Fostering Change

We hope you’ve been enjoying our “Best of Season 5 episodes, and have been able to catch up on other episodes of Fostering Change you may have missed. Today, we revisit an episode that aired back in November: Rob Scheer interviews Peter Mutabazi: entrepreneur, international advocate for children, and the founder of Now I Am Known , a nonprofit that supplies resources that encourage and affirm chil...

Welcome back to our “Best of Season 5” series. Maybe you’ll be listening to this on the beach as you celebrate Independence Day, in your car on your way to work, or at home. Wherever you listen, we thank you for your support! Today we revisit our interview with Laura, whose mission is to educate and support people about the foster care system. Often, new foster parents are not prepared for everyth...

Welcome to our first episode of Fostering Change’s “Best of Season 5”. Today, we revisit Rob’s interview with Mark Daley, author of SAFE: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Family .  We knew right away that this interview would be in our “Best of” series, and we think you’ll agree.  So whether this is your first, second or third time listening to this intervie...

Welcome to the Final Episode of Season 5.  Thank you for joining us on this journey - whether you’re a new listener or if you’ve been with us all five seasons. Season 6 will debut in September, but following today’s episode, we will air some of our favorite episodes from the past season once again bi-weekly. So stay tuned! And for our final episode of the season, we wanted to go out on a HIGH...

Welcome to the final episode of Fostering Change for National Foster Care Awareness Month.  We hope you have done something meaningful to help our youth, the fantastic people who work in social services, our teachers… and yourself.  This is the month they “give us,” but as Rob often shares, “when you invest in a child, you invest in YOUR future… because they are the leaders of tomorrow.”...

Today we share the story of an amazing woman who has the biggest heart - the epitome of what we love to call a “Good Human”.  We’ll learn how in the period of just 3 years, Kate Rapier quickly went from being single, to becoming a foster mom, soon an adoptive parent of two and then married to a man with 3 wonderful kids from a previous marriage! Kate was single when she first began the proces...

As you likely recall, in Season 5, we moved to posting new episodes of Fostering Change bi-weekly. Well, we’ve just met so many amazing humans that we thought we’d make an exception during National Foster Care Awareness Month, so we have four episodes running this month!   Before we get on to today’s show with the amazing Benjy Grinberg, just a suggestion to visit the Comfort Cases websi...

May 1 was the first day of National Foster Care Awareness Month. The team at Comfort Cases wants to take a moment to thank and recognize all of the foster parents, foster families, youth who are currently in foster care and those who have “aged out”. Thank you to the CASAs and the social service agencies and workers who are doing their best. And thank you to YOU, our faithful (and new) listeners o...

Today’s episode of Fostering Change is an in depth discussion with Susan Rich, founder and president of 7th Generation Foundation, about FAS: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.   FAS is close to home to our host, Rob Scheer, as one of Rob’s children has FAS.  And although the diagnosis for Rob’s son was that he may never walk, or even talk, his son has achieved amazing things in his life, incl...

After you listen to today’s episode of Fostering Change , take a moment. Take a breath. Reflect on what you heard, and ponder how you would handle the situations that our guest Jackie Polk faced. Here is part of the note Jackie sent us when she inquired about sharing her story: I'm a boy mom of 3. I have 8 year old twins, and an 11 month old baby. 6 years ago I completely rebuilt my life from rock...

Jerold Hawkins was introduced to Rob Scheer and Comfort Cases in 2023 when the company he works for, Aptiv, held a “Packing Party,” packing up backpacks filled with new essential items to be delivered to local social service agencies for distribution to youth entering foster care in Michigan. Following the event, Jerold reached out to us because he wanted to share his story: his experience in fost...

Today, we welcome back a wonderful guest, Charell Star. We first discovered Charell in 2021 from the “Humans of New York” column and video she was featured. We wanted Charell to come back on our podcast to give us an update on her work in the foster care system since then. Charell shares her common experiences with CASA and talks with Rob about the needs of youth in foster care, especially to prom...

Often times when children are removed from their homes and brought to a social service agency or law enforcement office, they are not placed in a foster home immediately, and have to spend hours, a whole night, or even days sitting on an uncomfortable office chair, a lumpy couch or maybe an air mattress tucked under a desk. No privacy, and no dignity. Jennifer Tice and her team at LilyPad: A Soft...

