Weekly Podcast

07/13/2026

On this month’s Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we start by discussing the latest details on A Home for Every Child, which every state in the nation has officially opted in for.

Among the other headline we cover: the new national model licensing standards for foster care; stricter vetting around unaccompanied immigrant children seeking asylum protection; Mississippi’s new law that exposes kids as young as 13 to the adult justice and incarceration system; and much more. 

06/20/2026

On this week’s episode we are joined by Wendy Smith, author of the new book “Before Their Crimes: What We’re Misunderstanding About Child Trauma, Youth Crime, and the Path to Healing.”

Smith, who is a veteran psychotherapist and former professor and dean at the University of Southern California School of Social Work, talked about the visit to one of California’s prisons that sparked the idea for this book, which delves into the childhood experiences of dozens of former prisoners who were convicted and sentenced as teens. We also discussed what themes emerged from the experiences of her interview subjects, how she sees the book informing future policy reforms, and more.

06/15/2026

On this month’s Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we start by discussing a new announcement by the First Lady enabling states to start and contribute to Trump Accounts for kids in foster care. We also discuss a new bill that would significantly alter a major federal welfare program, new research on child brain development, and several other headlines. 

06/08/2026

On this week’s podcast we talk to Anthony Pierro, executive director of Strategies for Youth (SFY), a national policy and training organization dedicated to improving interactions between law enforcement and youth. Pierro took the helm at SFY last year from its founder, Lisa Thurau.

We talked about Pierro’s career as a juvenile prosecutor on the New Jersey shore, and how that informed his approach to training law enforcement. We also talked about a justice commission he served on during President Trump’s first term, whether he thinks there will be any traction for youth policy during this administration, and his hopes for a new app for law enforcement that SFY is building. 

06/01/2026

On today’s episode we are joined by David Muhammad, founder and executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. We talked to Muhammad about “high risk, hard to reach youth,” which is a term he and fellow justice reformer Vinny Schiraldi have coined to describe the relatively small group of youth they believe should be the focus of the next phase of youth justice reform. This group of youth, he says, have come more into view after decades of declining incarceration rates and greater attention to community alternatives.

05/18/2026

On this week’s Headlines edition of the podcast, we discuss the latest on the Trump administration’s A Home for Every Child initiative and some child welfare bills moving in Congress. We also discuss The Imprint’s recent reporting on parental relinquishments, a law in Oklahoma prompted by a child fentanyl death, foster youth and chronic absenteeism, and more. 

Thanks to iFoster for sponsoring this episode.

05/11/2026

In 2021, Christopher Baker-Scott joined The Imprint Weekly Podcast to talk about Sun Scholars, a new nonprofit he started to help support Connecticut foster youth on college campuses. Unlike many school-based approaches around the country, Sun Scholars is a centrally located organization serving youth on a number of campuses around the state. 

Five years later, Baker-Scott joined us to talk about what’s gone well, what’s changed, and what he hopes to accomplish in the future as Sun Scholars continues to grow in the state.

Thanks to iFoster for sponsoring this episode.

05/04/2026

On this week’s episode, we were joined by Sixto Cancel, founder and CEO of Think of Us, and Sharon McDaniel, founder and CEO of A Second Chance. We talked first about their relatively new joint venture between the two organizations called Fashion Forward Kinspire, which is entering its second year of helping expose youth in kinship or foster care to the world of fashion culminating with a trip to Fashion Week in New York City. 

They stuck around to discuss the recent efforts to update the federal Chafee program for transition-age foster youth, the future of kinship care, and more. 
Thanks to iFoster for sponsoring this episode.

04/19/2026

Alex Adams, assistant secretary in charge of the Administration for Children and Families, joined the podcast last year to discuss his background and the child welfare goals for President Trump’s second term. 

This week he returned to discuss his first six months on the job. We discussed the early going of the A Home for Every Child initiative, his decision to rescind the “designated placement” rule for LGBTQ foster youth, the future of the Chafee program for transition-age foster youth, and more. 

03/22/2026

On this week’s episode we are joined by Marc Schindler of Georgetown’s Center for Youth Justice, to discuss the Forgotten Children’s Initiative, which was born of research that he led about the history of the Maryland House of Reformation & Instruction for Colored Children between 1877-1939. As part of that research, it was discovered that more than 300 children are buried in an unmarked cemetery near where the House of Reformation was located in Cheltenham, Md. 

We discussed that important and heartbreaking work, and how Schindler sees this research project in the context of current discussions around reforming the juvenile justice system in Maryland and elsewhere.

03/15/2026

On this week’s episode we start by discussing the new update to Who Cares, which is The Imprint’s project on foster care capacity data around the country, and how it connects to the Trump administration’s central child welfare goal for the president’s second term. We also review some recent Trump administration actions related to LGBTQ youth in foster care, and what some recent research on juvenile detention and congregate care suggests about mental health services for youth.

03/09/2026

On this week’s episode we talk to Naomi Goldstein, who for nearly two decades led the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). We discussed the way that the federal government decides what to research and how it gets the job done. And why she thinks the Trump administration’s recent decision to decentralize research at ACF is a mistake.

03/02/2026

On this week’s episode we talk to Marsha Levick, co-founder of the Juvenile Law Center, who stepped down last year after serving for decades as the organization’s chief legal officer. We discussed the origins of the center and how it survived, how to write a good amicus brief, the Kids for Cash scandal and more.

02/09/2026

On this Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we start with a discussion of three medication-assisted treatments for substance use that the Trump administration has cleared for federal child welfare funding.

Also discussed on this episode: new national data on abuse and neglect investigations, Georgia’s budget woes, and two alarming indicators of the workforce crisis in youth justice.

02/01/2026

On this week’s episode we talk to Don Wells, the Chief Empowerment Officer at Just In Time, which is a San Diego based organization working to support and mentor older foster youth on their path to adulthood. 

President Trump signed an executive order on foster care at the end of 2025 which instructed his Department of Health and Human Services on some priorities for federal policy around improved data and evaluation, more support for older foster youth, and more efforts to include faith-based persons and organizations in child welfare services.

The Imprint recently published an op-ed from Wells, who felt that the president’s order misses the mark on what is needed from the federal government to better support foster youth. He joined the podcast to speak further about his views on the Trump order, about what Just in Time does on the community level to help foster youth, and more.

