The Forgotten Podcast

Have I ever mentioned how much I love the people I get to meet through this podcast? What a powerful story of resilience and HOPE I get to share with you today! Antonio Grate is a former foster youth who grew up in Chicago. His story includes his mother’s addiction, not having his father in his life, and eventually aging out of the foster care system. Even through all these challenges, the pain ha...

Are you looking for practical support? Today’s episode is for you. Kayla Moffitt went from zero to five children through foster care the same week that her dad passed away from COVID-19. She describes it as a “brokenness” that she started her parenting journey from, something that has been a core part of her own healing journey. The children they took in were siblings living separated in foster ca...

Join us as we celebrate our 200th episode of The Forgotten Podcast. In this special episode, roles are reversed as Jami Kaeb, the usual host, takes a turn as the guest, while Holly Gnuse steps in as the interviewer. Since its inception in 2016, "The Forgotten Podcast" has been committed to sharing the stories of the forgotten in the foster care community. In this episode, Jami and Holly reminisce...

Have you ever felt guilty that you couldn't do more? Wished you could simply help more children in foster care? Or perhaps you've felt like you've failed when you reach your limits? You are not alone. Anna Koon started her journey alongside the foster care community as a case worker and an adoption specialist. But she quickly wanted to do more, and was dipping into her personal finances to buy ite...

Trigger Warning: As Kamille bravely and openly shares her experience, we want to make sure you know this episode mentions sexual assault between 11:30-13:00 and briefly again around 22:00. “They are so resilient. I can see myself in them.” - Kamille Justus Children in foster care are some of the most resilient people you’ll meet. They navigate continual change, traumatic experiences, and so much m...

The story I have for you today spans many roles in the foster care community. My guest, Raquel McCloud, entered kinship care when she was just a young child. Kinship care is when a relative or close family friend takes the role of foster parent instead of a caregiver previously unknown to the child. There are many instances of informal kinship care occurring as well as formal kinship care. In many...

This is your fault. If you want to stay out of foster care, you’d better behave. If you don’t change your attitude, then they’ll separate you from your siblings. Can you imagine hearing these messages growing up? This is often the message that is conveyed to children from hard places or who are at risk of entering foster care. They grow up carrying around this guilt and believing they are why thei...

What are the factors that cause a child to enter foster care? Addiction? Abuse? The reality is, it's rarely a single situation. Today's episode contains many factors that are all too common in foster care. For Jackie Polk, it was a combination of domestic violence and addiction that led to her children being removed from her care. Jackie gave birth to twin boys, and 16 months later, the Department...

Do you remember how you first became aware of the foster care community? Maybe someone close to you started fostering? Maybe your spouse invited you to pray about pursuing this? Or perhaps a certain statistic impacted your heart? Ryan MacDonald attributes becoming aware of the needs within the foster care community through his wife's passion for the topic and a class he took in school about how as...

“Every kid, no matter what their circumstances are, should be celebrated and honored just like we do our children.” Agency workers are the first responders of the foster care community. They are among the first to meet a child, they are keepers of that child’s history, and they know firsthand the needs that often go unmet. With many agencies experiencing unprecedented employee turnover, the challe...

“Being a foster parent was always something that had been on my mind…” I am excited to have two of my favorite people on the podcast today: Jonah and Sarah Wilson! Sarah is part of our team here at TFI and grew up with foster siblings. So becoming a foster parent was always something she personally wanted to pursue. When Sarah and Jonah got married, their conversations turned to when the “right ti...

Welcome to a bonus episode of the podcast! We don’t do these very often, but we wanted to give you a little extra surprise content that we hope is an encouragement to you this week. It’s always special when we get to share the work of our TFI Advocates, volunteer leaders across the nation who are working to support their local foster care community by bridging the gap between the needs of foster c...

It’s not uncommon for children impacted by foster care or adoption to desire to find answers, know where they came from, and understand the reason their life has looked the way it has. It can lead many children to question their identity or even wonder if they will ever find a sense of peace at all. Anna Bernacki grew up in an adoptive home after being placed in foster care as an infant. As a teen...

Back in 2009, trauma-informed care wasn’t discussed as much as it is today and many families were not as open about the hardships that came along with an adoption. Kara Higgins always knew she wanted to grow her family by adoption, and she and her husband, Ryan, later had the opportunity to do so when adoptions opened up in Rwanda. That’s when she came face-to-face with trauma at a time when very...

Welcome to a VERY special episode of The Forgotten Podcast. We are going to be doing things a little bit differently because we just hit and surpassed a huge milestone. The Forgotten Podcast has reached the 1 million download mark! Can you believe this?!? We have listeners in all 50 states and over 150 countries around the world. I want to express my heartfelt thanks to you for being a part of thi...

My guest today experienced a childhood filled with painful circumstances, parents who struggled with drug addiction, and the death of his father at the age of seven. You can imagine the amount of trauma and instability he experienced growing up. Corey Johnston, in spite of the instability of his mother, always longed to feel like her son. God was gracious to invite Corey into a relationship with H...

My guest today is proof that awareness leads to action, and that a passion for supporting the foster care community can span generations. Once you become aware of the needs, have seen them firsthand, or have seen your own family foster, it is hard not to answer the call to take on a supporting role within the foster care community. Sarah Hamaker first saw foster care in action from her own parents...

Today’s guest defines trauma as something that impacts your ability to cope in everyday life. Trauma can also affect multiple generations and start a cycle that is difficult to escape. Cordelia Cranshaw Skeete has experienced this cycle of generational trauma. As a former foster youth, she experienced the deep trauma of multiple transitions, the loss of connection to biological family, and other t...

Since May is National Foster Care Awareness Month, I will be bringing you stories every week from the various perspectives of the foster care community—agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children. Did you know that 30% of children who enter into foster care are teens? The shift into foster care is a lifelong challenge for children of any age, but uniquely so for teens. That gri...

Since May is National Foster Care Awareness Month, I will be bringing you stories every week from the various perspectives of the foster care community—agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children. Sometimes seeing another family involved in foster care can change someone’s mind from “I could never be a foster parent” to “I can do this.” Sarah Butler, TFI Advocate in Conecuh Cou...

Since May is National Foster Care Awareness Month, I will be bringing you stories every week from the various perspectives of the foster care community—agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children. Will I be able to protect my biological children? Do I need to keep the natural birth order of my biological children intact in order to foster successfully? I’ve heard that children...

Since May is National Foster Care Awareness Month, I will be bringing you stories every week from the various perspectives of the foster care community—agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children. In today’s episode, I have the opportunity to talk with Dairius Kawewahi. Dairius entered foster care due to the abuse he and his brother suffered from their biological father. Althou...

Since May is National Foster Care Awareness Month, I will be bringing you stories every week from the different perspectives of the foster care community – agency workers, foster parents, vulnerable adults, and children. To kick off our episodes for this month, today I’m sharing my conversation with Candace Franklin, who is not only a Social Worker Supervisor, but also a foster parent and advocate...

Here at The Forgotten Initiative, we get to support incredible volunteer leaders called TFI Advocates who are leading local foster care ministries across the nation. Joining me for today’s episode is one of our TFI Advocates, Tess Dykstra. Tess has been an Advocate for Cobb County, GA since November 2021, and she is an incredible leader! In addition to her role as a TFI Advocate, Tess is a foster...

TW: This episode does contain mentions of abuse, sexual abuse, human trafficking, and Satanic Ritual Abuse that we want you to be aware of before listening. We know that youth in and out of foster care are a very vulnerable population and at risk for trafficking. However, what you might not realize is that 60% of all child sex trafficking victims have histories in the child welfare system, accordi...