Happy Valentine’s Day! (one day early) On today’s special episode, of Fostering Change we bring in two of our favorite married couples: David & Julie Bulitt and Rob & Reece Scheer !  Yes, our host and his husband - co-founders of Comfort Cases - discuss relationships, particularly the issues faced by parents who adopt children and how to keep the marital relationship going strong! Dav...

Today, on Fostering Change , Comfort Cases’ founder Rob Scheer has an enlightening conversation with Mark Daley, author of SAFE: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Family.  The book offers a deeply personal window into what happens when the universal longing for family crashes up against the unique madness and bureaucracy of a child protection system that often fai...

Comfort Cases is so lucky to have many friends and supporters from around the world.  In 2022 we opened our first international center, Comfort CasesUK ( https://comfortcasesuk.org/ ).  On today’s episode, we welcome a guest from England, our friend Kevin Leslie. Kevin is known for many movie and tv roles, most recently appearing in the Christmas movie: Christmas at the Holly Day Inn. &n...

Welcome to 2024! The entire team at Comfort Cases hopes you had a festive, and happy holiday season.  Note that we didn’t write “restful”, as we know the past few weeks are generally the busiest time of year. This is why we are starting off our 2024 season right, with an interview with Ashley Neese, author of Permission to Rest: Revolutionary Practices for Healing, Empowerment, and Collective...

Today is a special episode of Fostering Change (well, all our episodes are special, but this one has a very special significance!) It’s the final episode of 2023 AND, today’s episode marks the 200th Episode of Fostering Change. Amazing that we’ve reached this important milestone in our 5th season! And the past 3 seasons, we’ve been named the #1 podcast for issues about Adoption and Foster Care! We...

If you’ve watched or listened to Fostering Change before, or you’ve seen Rob Scheer speak at an event or a Comfort Cases “Packing Party”, you know that he loves to promote people who are doing great things for others - what he calls “Good Humans.” Well, on today’s episode you’ll meet one of the “goodest of them all,” Marcy Bursac. Scaling her lived experience as an adoptive mom of a sibling pair,...

Prepare yourself for an interview with a woman who defines the term “resilience.”  Regina Calcaterra’s memoir Etched in Sand, A True Story of Five Siblings Who Survived an Unspeakable Childhood on Long Island is a #1 international best-seller and a New York Times best-seller.  As a result of Etched in Sand’s messages of resilience, optimism, the plight of foster children, that no child i...

“Understand there is more of a reality out there than you’ve been living through.” Today’s episode of Fostering Change will truly inspire you!  Rob Scheer interviews Lisa Cohen, someone he shares much in common.  They were both in foster care, both from Washington, DC and following foster care, both joined the Navy.  They also both have “bucked the trend” and have been successful in...

Corporate Responsibility. You hear that phrase often. But how many businesses truly follow through on being good corporate citizens? On today’s episode of Fostering Change you will meet one organization that does just that: Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s Indiana Medicaid Health Plan. In fact, this organization was Comfort Cases’ very first corporate sponsor - we are celebrating working with t...

We hope you are ready for an especially inspiring episode of Fostering Change . Today, Rob Scheer interviews Peter Mutabazi: entrepreneur, international advocate for children, and the founder of Now I Am Known , a nonprofit that supplies resources that encourage and affirm children and families. A single adoptive father of three and foster dad to many (34 as of this date!), Mutabazi is a former st...

In a discussion that covers everything from medicare filings to the resources necessary for caregivers of all kind to thrive, today Rob Scheer speaks with Mike and Kristin Berry, the co-founders of The Resilient Caregiver, a global initiative that helps foster and adoptive caregivers build resiliency through understanding, education, and support. There are so many hoops one must jump through when...

Today, Rob Scheer talks with a real “go-getter”. Someone who doesn’t take no for an answer and truly reaches for the stars. Haley Marguerite is a motivational speaker, a publisher and an author. In fact, she published her first book at the age of 11! Haley is the talented author behind the beloved Charlie Takes an Adventure book series. Through her captivating stories, children learn importan...