01/12/2026

In our first podcast of 2026, we review the many headlines that came out of the Trump administration before and after the holidays. They include new data on the administration’s goal of A Home for Every Child, a new leader for the U.S. Children’s Bureau, Trump’s freezing of safety net funds in five states, and more. 

Then we discuss some new research looking at trends in foster care entries and maltreatment fatalities, and a recent debate hosted in New York about whether or not CPS should intervene more in the lives of children. Finally, we summarize some interesting reads from Imprint reporters published in the last month. 

12/28/2025

As always, we were fortunate to have some amazing guests join us this year on The Imprint Weekly Podcast. In this episode we feature clips of 12 great interviews from 2025. 

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 making a donation. And if you do so this month, during Newsmatch, your donation will get doubled!

Fostering Media Connections is very lucky to have some terrific philanthropic supporters, advertisers and sponsors, and subscribers to our business and policy section that help make this organization go. But we really cannot do it without donors like you who read our stuff, listen to our podcasts and attend our online events. 

There are tons of really great nonprofit, independent news outlets to support out there, and we hope you consider us one of them. To give today it’s easy! Visit www.imprintnews.org/donate.

12/21/2025

We will post our annual “Best of The Imprint Weekly Podcast” show next, but this is the last new episode of 2025. Frequent guest Marina Nitze, a child welfare and tech expert, joined to discuss the flurry of federal activity on child welfare since the end of the federal shutdown. 

12/14/2025

On this week’s episode, Imprint reporter Michael Fitzgerald was in Washington last week to interview Alex Adams, who was confirmed in October to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Family Support at the Administration for Children and Families, which is the division of the Department of Health and Human Services that oversees family policy and child welfare services.

Fitzgerald asked Adams about a wide range of subjects. They discussed the administration’s goal of “A Home for Every Child” and how Adams plans to achieve that; how and why he plans to “barbecue” much of the regulatory language for states when it comes to federal funding and practice; why the administration has made demands that states roll back policies that are meant to protect LGBTQ+ youth; the role of kinship caregivers; and much more. 

Thanks to iFoster and Binti for sponsoring this episode of The Imprint Weekly Podcast.

12/07/2025

On this week’s podcast Maddy Day of Maddy Day and Associates joins to talk about what it takes to provide stability on college campuses for youth who have experienced aging out of foster care, homelessness or both. She is helping to coordinate a Congressional briefing planned for 2026 on the subject. 

12/02/2025

President Trump’s White House event announcing an executive order on foster care got a lot of attention. But it is not the only indicator of what the administration might have in mind for policy making in child welfare during his second term. We dive into the specifics of the executive order and several other interesting announcements from Trump’s team, then step back and try to describe the big picture. 

11/16/2025

Barry Cooper is founder of the BRO Experience, a Brooklyn-based organization that uses cognitive behavioral therapy at the center of its approach to mental health support for young men of color. He is among this year’s winners of the David Prize, which each year goes to five New Yorkers with an extraordinary idea for change.

Cooper joined us to discuss his own adolescence growing up in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and how his first early career as a barber informed his approach with the BRO Experience. We also talked about a new short documentary about the organization and what he plans to do with the $200,000 that comes with the David Prize.

Note one: We will discuss President Trump’s executive order on foster care in a subsequent episode, but a link to reporter Michael Fitzgerald’s coverage of the order is in our show notes. 

Note two: It’s Newsmatch season! Any donation to The Imprint for the rest of the year will be DOUBLED, so please consider supporting this show and everything else we do here at The Imprint. To support our work visit: www.Imprintnews.org/donate

11/09/2025

On today’s episode we discuss some of the recent Imprint reporting on how the federal shutdown is impacting youth and family programs like food stamps and Head Start, and one state where the shutdown has prompted gatekeeping of child welfare services. We also review the child welfare priorities hinted at in a 

Journalist and author Nell Bernstein joins to discuss her new book In Our Future We Are Free: The Dismantling of the Youth Prison. We talked about her goals for the book, what the main drivers of progress have been, and more.

11/03/2025

Latonia Rolbiecki, a Minnesota mother of three, died last month at the age of 48. Several years ago, Rolbiecki was the subject of an Imprint series about her fight to adopt her grandson after he was taken into foster care at birth. 

Rolbiecki lost that legal battle, and her grandson was adopted by non-relative foster parents.  On this week’s episode we reflect back on the series, “Latonia vs. Chisago County,” and what her experience reflects about the child welfare system. 

We also talk to Grace Yung Foster, founder and CEO of The Inclusion Initiative, about her organization’s upcoming leadership summit for people who have experienced foster care or adoption. 

10/19/2025

On this week’s episode we present the second part of our career-spanning interview with Vinny Schiraldi, currently a visiting fellow with the Pinkerton Foundation. In part one we talked with Schiraldi about his formative years in youth justice and his first job leading a government agency. 

We start part two with a job Schiraldi actually didn’t get: leading the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for the Obama administration. Then we turn to his time leading New York City’s probation, the notorious Rikers Island jail complex, and Maryland’s Department of Juvenile Services. And we conclude with a few big picture questions about policy and practice. 

10/13/2025

On this week’s episode we begin a two-part in-depth interview with Vinny Schiraldi, a firebrand for justice reform whose career has included leadership on alternatives to incarceration, advocacy, and government leadership.

In part one we talk to Schiraldi, now a fellow with the Pinkerton Foundation, about his own formative impressions of the justice system as an adolescent growing up in Brooklyn. Then we discuss his first job working at a New York group home for delinquent youth, and the chance meeting with reformer Jerry Miller that challenged his early views on how to help kids. 

We then talked about the launch of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice and the Justice Policy Institute, and the city that challenged him to address the problems with its youth justice system that Schiraldi had relentlessly called out as an advocate. 
Thanks to Sellers Dorsey for sponsoring this episode!

10/05/2025

On this week’s Headlines edition of Imprint Weekly Podcast, we discuss the implications of the government shutdown, the newest federal data on foster care, and promising research on home visiting programs. We also talk about recent headlines about the rollback of youth justice laws in D.C., chronic absenteeism in Georgia, and a college president looking to make his campus more supportive of foster youth.

Thanks to Sellers Dorsey for sponsoring this episode of the podcast.

