I began taking children into my home years ago to give back what was so freely given to me. It's my mission to give b...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with foster care alumnus Steve Pemberton. Steve is a best selling author, philanthropist, businessman and acclaimed speaker. Steve's "story is about defying seemingly insurmountable odds to become a trail-blazing corporate executive, enlightened diversity leader, visionary youth advocate, and acclaimed speaker. His best-selling memoir, A Chance in the...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with Dr. Noah Nash . Noah is a foster care alumnus from very early childhood, as well as an educator and creative web designer-developer who is amplifying stories, products and projects with people, for people — as he says. His portfolio includes work in international children's rights, emerging technologies, social impact and philanthropy. Noah's eth...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with Jacqueline Robles , a former foster youth, and a relentless determined powerhouse of a young woman who aged out of the system and made her own way... jumping through hoop after hoop with the hoops always changing and ever higher. Identifying as both Indigenous and Latina, Jacqueline is set on a career to “level the playing field” for communities of color....

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with foster care alumnus and abolitionist, Regina Louise. Regina is a sought-after speaker, teacher, coach, and author. Recently she was the recipient of the prestigious Christopher Award, given to producers for stories that “affirm the human spirit.” In 2019 she received the Jordan Award for service in transforming foster care through advocacy and the arts; th...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with artist and foster sibling, Elle Fox. Elle, a high school student, has been sketching for as long as she can remember. Growing up in a family that fostered children, Elle draws on her experience of life, love, and loss while sharing her heart and home for a period of time with numerous babies and children. As an author, illustrator, and entrepreneur, Elle l...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with former foster youth, Adisa. Adisa compares himself to a lion cub who had to fight for survival all his young life against the bigger badder lions all so hungry and looking to feed.  Born in Long Beach to a single mom who was declared unfit to raise her children, he grew up on the streets of Los Angeles. Adisa and his siblings were removed from her and plac...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia talks with therapist Dr. Mimi Savage . In this episode Mimi describes her upbringing: "My parents are not who I am. My mother's a white woman, my father's a black man. I am born of the two of them, a melange, a mixture. But I had to find my way. And it's not just about race. As I say this to your listeners, everyone needs to find their way. And it&...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with foster and adoptive mom, Jennifer Stern. Jennifer and her husband decided to become a foster family after realizing their dinner table was too quiet and knowing they had space in their home and hearts to welcome more children. They wanted to foster after learning how great the need is for foster families who can provide a safe and loving home for children...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with Kendra Lukens. In her words:  “ My name is Kendra, I spent my entire life going in and out of the foster system after the death of my father in 2012. This started a spiral of abusive homes, and losing hope in a lot of people. After recently aging out at 18, I started a podcast of my own, HEAR US YELL, where I’m able to bring more people together through a...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with Emi Nietfeld . Emi is the author of the memoir Acceptance, published by Penguin Press. A former foster youth, she graduated from Harvard in 2015 and worked as a software engineer at Google and Facebook. Her work has appeared in The New York Times , Vice , and Slate , been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and noted in The Best American Essays . She lives i...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with Breyon Johnson. Breyon is a former foster youth and now a student at Santa Monica college studying to be a storyboard artist and writer. She’s currently working as an intern at Better Youth,  a nonprofit that helps youth who face adversity get their foot in the door in entertainment to work in film, video games and animation; and she's also working at...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia talks with activist David Ambroz. David is a national poverty and child welfare expert and advocate, and author of a new memoir “A Place Called Home.”  He was recognized by President Obama as an American Champion of Change . Currently serving as the Head of Community Engagement (West) for Amazon, Ambroz previously led Corporate Social Responsibility for Walt Disney Te...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia talks with Syd Stewart. Syd is a poet, actor and filmmaker, and the author of two books of poetry, A Rock and A Hard Place (iUniverse, 2010) and Babylon Graffiti (Zeitgeist Press, 2019). Syd was featured in films Hughes’ Dream Harlem and Everyday People, and has appeared in The New York Times, Variety, and People Magazine. Most recently, Stewart’s work was selected by...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with Ångela Quijada Banks . Ångela is a former foster youth and  an NAACP Image Awards Nominee and American Award-winning author of the Black Foster Youth Handbook.  As a certified holistic health coach she supports women impact leaders to get re-energized for life and reconnected to their purpose, passions and personal relationships. She is the founder of Soul...

Send us Fan Mail Jayne Amelia speaks with filmmaker Akhim Dev. Dev has over 20 years of experience in broadcast television and digital content. His credits include writing and directing on "The 3G of US" for SBS, "Storm Surfers" for Firelight Productions, and "The Final Sacrifice" for Discovery and National Geographic. His new film "The Children In The Pictures&q...