The Forgotten Podcast

Tyler Daily wasn’t planning on becoming a foster parent. But his work in education as a middle school teacher ended up becoming the gateway to foster care. Foster parents are so important in the foster care community, and single foster parents are an incredible group of people. There is no specific data on the number of single foster parents nationwide; however, the 2019 Child Welfare Outcomes rep...

Welcome back to The Forgotten Podcast! I am eager to share another story from the foster care community with you this week. My guest today is a foster parent herself, but she primarily works alongside birth parents and infants recovering from drug withdrawal. Heather Simpson is a mom to four biological boys, a foster parent, and a charge nurse at Brigid’s Path, an infant recovery center. In today’...

Bethany and her husband, Benji, originally planned to foster school-age kids or older and did not plan to accept any babies. But when they got the call for Journey, they couldn’t say no. Little did they know she would be diagnosed with a brain tumor with an unknown prognosis and months of appointments and treatments that followed. Today on the podcast, I’m thrilled to be able to have one of our TF...

When loss, grief, hardships, or tragedy hit our own lives, most of us are ill-prepared to deal with it.  Davey Blackburn experienced an unbelievable tragedy when he came home to find his pregnant wife had been shot during a home invasion. She would pass away just 24 hours later, leading him on a journey of learning to process the loss and grief he felt at the sudden loss. While Davey’s story isn’t...

TW: There are brief mentions in this episode of abuse, self-harm, and suicide, which we wanted you to be aware of before listening. There are some episodes of the podcast that simply pack so much wisdom into a short conversation. This is one of those episodes. Children enter foster care for many different reasons. And despite some of the hard work we do to overcome and heal from the past, our stor...

Welcome back to The Forgotten Podcast! In this episode, I have the opportunity to talk with Shyann Skelton. Shyann came from a broken home where she did not know her biological father. After her mother’s death, she was adopted by her grandmother, but experienced deep pain through loss, bullying, and hardships as she was rejected by family for being biracial. Shyann’s story begins with odds that we...

We love bringing you stories from the foster care community as a way to encourage and equip you in your foster care journey. I’m excited to be able to share my conversation with not only a foster parent and adoptive parent, but the Executive Director of a non-profit whose mission is to help aging-out youth.  My guest is Nick Sgarlata. Nick and his wife, Carrie, started fostering in 2015. Today, he...

Today on the podcast, we are talking about a special kind of care in the foster care community called kinship care. Kinship care is when children are cared for by grandparents, extended family members, or unrelated adults with whom they have a close family-like relationship. Caregivers providing kinship care often face unique challenges and abrupt changes to their life plans. In addition to dealin...

The LGBTQIA+ conversation has intersected with foster care heavily in recent years and it has prompted many people in the foster care community to have questions such as:  How can we care for our LGBTQ+ kids as foster parents who hold to a traditional view of marriage? How should the Church come alongside LGBTQ+ foster parents who do not hold to the traditional view of marriage?  And many more. If...

I love every time I get the opportunity to talk with Jenn Hook here on the ol’ podcast! Jenn has a deep passion for the adoptive and foster care communities. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Replanted—a ministry that helps empower the Church to support adoptive and foster families by providing emotional, tangible, and informational support.  Last time I spoke with Jenn, we discussed he...

Do you have some hard questions when it comes to adoption and foster care? Maybe you’re unsure if you’re up to the challenge. Maybe you’re unsure how to best support a child in adjusting to their new circumstances. No matter what you’re facing, you’re not alone. April Guffey is dedicated to being a resource for adoptive and foster parents, as well as the children in their care. April is an adoptee...

I have a great episode for you this week. Children in foster care have so much going on beyond what we can see on the surface. But what is it that can sometimes cause our children to act out, rebel, or “push our buttons”? My guest today was not only a former foster child for over 7 years, but she also now works with parents to uncover how to better show up for their children, especially their teen...