09/21/2025

On this week’s episode we talk to Gretchen Sisson, a sociologist studying abortion and adoption. Sisson’s research on mothers who choose to relinquish their rights into private adoptions led to her writing Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood. We talked about that research, her book, and what both experiences have led her to believe about the framework and very existence of adoption in America. 

09/14/2025

On this week’s episode we are joined by Claudia Rowe, one of the true veteran journalists in the child welfare and youth justice space. We talked about her experiences covering both systems in New York and in Washington State, but focused on her recently published book Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care. 

09/08/2025

On this Headlines edition of the podcast, we start by talking about recent Imprint coverage that examines the on-the-ground impact of recent Trump policies and actions. We also cover new research about foster youth access to both medication and therapy, and Texas’ recent policy update to define what does not count as neglect. We also dive into some more recent Imprint reporting on hidden foster care, aging out, and a class-action lawsuit.

08/12/2025

On this Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we start with news of out Washington, D.C., including the confirmation hearing for Trump’s child welfare nominee; the lack of grants available on juvenile justice; and several actions related to immigration policy and youth. We also discuss several recent stories from The Imprint on adoption assistance and out-of-state placement, a survey of Indigenous foster youth, and an increase in homeless families in Georgia.

08/03/2025

On this week’s episode, Michael Tanana of Lyssn, joins us to talk about artificial intelligence, or AI, in the child welfare system. Tanana helped found Lyssn, which uses AI to help assess the quality of various services in a way that used to require painstaking transcription and notetaking. We talked about starting an AI company in this space and also about his views around the ethical application of it in a system where the integrity of families is often on the line. 

07/20/2025

On July 9, the Department of Health and Human Services started the funding competition for organizations that work on the frontlines of helping youth who are homeless, have run away, and are either involved in or at risk of being trafficked. 

That notice came very late in the year, and many are worried the administration might run out of time to actually make grants. And, this year’s competition will not include unique grants for street outreach, a major part of the federal program since the 1990s. 

Darla Bardine, executive director of the National Network for Youth, joins to provide detail and context around this year’s long-delayed federal funding. And Barissa Ford, who is the director of community outreach and engagement for Youth In Need in St. Louis, discusses what street outreach means and what it takes to do that work well.

07/14/2025

On this week’s Headlines edition of the podcast, we start by summing up the most relevant details from the massive budget bill recently passed by Congress and signed by President Trump. We also discuss The Imprint’s recent reporting on youth who enter foster care due to their behavioral health needs, and not because of abuse or neglect, and describe the new policies in New Mexico around removal of newborns who test positive for certain drugs.

06/22/2025

On this week’s episode of The Imprint Weekly Podcast we are joined by Brandon Nichols, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, and Victor Dominguez, CEO of the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles. They recently partnered to guarantee a YMCA membership to every older youth in foster care, as well as former foster youth up to age 26.

We talked about how the partnership came together, what youth can get out of a Y membership, and talked a bit about how the frenetic things in Washington, D.C. are impacting their respective organizations.

Thanks to SpeakWrite for sponsoring this episode.

06/15/2025

On this week’s episode, Congressman Greg Landsman of Ohio’s 1st district joins to talk about the  Campus Housing Affordability Act, his new bipartisan bill to make dorm life attainable for current and former foster youth. We discuss the college dorm model in his home state that inspired the bill, how the legislation would work, and since he’s on the committee that oversees Medicaid spending, we chatted a little at the end of the Big Beautiful Bill and how its cuts to Medicaid might impact families. 

Thanks to SpeakWrite for sponsoring this episode!

06/09/2025

On this week’s “Headlines” edition of the  Imprint Weekly Podcast, we talk about the new federal dashboard for child welfare data from through the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. We discuss the dashboard itself and what we hope it evolves to include, and then break down some of the trendlines in this year’s numbers. 

We also discuss the latest on President Trump’s spending request for 2026, what made it into the “Big Beautiful” reconciliation bill that now sits with the Senate, and more happening in Washington, D.C. We close with a review of some state headlines around liability insurance in California, a lawsuit in Tennessee, adoptee rights in Georgia, luggage for New York foster youth, and a new report on foster care in Minnesota.

Thanks to Lyssn for sponsoring this episode!

06/01/2025

Over the course of his career leading youth and family services, Alex Briscoe has become an expert in Medicaid policy, one of the most complex but substantial corners of government funding. He recently led a multi-year initiative called the California Children’s Trust, which set out to reimagine the state’s approach to screening and meeting the mental health needs of children. 

He joined The Imprint Weekly Podcast to talk about how it should work, why he thinks we rely too much on a medical model of care in America, and what the stakes are for kids when it comes to the battle over Medicaid spending going on in Washington, D.C. 

Thanks to Lyssn for sponsoring this episode!

05/19/2025

A budget bill is moving through Congress that includes significant cuts to the Medicaid program, one the largest federal programs and the provider of health insurance for one in five people in America. And it has an outsized impact on the child welfare system, both in the prevention of families becoming involved with it and for children in foster care.

Zach Laris, founder of Bolder Horizon and author of the Child Welfare Wonk blog, joins us to review the nexus of Medicaid and child welfare, and what the impact of cuts to the system might mean for system-involved children and families. 

Thanks to SpeakWrite for sponsoring this episode!

05/12/2025

On this week’s “Headlines” edition of the  Imprint Weekly Podcast, we dive into Trump administration’s reduction of the federal workforce focused on children and families, and hundreds of millions of dollars in grants terminated at the Department of Justice. Then we turn to what early indications are in regard to the future of federal spending, including Republican plans for a reconciliation bill and Trump’s proposed budget for 2026. 

We also talk about new federal data on youth in foster care, which shows the total continues to decline.

Thanks to Lyssn for sponsoring this episode!

05/04/2025

Head Start is a federally funded early learning operation that serves about 750,000 children every year at approximately 1,600 programs across the country. In the past month, the Trump administration has laid off several Head Start staff, and a leaked draft of an early budget request had the program slated for elimination. (A public budget document last week did not mention cuts or increases to Head Start).

Sacha Klein, a professor and researcher at Michigan State University’s School of Social Work, joined the podcast to talk about the nexus between Head Start and the social safety net, including her research on its connection to child welfare. 

