The Imprint Weekly

On this week’s podcast we discuss the lawsuit filed by an Oregon woman who wants to adopt and says the state is infringing on her religious freedom; higher education for incarcerated youth; and a new benefits tracker for people leaving Los Angeles foster care.  Jessica Pac of the University of Wisconsin’s Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work and Sophie Collyer of the Center on Poverty and Social...

On this week’s podcast, we feature an online conversation hosted by Fostering Media Connection about community mental health services for youth in New York State. Sandy Santana, executive director of Children’s Rights, talks about the lawsuit his organization has filed against New York for failing to meet its commitments under Medicaid law when it comes to community mental health services.  Jose P...

On this week’s podcast, we break down some recent research about toxicology testing of parents and newborns and how it connects to child welfare, legislative efforts to protect benefits for foster youth, and the troubling state of youth justice in Los Angeles.  Jeff Fleischer, the recently retired CEO of Youth Advocate Programs and recent founder of Neighborhood Safety Advocates, joins to discuss...

On this week’s podcast we discuss trends in the use of the Family First Act, the pursuit of more federal child welfare data, and a state seeks to lower the age of juvenile justice.  Terri Sorensen, longtime CEO of Friends of the Children, joins to talk about professional mentoring of youth, how her organization’s approach has developed over the years, and the insane run of major gifts that Friends...

On this week’s podcast we discuss some updates on the Indian Child Welfare Act front, Minnesota becomes a trans youth refuge, and the blind spot in America’s knowledge of youth justice.  Imprint alum Roxanna Asgarian joins to discuss her new book, “We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America,” which traces the lives and families of six children killed by their adopt...

On this week’s podcast we discuss some great recent coverage in The Imprint about extended foster care, “second look” laws for youth convicted in adult court, and efforts to improve educational stability for youth in foster care.  Heather Baker of Public Consulting Group joins us on the fifth anniversary of the Family First Prevention Services Act to discuss the law’s finer points, what conversati...

On this week’s podcast, we talk about the Biden administration’s plan to expand federal funds to support kinship caregivers; promising data on one state’s Raise the Age reform; how COVID-era child tax credits impacted child abuse and neglect; and more. Ian Forber-Pratt, deputy executive director of Children’s Emergency Relief International, joins us on the one-year anniversary of the War in Ukrain...

Part Two: A song for orphans On last week’s podcast, Imprint reporter Nancy Marie Spears talked to Sandy White Hawk about her early adoption story, and the implications of Indigenous adoptions on cultural and spiritual childhood wellbeing. In this episode they finish that journey by detailing the ways Sandy navigated through being a mother while finding her selfhood and sense of purpose, and her r...

Part One: “Here’s Your Mother…She’s Been Waiting for You” On this week’s podcast, we begin a two-part interview between Imprint reporter Nancy Marie Spears and Sandy White Hawk, author of the recently released memoir A Child of the Indian Race: A Story of Return. White Hawk’s recounts her own adoption story, which began in 1955, decades before the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed to protect Ind...

On this week’s episode, we discuss a potentially landmark law on legal counsel in Washington, another state with an ICWA bill, and the Justice Department allegedly takes interest in a controversial child welfare algorithm. Nearly 40 years ago, federal child support laws were rewritten and included new instructions for states when it comes to parents with children in foster care. NPR investigative...

On this week’s episode we catch up on some headlines from the last few months in child welfare and youth justice, including: a flood of mental health litigation; adoption reckoning in South Korea; a federal effort to help states differentiate poverty and neglect; the nexus between money and maltreatment; the Finish the 5 campaign in Texas; and more.  Reading Room South Korea Sets Up a Truth and Re...

On this week’s episode Bridget Mary McCormack, the recently retired chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, joins us to discuss appellate work and child welfare, and a scathing assessment of the system she was once responsible for overseeing.  Reading Room McCormack’s Dissent http://bit.ly/3THF8fC In re G.M. Dixson Dissent https://bit.ly/3XS3y8R

On this week’s episode, Melissa Sickmund, director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice, joins us to dive into the decades-long plummeting of youth arrests and incarceration, juvenile justice in the age of Covid-19, data blind spots and more. Reading Room Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement https://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/ezacjrp/ Juvenile Residential Facility Census Databook https:...