TW: As part of John’s story and experience, you will hear specific descriptions and terms related to adult themes, including both physical and sexual child abuse, trafficking, and suicide. We do encourage discernment in your decision to listen or with whom you share this episode with. I met John Gibson briefly at the  Replanted Conference  where he shared his story for the very first time. John is...

Life is full of seasons. Sometimes those seasons are filled with joy and laughter, but other times those seasons include sorrow, grief, and loss. These hard seasons may come from the unexpected loss of a loved one or a child no longer being a direct part of your family. Today's conversation is especially for those currently walking through unexpected grief or those who love someone walking through...

It’s no secret that I love sharing stories of hope and healing. My guest today has an incredible story that includes both of those things! I met Peter at a conference recently and we quickly became friends. He is a surviving street kid, foster dad to over 18 kids, single adoptive dad, an author, speaker, and advocate for children everywhere. Wow! Peter Mutabazi grew up in an abusive home in Uganda...

Even with Christmas morning already in our rearview mirrors, I love this time of year! Not only because of the holiday traditions, the smell of candles, our Christmas tree, and freshly baked pies in the oven. My love for this time of year is also not only because of the sounds of the Christmas music that fills my home, the crackling of the fire, or the old handmade-by-kids Christmas ornaments on t...

As you may know, stepping in to support the foster care community can be messy sometimes. We are broken people stepping into broken situations. None of us are perfect, yet we are called to step into these situations anyway. My guest today has personal experience with this. Cynthia Yanof is a former attorney, foster mom, author, and host of the Pardon the Mess  podcast. When Cynthia and her husband...

It’s National Adoption Month! In honor of that, the podcast has been weekly this month to provide more opportunities for you to share episodes with friends who might not know as much about foster care or adoption in order to increase awareness. Let's spread the word! I have a very special guest on the podcast today. He was adopted from Guatemala at just 10-months old and he just so happens to be m...

It’s National Adoption Month! In honor of that, the podcast will be weekly this month to provide more opportunities for you to share episodes with friends who might not know as much about foster care or adoption in order to increase awareness. Let's spread the word! As many of us know, not every family gets to be reunified. In fact, in just under half (48%) of cases are children reunified with the...

It’s National Adoption Month! In honor of that, the podcast will be weekly this month to provide more opportunities for you to share episodes with friends who might not know as much about foster care or adoption in order to increase awareness. Let’s spread the word! In the adoption and foster care community, we often encounter stories of brokenness and heartache. At the same time, we find stories...

It’s National Adoption Month! In honor of that, the podcast will be weekly this month to provide more opportunities for you to share episodes with friends who might not know as much about foster care or adoption in order to increase awareness. Let’s spread the word! Once you become aware of the need within the foster care community, it’s hard to focus on anything else, right? For Jessica Hurlbut,...

Today’s episode is a special one! Not long ago my team and I got to spend the weekend at Replanted Conference, a conference in Naperville, Illinois, that provides a time away for caregivers to be refreshed, equipped, and inspired. While there, I had the privilege of speaking at some breakout sessions and also doing a live recording for this podcast! I sat down with Jessie and Carrie, whose stories...

Joey & Sadie Dodson are about as involved in the foster care community as you can get! They are foster and adoptive parents themselves, Joey was adopted when he was a child, and Sadie is currently working as a Family Care Manager at a non-profit working with churches and families to foster and adopt. Sadie also leads various TBRI and trauma-informed trainings. Join us as we have a conversation abo...

Foster care is full of confusing, and often conflicting, emotions. How do we handle those emotions? How do we prepare ourselves for hard transitions? And how do we champion reunification as often as we can? My guest today is no stranger to those feelings as both a foster parent and a case manager at an agency in Texas. In today’s conversation, Amanda Irby shares her experience fostering 10 childre...

When we talk about breaking the cycle of trauma, there is no clearer example of this than in the life of DeAntwann “DJ” Johnson. DJ experienced a traumatic childhood that included child abuse, domestic abuse, homelessness, and emotional trauma. As a result of his family life, he entered the Indiana foster care system when he was about 10 years old. As DJ grew up in foster care and entered adulthoo...