We also chat with the hosts of Young and Autonomous, the newest podcast on SafeCamp Audio. This is a four-episode podcast by young parents with lived experience in foster care where hosts engage in meaningful conversations with peers, sex educators, and researchers about sexual and reproductive health information, rights, services, and resources.

Thanks to SpeakWrite for sponsoring this week’s podcast.

04/20/2025

For decades, child welfare systems have been receiving disability and survivor benefits owed to youth in foster care. Often these dollars are not saved for those children, or used for their unique needs.

Amy Harfeld, national policy director for the Children’s Advocacy Institute, has been among the staunchest advocates working to stop this practice. She joined the podcast to talk about the history of this issue, what states are doing to reform, and why she is optimistic about federal action in the near future.

Thanks to Lyssn for sponsoring this week’s episode.

04/14/2025

It is the 200th episode of The Imprint Weekly Podcast! On this week’s episode we go through some fun facts about the first 199 episodes of the show, and then talk to Cheyanne Deopersaud about the virtual mayoral forum on youth issues she organized and will host this week (free registration info in the show notes). 

We discuss the many things going on in Washington, D.C., including a nominee to lead child welfare policy for the Trump administration; layoffs and reorganization of the agency he will likely lead; and new data on how much states rely on welfare funds to pay for child welfare services. We also discuss the end of the criminal case against a foster youth advocate arrested on Capitol Hill in December, and a few recent great reads from The Imprint. 

Thanks to SpeakWrite for sponsoring this week’s episode.

04/07/2025

Kelley Fong, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, joins to discuss her work studying the impact of state child welfare systems and their policies on families. Fong, who has written several op-eds for The Imprint, is the author of Investigating Families: Motherhood in the Shadow of Child Protective Service, an examination of the front end of child welfare focused on Fong’s deep research in several New England States.

Thanks to Lyssn for sponsoring this week’s episode.

04/07/2025

The transition from foster care to adulthood still happens for thousands of young people each year. It’s not easy anywhere, but perhaps nowhere tougher financially than places like New York City where the market rent is astronomically high and there is almost no vacancy. 

Daniel Heimpel, managing director of Good River partners, and Tony Turner. director of the Fair Futures Youth Advisory Board, join to discuss a new venture they are involved in to try and leverage different kinds of philanthropic support, and new approaches to affordable housing, to ensure that youth who exit foster care dont do so into treacherous living conditions and predicaments.

Thanks to Lyssn for sponsoring this week’s episode.

03/16/2025

Wendy’s Wonderful Kids is a program of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption that for decades has focused on finding permanency for older youth in foster care, as well as children with special needs. The program, which received a $200 million commitment to expand in 2017, recently recorded its 15,000th adoption.

Dave Thomas CEO Rita Soronen joins to discuss the experience of scaling up Wendy’s Wonderful Kids and the lessons she learned along the way about how to get initial buy-in on an idea, and then keep support for it going.

Thanks to SpeakWrite for sponsoring this week’s episode.

03/02/2025

On this week’s episode, we review some of the recent action out of Washington, including what’s going on with federal funds, the impact of Trump’s executive orders on some youth with lived experience, and who is temporarily leading child welfare and youth justice policy.

We also break down the findings from a report on health care for youth who have aged out of foster care, and a new bill that would fund post-adoption support.

02/16/2025

On this week’s episode, Imprint Indigenous Children and Families Reporter Nancy Marie Spears hosts a special roundtable discussion on the future of Indigenous child welfare. Our panel of guests break down how they will engage with a new 25-year plan to reform and improve Indigenous child welfare policy and practice through improved implementation of, and compliance with, the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA. 

ICWA 2050 was launched November 7 by the Protect ICWA Campaign to Honor ICWA’s 46th Anniversary and it’s called Protect, Preserve, Progress: Realizing the Spirit of the Indian Child Welfare Act. There are four key goals of this long-term plan, and the panelists talk about how their respective communities intend on engaging with each area of proposed change.

02/09/2025

On this week’s episode, Abecedarian Group President Celia Sims joins us to discuss child welfare and education policy, and the intersection of the two. Sims, who spent most of her career on Capitol Hill, reflects on a recent op-ed she wrote for The Imprint and shares thoughts on the practicability of President Trump’s proposal to shutter the Department of Education.

02/02/2025

On this week’s podcast, we go over some of the actions taken by the Trump administration in their first full week since the inauguration. We also discuss a report that finds some states are sending back federal money to help older foster youth, and a Texas bill that would bring sweeping change to the way the child welfare system works in that state.

Rena Johnson of the Aviv Foundation and Mary Bissell of Child Focus join to talk about the Aviv Foundation’s Springboard Prize, an award that will invest $400,000 in several game-change oriented proposals.

01/19/2025

In November, the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) held its first national conference in more than a decade, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the landmark Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. 

Right after the conference ended, OJJDP Administrator and longtime youth justice reformer Liz Ryan joined us to discuss the conference, in particular the large presence of young people who have experienced the justice system. Ryan also reflected on the future of justice reform, and what she feels the Biden administration accomplished during her tenure.

01/13/2025

On this Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we stick with Capitol Hill where a lot went down around the holidays. We discuss the arrest of a former foster youth and advocate arrested after a celebration of the Chafee Act, along with some child welfare legislation that made it into law (and one bill that did not). 

We also break down some long-sought data about what happens when youth are charged as adults in the United States, and the lastest federal report on child abuse and neglect. Thanks to live podcast attendee, new rescue dog Dracula, for being a good boy while we recorded!

12/22/2024

As always, we were fortunate to have some amazing guests join us this year on The Imprint Weekly Podcast. In this episode we feature clips of 10 great interviews from 2024. 

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 making a donation. And if you do so this month, during Newsmatch, your donation will get doubled!

Fostering Media Connections is very lucky to have some terrific philanthropic supporters, advertisers and sponsors, and subscribers to our business and policy section that help make this organization go. But we really cannot do it without donors like you who read our stuff, listen to our podcasts and attend our online events. 

There are tons of really great nonprofit, independent news outlets to support out there, and we hope you consider us one of them. To give today it’s easy! Visit www.imprintnews.org/donate.

12/16/2024

The United States is among the few developed countries without a national paid family leave policy. But four states have long had local leave policies in place: California, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. Dr. Jenny Tanis of the Hope College School of Social Work and Dr. Sacha Klein of the Michigan State University School of Social Work wanted to see what impact this had on infant maltreatment in those states compared to trends in other states.