On this week’s episode we discuss some notable changes in Congress’ 2023 spending deal, a new study on equity in services, and the release of The Imprint’s 2022 foster care capacity data.  Marina Nitze, author of Hack Your Bureaucracy and a co-founder of the Child Welfare Playbook, joins to discuss strategies for improving child welfare, why she’s optimistic about the future of kinship care, and m...

We will get back to our regular podcast format next week, but today we are featuring the work of Julie Reynolds, who is The Imprint’s new Associate Editor.  Reynolds has produced and released the second season of her Podcast Grey Area.  This new season, called After Life, explores one man’s journey into and then out of the California penal system, the latter part of which might not have happened b...

We had some amazing guests join us on The Imprint Weekly Podcast this year, and we reviewed the entire 2022 archive to bring you clips from some of the very best! This episode includes clips of 20 interviews from this year.  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...

On this week’s podcast we talk about a racial equity audit New York City never made public; welfare payments and foster care; and the emergence of lifebooks.  Robin Rosenberg, deputy director of Florida’s Children First, joins us to discuss Florida’s implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act. In particular, we focus on a sex trafficking exception to federal limits on congregate ca...

On this week’s podcast we talk about some interesting stories in The Imprint last week, an interesting filing in a faith-based discrimination case, juvenile diversion and fathers. Mira Zimet, founder of The Storyboard Project, joins to discuss her three seasons of profiling youth and young adults who have experienced the foster care system in America.  Reading Room Break Free Education’s Holiday C...

On this week’s podcast, we discuss a big state court opinion on juvenile life sentences, some more workforce crisis stories, and one state supreme court chief justice’s scathing dissent in perhaps her last child welfare case.  Leslie Lacy of Fostering Hope Louisiana, who used to represent parents and children in child welfare cases as an attorney, joins us to discuss her organization’s effort to g...

Youth-related funding and policy was on the ballot in several states last week, and Olivia Allen of the Children’s Funding Project joins to help us break down what happened with those measures.  Then, we break down five different exchanges that capture the essence of the Supreme Court’s three hour oral arguments over the Indian Child Welfare Act last Wednesday, and share some thoughts on what seem...

The number of youth in foster care is below 400,000 for the first time in nearly a decade. On this week’s podcast, we break down the new data released by the Department of Health and Human Services, Florida’s ban on trans medicine for minors, and the worsening news out of Louisiana’s juvenile justice system.  Kate Fort, director of clinics at the Michigan State University College of Law, joins us...

On this week’s podcast we discuss a landmark case out of New York over the rights of biological parents, connecting homeless children to early childhood programs, a federal end-around on monitoring unaccompanied minors, and an AI Bill of Rights.  Chrissi Ross Nimmo, deputy attorney general of Cherokee Nation, joins us to discuss the placement preferences required by the Indian Child Welfare Act wh...

On this week’s podcast we discuss Maine’s legislature suing its child welfare agency over fatality records, the Angola transfer begins in Louisiana, and what low-income families used the enhanced child tax credit for.  Tara Reynon, a member of the Puyallup Tribe of Indians and child welfare director for the National Indian Child Welfare Association, joins to discuss the role of qualified expert wi...

On this week’s podcast we discuss a scandal that sparked new mandated reporting laws, the Biden administration’s kinship care ideas, and a new adoption information system in Ireland.  Shannon Smith of Minnesota’s ICWA Law Center joins us to talk about the active efforts provision of the Indian Child Welfare Act something she sees in play everyday in one of America’s only ICWA courts.  Reading Room...

On this week’s podcast we introduce listeners to Nancy Marie Spears, who will be covering Indigenous children and families for The Imprint and talk a bit about the upcoming Supreme Court case that could determine the future of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Lawanda Ravoira of the Delores Barr Weaver Policy Center joins to talk about how juvenile justice systems continue to miss on designing effecti...