If you happen to follow my YouTube channel, you may have seen last week’s episode entitled “5 Facts about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.” If you haven’t had a chance to watch that yet, I encourage you to check it out, because it will give you some of the background on the topic we’re going to be focusing on in this episode, which is FASD. Natali…

Special Thanks to my Patrons for supporting A Fostered Life! Episode 24 In the non-adoptive world, where people only know of adoption but have not actually lived as part of an adoption story, there is often a romanticization of adoption. Adoption is often sentimentalized and treated as a “happily ever after” story. But anyone living inside of an ad…

Special Thanks to my Patrons for supporting A Fostered Life! Episode 23 When people think about foster care, we usually imagine children removed from situations where they are being severely abused or neglected by their natural parents. We hear stories in the news about examples of horrific abuse or neglect, and we celebrate that these children hav…

Special Thanks to my Patrons for supporting A Fostered Life! Episode 22 It’s June, the month when many families celebrate Father’s Day, and in today’s episode, we’re focusing specifically on the role of foster fathers. My guest Jason Johnson is a writer and speaker who encourages families and equips churches in their foster care and adoption journe…

Special Thanks to my Patrons for supporting A Fostered Life! Episode 21 It’s June, which means that Father’s Day is upon us. For many children in foster care, Father’s Day is a loaded holiday. Some have never met their fathers, if their fathers have even been identified. Others have fathers who are completely “out of the picture,” meaning they are …

Special Thanks to my Patrons for supporting A Fostered Life! Episode 20 Anyone who is involved with the world of adoption knows that adoption has lifelong implications for everyone involved: birth parents, adoptive parents, and, of course, the people who are adopted from one family into another. Until very recently, adoption was almost always shrou…

Special Thanks to my Patrons for supporting A Fostered Life! Episode 19 You don’t need me to tell you that we are living in unbelievable times. The world is, in many ways, at a stand-still while people are strongly encouraged and even mandated in some places to stay home in order to flatten the curve of the spread of COVID-19. While this time of so…

Like this podcast? Please rate it on iTunes and become a $1+ patron on Patreon! Click here to learn more. Special Thanks to my Patron for supporting A Fostered Life! Episode 18 When most people think of foster parenting, we think children who are experiencing neglect or abuse being removed from their parents and placed with someone else—either a fo…

Like this podcast? Please rate it on iTunes and become a $1+ patron on Patreon! Click here to learn more. Special Thanks to my newest Patron, Maureen, for supporting A Fostered Life! Episode 17 I have lost count of the number of times someone has told me that they really want to be involved in foster care, and they really care about foster youth, b…

A listener shared some really important feedback on my interview with Kevin, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I thought what she shared was really important and wanted to pass it on. Recorded live at Chicago O’Hare Airport.By afosteredlife

Like this podcast? Please rate it on iTunes and become a $1+ patron on Patreon! Click here to learn more. Special Thanks to Patrons Shelley & Joyce for supporting A Fostered Life Podcast! Episode 16 MaLisa Riley is an author and entrepreneur who draws from her own experience as a youth in foster care to produce resources aimed at helping children i…

Like this podcast? Please rate it on iTunes and become a $1+ patron on Patreon! Click here to learn more. Episode 15 One of the things I have been so grateful for over the past few years is connecting with former foster youth who are willing and eager to share about their experiences in foster care in order to shine light on what it’s like to be in…

Like this podcast? Please rate it on iTunes and become a $1+ patron on Patreon! Click here to learn more. Episode 14 In Episode 13 of A Fostered Life Podcast, I interviewed author Jillana Goble about her book, “No Sugar Coating: The Coffee Talk You Need about Foster Parenting.” I announced in that episode that I would be giving away four copies of …

Like this podcast? Please rate it on iTunes and become a $1+ patron on Patreon! Click here to learn more. Episode 13 A few months ago, someone on Facebook alerted me to a new book by Jillana Goble called, “No Sugar Coating: The Coffee Talk You Need about Foster Parenting.” I got my hands on the book and as I read it, I kept nodding my head in agree…

Like this podcast? Please rate it on iTunes and become a $1+ patron on Patreon! Click here to learn more. Episode 12 In the last episode (Episode 11), I introduced you to Tonya Foulkrod. Our conversation covered a lot of ground, so I broke it up into two parts. In Episode 11, which was Part One, we heard about Tonya’s early experience as a foster p…

Like this podcast? Please rate us on iTunes and become a $1+ patron on Patreon! Click here to learn more. Episode 11 Foster parents are not typically encouraged to be intimately involved with the parents of the children who come into our care. While we are encouraged to “support reunification efforts,” and it is suggested that we do things like sen…

Like this podcast? Please rate us on iTunes and become a $1+ patron on Patreon! Click here to learn more. Episode 10 According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, or RAINN, one in 9 girls and 1 in 53 boys under the age of 18 experience sexual abuse or assault at the hands of an adult. The effects of child sexual abuse can be long-lasti…

Like this podcast? Please rate us on iTunes and become a $1+ patron on Patreon! Click here to learn more. Episode 9 One of the things many people say when they hear that I’m a foster parent is, “I couldn’t imagine getting attached to a child and then having to give them back.” While I can appreciate that people are just expressing their honest feel…

Like this podcast? Become a $1+ patron! Click here to learn more. Episode 8 Bryan Post is one of America’s foremost child behavior experts and he’s the co-founder of The Post Institute for Family-Centered Therapy. The Post Institute works with adults, children and families struggling with early life trauma and the impact on the development of the m…

When I put out a call recently for guests for this podcast, I was overwhelmed by the response. So many people have written to me, from social workers to foster parents to former foster youth, all willing to share a bit of their stories in order to help enlarge and shape foster parent’s perspective on our role in the lives of the children in our car…

One of the things I’ve noticed over the years is that, while I have a lot to learn from other, more experienced foster parents, mental health professionals, books, etc., the people who have taught me more than anything about how to be a good foster parent or foster caregiver if you prefer is children who are or were in foster care. The kids who hav…

Welcome to A Fostered Life, the show in which we explore the various facets of foster care through the voices of the many people who participate in the system. I’m your host, Christy Tennant Krispin, and this is episode five. It’s back to school time, and for youth in foster care, that can either be a really good thing or a really, really hard thin…

Be sure to subscribe! Episode 4 Today I'm speaking with Dena Johnson, an adoptive mother and trauma and attachment therapist who focuses her practice on counseling foster and adoptive families. The first time I heard Dena speak was at a conference for foster and adoptive parents several years ago. I was really struggling with some of the challenges…

Click Here to Subscribe to the Podcast! Episode 3 In 1988, a group of DSHS social workers grew tired of seeing the deprivation often faced by children in foster care. They started purchasing the little things needed to help children feel loved and capable—things like birthday presents and school supplies—funded by community bake sales and car washe…

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast! Episode 2: Lacey entered foster care for the first time when she was six months old. After spending her entire childhood in and out of foster care, including attending thirteen (!!!) different elementary schools, Lacey was adopted just two weeks shy of her eighteenth birthday. Today, she is a wife and mother who…

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast! Episode 1: As a licensed master social worker, previous youth in foster care and current foster parent, Amber Jewell has a unique perspective on the foster care system and how it affects youth. In this inaugural episode of A Fostered Life, Amber sheds light on how being part of the system can affect youth in car…

Welcome to A Fostered Life, the show in which we explore the various facets of foster care through the voices of the many people who participate in the system. Host Christy Tennant Krispin interviews former foster youth, social workers, foster parents, therapists, and others, and these conversations provide personal glimpses at the challenges and t…