12/09/2024

On this week’s episode we discuss the Trump transition process, the last months of the Biden administration, and recommend some interesting reads from The Imprint and elsewhere this month, including Sara Tiano’s two-part series on the intersection of addiction treatment and child welfare actions such as investigation, removal and reunification. 

Marina Nitze of the Child Welfare Playbook joins us to talk about the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children (ICPC), a longstanding process aimed at ensuring that foster youth who are moved to a new state are protected. We talked to Nitze about the Playbook’s discussions on ICPC, what gaps exist in the system and what states are doing to improve it.

11/17/2024

On this week’s episode, Brightpoint CEO Mike Shaver and University of Illinois School of Social Work researcher Will Schneider join to discuss Empower Parenting with Resource, a test of the impact of guaranteed income as a component of how child welfare systems engage parents. Empower will provide hundreds of system-involved parents with cash assistance as part of a randomized control trial.

11/11/2024

On this week’s episode, we review some recent research on child opioid overdoses, youth with disabilities in foster care, and the Biden administration’s historic apology to the Indigenous community.

Jerry Milner, co-founder of the Family Justice Group, joins us to discuss his time leading the U.S. Children’s Bureau during the previous Trump administration, and what his experience during the first term suggests to him about what might be coming in the next four years.

11/04/2024

This year, Jamaican child welfare officials abruptly removed eight teenage boys from a residential facility known as Atlantis Leadership Academy. All eight were American youth and three were adoptees.

Dawn Post, a veteran attorney for youth in foster care, represented the teens pro bono, working with the Jamaican government to ensure their safe return to the United States. She joined us to tell the story, discuss the broader connections to child welfare present in this incident, and announce a new legal office she has launched called Themis Youth Law and Advocacy.

10/21/2024

Rep. Gwen Moore, who represents the 4th District of Wisconsin, was in the state legislature when her state commenced a welfare-to-work program that would become the template for the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.

Moore now sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees TANF.
She joined the podcast to discuss her problems with TANF, how it could be improved, and we discussed her most recent bill on the intersection of poverty and child welfare systems.

10/14/2024

On this week’s episode, we are joined by Administration on Children, Youth, and Families Commissioner Rebecca Jones Gaston, the most senior Senate-confirmed child welfare official in the Biden administration. We discussed the past year of federal child welfare policymaking, what the priorities will be for the final few months before Inauguration Day, implementation of the Family First Act, and the right way to incorporate lived experience. 

10/07/2024

On this week’s episode, we review some recent headlines in child welfare and youth justice, including some big picture takeaways from recent stories about spiraling juvenile facilities and universal drug screening for soon-to-be parents. 

We also talk to Marina Nitze about how local governments have responded to the Biden administration’s new guidelines for caregiver licensing — which aim to make the process simpler and more equitable for children’s relatives and close kin. 

09/23/2024

On today’s episode we spoke with Aditi Shrivastava, deputy director of income security at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, about the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, known widely as TANF. Shrivastava discussed the proposed new rule for regulating how states use the program, a new test of how to measure success, and the many guaranteed income projects that have popped up around the country. 

09/16/2024

On this week’s episode we talk to Kamilah Bunn, CEO of the National Adoption Association, and Toni Oliver, former president of the National Association of Black Social Workers, about the recently published Black Paper, an early look at the effect of NAA’s Ujima Black Family Connection Program. The goal of the program is to convene Black leaders to work on addressing long-standing disparities in child welfare and push back against the stereotype that Black families do not adopt.

09/09/2024

On this week’s episode we recap a hodgepodge of headlines from late summer, starting with the effort to reauthorize a major federal child welfare program called Title IV-B. Among the other stories we discussed: California’s novel new approach to fund enrichment activities for foster  youth, and the state’s looming insurance cliff for nonprofits; New York could become the first state to track adoption subsidies; and shocking data on youth transferred into adult court in Florida.

09/02/2024

The Imprint Weekly Podcast has been re-running some of our most intriguing guest interviews from the early years of the show for listeners who might not have heard them the first time around. On this final installment of Summer Rewind, we feature our conversation with Patty Chin and Leslie Gross about the SOUL Family Concept, a new permanency option that was conceived of by youth with lived experience in foster care. Since our interview, Kansas became the first state to incorporate SOUL Family into its options for permanency. 

08/26/2024

During the month of August, The Imprint Weekly Podcast is re-running some of our most intriguing guest interviews from the early years of the show for listeners who might not have heard them the first time around. This week, we feature our conversation with juvenile justice reform expert David Roush about how a construction project inside Chicago’s juvenile detention center accidentally led to one of the most influential experiments in how to effectively engage incarcerated youth.

08/19/2024

During the month of August, The Imprint Weekly Podcast is re-running some of our most intriguing guest interviews from the early years of the show for listeners who might not have heard them the first time around. This week we feature on of our most frequently downloaded episodes, our 2021 conversation with author and law professor Dorothy Roberts.

At the time of our interview, Roberts was still working on her since-published book Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families. We talked about the abolition movement in child welfare, and how Roberts distinguishes between major and incremental reform within the existing child welfare system.

08/12/2024

During the month of August, The Imprint Weekly Podcast is re-running some of our most intriguing guest interviews from the early years of the show for listeners who might not have heard them the first time around.

This week we feature two different interviews about the same issue: how to ensure that foster youth succeed once they get to college. In 2022, we talked to Amy Dworsky of Chapin Hall and Judy Havlicek of the University of Illinois about dismal research around community college completion among youth who aged out of foster care. Community college student and former foster youth Matt Schaad joined us to talk about his own path towards a degree.

We also included our 2020 interview with Christopher Scott and Lino Peña-Martinez of Connecticut’s Sun Scholars, a program that supports current and former foster youth on college campuses around the state.

08/05/2024

During the month of August, The Imprint Weekly Podcast is re-running some of our most intriguing guest interviews from the early years of the show for listeners who might not have heard them the first time around.

This week we feature our 2020 interview with California Assemblymember Ash Kalra, who joined the podcast to discuss the Racial Justice Act, a bill he championed that enables a defendant and their legal counsel to present evidence of racial bias as a means of pushing back against specific sentences for offenses after conviction.

07/22/2024

Over the summer, The Imprint Weekly Podcast will feature episodes with subject matter experts to talk about several new rules and regulations issued by the Biden administration in the past year. 

On this week’s episode, Ashley Burnside of the Center for Law and Social Policy joins us to discuss a plan to update the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a federal cash assistance program designed to help low-income families fill the gap. Burnside discussed the changing nature of TANF programs since its inception in 1996, and explains what Biden’s proposed rules for it would change about how states could use the money to support families. 

07/14/2024

Over the summer, The Imprint Weekly Podcast will feature episodes with subject matter experts to talk about several new rules and regulations issued by the Biden administration in the past year.

On this week’s episode, Currey Cook of Lambda Legal joins to discuss a new rule aimed at ensuring all child welfare systems have enough foster homes that are supportive and safe for youth who identify as LGBTQ+. We discussed some of the existing laws and policies in this area, what the Biden rule actually requires of states, and what Cook hopes for in terms of further legislating to protect and support LGBTQ youth.

07/08/2024

Over the summer, The Imprint Weekly Podcast will feature episodes with subject matter experts to talk about several new rules and regulations issued by the Biden administration in the past year. 

On this week’s episode, Allison Green of the National Association of Counsel for Children joins us to break down the new rule on federal funding to support legal counsel for parents and children involved with the child welfare system. We talk about how this new rule goes beyond some changes made during the Trump administration on this issue, and what Green sees as the potential impact on child welfare outcomes. 

07/01/2024

On this week’s episode we go deep on one headline: a recent Senate Finance Committee hearing in which Chairman Ron Wyden called the residential care business an inherently flawed model that intentionally puts children in unsafe situations. The hearing followed the release of a scathing report on the committee’s findings from a multi-year investigation into four of the biggest providers in that space.

In this episode, we break down nine different clips from the nearly two hour hearing that speak to some of the major themes and topics covered. 

06/16/2024

Over the summer, The Imprint Weekly Podcast will feature episodes with subject matter experts to talk about several new rules and regulations issued by the Biden administration in the past year. 

This week, Ana Beltran of Generations United joins us to talk about the new federal rules around approving (and financially supporting) relatives and other loved ones to care for youth in the foster care system. We discuss the barriers that prompted the new action, what has changed, what happens next and how we’ll know if the new rule is having an impact. 

06/10/2024

After nearly 20 years, The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Public Safety Performance Project sunsetted at the end of 2023. Ruth Rosenthal, Pew’s director for courts & communities, joins to talk about the history and lessons learned from the project and its expansion to include youth justice as a focal point.

06/05/2024

On this week’s Headlines edition of the podcast, we discuss a precedent-setting law passed and signed in Minnesota called the African American Family Preservation and Child Welfare Disproportionality Act, and break down the basics of new child welfare policies finalized by the Biden administration. 

We also discuss a recent Imprint analysis of kinship care in New York, some legislation that was inspired by our reporting in California, and…doggies in the courtroom?

05/13/2024

For the past three years, iFoster has been conducting the Voice of the Foster Care Community survey to gather perspective on the system from current and former foster youth, caregivers and the child welfare workforce.

iFoster CEO Serita Cox joins the podcast to discuss this year’s findings, which focused on gauging attitudes about solutions to some of the challenges surfaced in earlier surveys. She also discussed iFoster’s argument for moving towards a “child-first” system and what that would take, plus what her organization is working on with AmeriCorps around reaching more opportunity youth.

05/06/2024

On this month’s headlines edition of the podcast, we discuss an upcoming appeal in Michigan around the constitutionality of some terminations of parental rights, as well as a trial starting in Oregon and a new lawsuit filed against Louisiana. 

We also cover the very steep decline in foster care entries in Texas since the passage of a law that sharpened the definition of neglect in the state, a music studio helping incarcerated youth, and a fourth path to permanency begins in Kansas.

04/21/2024

Criminologist Alex Piquero, who led the Bureau of Justice Statistics early in the Biden administration, joined us to discuss what the best available data shows about trends in youth crime before, during and after the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. We also discussed the media’s coverage of youth crime, and what Piquero’s research shows are the most effective ways to prevent and deter youth from committing crimes.

04/15/2024

In February, Carolyn Travis of California Youth Connection wrote an op-ed for The Imprint calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to keep his commitment to fair market support for youth who receive subsidized independent living placement (SILP) funds in extended foster care. 

Travis joined us on the podcast to talk about her own experience transitioning into extended foster care and then into adulthood, and how important her ability to save some money through SILP was as she entered the workforce during COVID-19. 

04/09/2024

On this month’s headlines edition of the podcast, we discuss new federal data on foster care, the first state and tribe to get approved for kinship licensing, and what happened this year in the government spending deal. We also talk about a controversial law in Tennessee over foster parents’ views on sexual orientation, Minnesota’s African American Family Preservation Act, and more.

04/03/2024

A new multimedia package produced by The Imprint and Voices of Monterey Bay takes readers, viewers and listeners deep inside rural Oregon’s Indian Country, where elders are Indigenizing social work through equine therapy for young people who have experienced foster care and youth justice systems.

“Horses take us all the way back to our history before our land was taken away,” explains John Doug Spence, who leads equine therapy sessions across Oregon. “It’s a way of taking back our power.” 

The project, Healing the Children of Horse Nations, is a collaboration between The Imprint’s Indigenous Children and Families Reporter Nancy Marie Spears, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma; podcast producers Julie and Mara Reynolds; and visual storyteller Josué Rivas, who is Mexica and Otomi.

04/01/2024

Healing the Children of Horse Nations, a new multimedia package produced by The Imprint and Voices of Monterey Bay, takes readers, viewers and listeners deep inside rural Oregon’s Indian Country, where elders are Indigenizing social work through equine therapy for young people who have experienced foster care and youth justice systems.

“Horses take us all the way back to our history before our land was taken away,” explains John Doug Spence, who leads equine therapy sessions across Oregon. “It’s a way of taking back our power.” 

Check out this episode of The Imprint Weekly Podcast for an interview with the people behind Healing the Children of Horse Nations, and check back on Wednesday April 3 for the official release of the project.

03/18/2024

LaShawnDa Pittman spent years studying the lives of dozens of grandmothers in the Chicago area for her book, Grandmothering While Black. 

“Despite managing the simultaneity of love and coercion,” she writes, “the Black grandmothers in this study demonstrated their love for their grandchildren in their willingness to provide care, as an extension of parenting and sometimes in place of it.” 

Pittman explored that balance of love and coercion and many other takeaways from her work in our discussion.

03/11/2024

On this week’s episode we talk to Rob Geen, who is leading the new Child Welfare Initiative started by the Bipartisan Policy Center. Some of the initiative’s early activities have included:

-A national survey on public attitudes and views about the child welfare system and how it should operate

-A landscape assessment based on interviews with those working for, involved with, and directly affected by child welfare policy.

-A review of state child welfare legislative activity in recent years.

Geen talked to us about the origins of the initiative, findings from its early activities, and his view on what “bipartisanship” means in the context of child welfare policy.

03/05/2024

On this week’s podcast, we discuss some new legislation aimed at drawing more interest in extended foster care, long-sought data on compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act, and the use of federal funds for family justice. We also break down yet another child welfare-related lawsuit in New York, and concerns over the precedent set by the conviction of Jennifer Crumbley.

02/12/2024

On this week’s episode we first talked to Kat McCloud about the new season of “Self-Taught,” a podcast from foster youth, for foster youth that just joined our SafeCamp Audio Network. McCloud talks about the first season of the show, what to expect in the second (which is now out) and how she decides what she is comfortable sharing publicly.

Bruce Lesley, president of First Focus on Children, joins us to discuss a new tax reform bill that includes a big proposal to provide more financial support for low-income parents and children, as well as federal budget deliberations and what states are doing related to child spending. 

02/05/2024

On our monthly headlines episode, we discuss recent Imprint coverage on a child welfare litigation group’s first big legal challenge, the impact of fentanyl on legislation and policy in child welfare, and the Biden administration’s incremental steps on fines and fees in the juvenile justice system. We also discuss the child welfare case of a transgender teen in Montana, and the state of federal data on child welfare.

01/29/2024

On January 1, two of Washington State’s largest human services providers combined to form a new organization called Akin. The merger of two healthy nonprofits perhaps reflects the alignment of business and outcomes to a new vision for how youth and families are served by governments and their partners.

Dave Newell, the first CEO of Akin, returns to The Imprint Weekly podcast to discuss how the merger came together, what to expect (and not) from the new organization, and his perspective on parts of the child welfare process that are not reformable.

01/23/2024

Strategies for Youth (SFY) is one of the few organizations in the country focused on the true front door of the juvenile justice system: interactions between youth and law enforcement officers. Recently, SFY published a collection of model policies for departments to use in making those interactions safer and more productive. 

SFY’s Shelley Jackson, who spent decades working on guidance and policy for the federal government, joins us to describe these model policies and how they came together.

12/15/2023

As always, we were fortunate to have some amazing guests join us this year on The Imprint Weekly Podcast. In this episode we feature clips of 20 great interviews from 2023. 

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 making a donation. And if you do so this month, during Newsmatch, your donation will get doubled!

Fostering Media Connections is very lucky to have some terrific philanthropic supporters, advertisers and sponsors, and subscribers to our business and policy section that help make this organization go. But we really cannot do it without donors like you who read our stuff, listen to our podcasts and attend our online events. 
There are tons of really great nonprofit, independent news outlets to support out there, and we hope you consider us one of them. To give today it’s easy! Visit www.imprintnews.org/donate.

12/11/2023

On this week’s podcast, we break down the new data featured in The Imprint’s “Who Cares” project, which seeks to provide an up-to-date answer on two key questions in child welfare:  How many kids are in foster care today? And where are they living?

Every year we obtain answers directly from states on this subject, and surround that with data drawn from the federal Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. You can access all of our national tables and state-by-state profiles at FosterCareCapacity.com.

12/04/2023

On this week’s podcast, we discuss some headlines that seem to emanate in part from workforce woes, a lawsuit over anonymous reporting, one state’s effort to adjust child welfare policy after marijuana legalization, and missing school while locked up.

Lisa Dickson of ACTION Ohio joins us to talk about the annual series of Thanksgiving dinners she helped state for youth in Ohio foster care, the right way to incorporate lived experience, the death of Ma’khia Bryant, and more.

11/20/2023

On this week’s podcast, we discuss some news out of Tennessee that makes a congressional inquiry look bad, and two stories that highlight the intrinsic problem with states investigating alleged abuse within foster care. 

We also talk about new research on abortion laws and foster care entries, supportive housing’s impact on reunification, and two cool mapping resources on federal and state spending.

11/13/2023

Last month, the Biden administration proposed a new rule that would permit the use of federal funding to support attorneys for tribal governments, relatives and other kin, and parents and children at risk of experiencing a family separation. 

Jey Rajaraman, associate director of litigation, children and the law for the American Bar Association, spent 16 years leading parent counsel in New Jersey, helping to develop one of the nation’s first “pre-petition” programs. She joined the podcast to discuss what the new proposed rule means and the potential of earlier provision of legal counsel for families. 

11/07/2023

On this week’s podcast, we discuss some upcoming online conversations on self-sufficiency and navigating the holidays, The Imprint’s “Born of History” series, and more information on the Biden administration’s interest in updating a key piece of the Family First Prevention Services Act.

Kerrie Lonard, Child Advocate for the State of Kansas, joins us to talk about an interesting survey her office did over the summer to learn more about the nature of why foster parents stop fostering.

10/30/2023

On this week’s episode we discuss action on Capitol Hill around the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, a Congressional investigation that so far includes only one state’s child welfare system, and how programs are reviewed for the Family First Act.

Natalece Washington, policy counsel for the National Association of Counsel for Children, to talk about her organization’s campaign to get all 50 states to guarantee legal counsel to all children in foster care.

10/23/2023

Episode 150! We discuss foster parents seeking adoption before a termination of parental rights, the nexus of foster care and psychiatric facilities and charging parents for child welfare services.

Dawn Post joins to discuss her career in child welfare, which includes starting the Broken Adoptions Project in New York City, working on class action litigation around the country and much more.

10/16/2023

On an all-headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, Imprint reporter Sara Tiano joins us to discuss her new series on an Oklahoma child welfare worker, also a licensed foster parent, who is losing a fight to adopt her two nephews in Minnesota. The case raises fresh questions about the prioritization of kin in child welfare.

We also discuss some mixed reviews from new research on unconditional cash support, the impact of enduring relationships for older youth in foster care, the future of mandated reporting, and more.

10/02/2023

On this week’s podcast we break down some major new actions on child welfare taken by the Biden administration around kinship care, legal counsel for parents and children, and LGBTQI+ youth in foster care.

Matt Anderson, host of the new podcast The Proximity Process, joins to discuss his own journey in the world of child welfare and what his plans are for this new show.

09/25/2023

On this week’s episode we discuss the rebounding of child poverty rates as COVID-19 era fiscal support went away; truth and reconciliation in South Korea; and a potential Supreme Court case over gender-affirming care 

Jody Kent Lavy, co-executive director of the Campaign for The Fair Sentencing of Youth, joins to discuss the history of the campaign, the push to end juvenile life without parole sentences and what comes next as more states provide a meaningful chance at freedom.

09/18/2023

On this week’s episode we discuss another “Family Miranda” bill becoming law, this time in Arizona; a case against caseworkers headed to verdict; and a damning statement on “Shaken Baby Syndrome.”

Christine Norbut Beyer, commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, joins to discuss her state’s exit of court oversight after many years, how the system has changed since her early career as a social worker, and her thoughts on Miranda-style warnings for parents at the point of investigation.

09/11/2023

On this week’s episode we are joined by Kathy Icenhower, co-founder and CEO of Shields for Families. Three decades ago, against the backdrop of the crack epidemic, Icenhower started Shields out of a run-down trailer provided by the Los Angeles county government with Norma Ntume and Dr. Xylina Bean. It quickly became a pioneering organization in the fight to keep families together while parents pursued drug treatment.

Icenhower talked with us about the evolution of Shields, when child removals are necessary in substance abuse cases, her concerns about the trends in treating addiction, and much more.

08/28/2023

On this week’s episode we discuss another class action lawsuit, this one targeting the extended foster care system in America’s largest local child welfare system. Also: a potentially problematic hiccup in Arizona with one of the first modern state case management systems, and the After Life podcast wins a major award. 

Michael D. Davis-Thomas, aka MDDT Speaks, joins to discuss the first two seasons of his podcast Resilient Voices and Beyond, as well as the current state of child welfare from the perspective of a man who experienced it and worked within it.

08/21/2023

On this week’s episode, we discuss another class action lawsuit filed against Indiana’s child welfare agency; housing barriers to reunification; one of America’s most famous adoption stories unravels; and new leaders in child welfare.

Kee Tobar, host of Community Legal Services (CLS) of Philadelphia’s podcast “How is That Legal?”, joins to discuss the origins of the show and some of the most impactful moments from its first two seasons.

08/14/2023

On this week’s episode we talk about some cases over the right to foster and adopt, Washington’s new policy on newborns exposed to drugs, and some recent award-nominated work by The Imprint.

Ivory Bennett, host of Ivory Bennett: The Podcast and new program manager for the Youth Voices Rising program, joins to discuss her plan to take on tough conversations on the show.

08/07/2023

On this week’s episode we discuss new data on the use of detention since the COVID-19 pandemic began, a whistleblower in Texas, and the passing of Charles Ogletree.

Corey Best, founder of Mining for Gold and host of the Audio Nuggets podcast, joins to discuss how he built his show in the mold of a hip-hop cypher.

07/31/2023

On this week’s episode we discuss new data on drug use among youth who experience incarceration; federal legislation to define poverty out of neglect; testing cash assistance in child welfare; and how foster care is being discussed in the context of the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Angela Orkin, co-host of The Children’s Law Podcast, joins to discuss one of the longest running podcasts on child welfare.

07/24/2023

On this week’s episode we discuss the ever-decreasing amount of kids in adult jails and prisons; an ominous audit on the use of psychotropics and opioids in foster care; and several interesting stories published by The Imprint this month. 

Adrian McLemore, a founding member of the Unbelievably Resilient podcast, joins to discuss the origin of the show and his views on the state of child welfare.

07/17/2023

On this week’s episode we discuss new supports for older foster youth in California, psychiatric facilities in North Carolina, an angry Texas judge and an interesting new leader in New Hampshire. 

Michael Ramey, host of the EPPiC Broadcast, joins us to discuss the show’s origin, the state of parental rights in America, and more.

07/10/2023

On this week’s episode we discuss a slate of recent court decisions over gender-affirming care for minors; Arizona moves to protect Social Security benefits for foster youth; big data breaches involving youth in the system; and California closes state-run juvenile prisons for good. 

We begin our summer series SafeCamp Spotlights, where we’ll talk to hosts from all of the great shows featured on the SafeCamp Audio podcast network. Up first: April Dinwoodie, host of Born in June, Raised in April.

06/26/2023

Darrell Missey’s path to leading the Missouri Children’s Division was an interesting one. He joined us to talk about his own life growing up in a family that experienced a mental health crisis; the group of grandmas that helped him run for judge; and the frank conversation that landed him in charge of a state with one of America’s highest foster care rates.

06/19/2023

Last week, in a surprising 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court fully upheld the Indian Child Welfare Act in Brackeen v. Haaland. We break down the full opinion of the court and their various reasons for siding in support of the 1978 law that was passed at a time when nearly a third of indigenous children were separated from their family. 

We are joined for reaction to the Brackeen ruling by three women close to the case:

-Kate Fort of Michigan State University, one of the foremost experts on ICWA in this country, who assisted with the tribes’ preparation for the Supreme Court oral arguments

-Chrissi Ross Nimmo, deputy attorney general for Cherokee Nation, one of the the tribes that officially was party to the case

-Rebecca Nagle, journalist and architect of the podcast This Land, whose second season focused on the Brackeen case.

06/12/2023

What can the ChatGPT and Bards of the world do to improve the child welfare and juvenile justice systems? On this week’s podcast, Carole Hussey of Evolv Strategy Group joins to talk about that and why states are hesitant to make big changes to case management systems.

06/05/2023

On this week’s podcast we discuss some of the figures in the biennial report on state-by-state child welfare spending from Child Trends. Also: looming deadlines on “Family Miranda” laws in two states and a Supreme Court case on ICWA, and more. 

Imprint reporter Michael Fitzgerald joins to talk about his investigative reporting looking into sexual and reproductive health policies for foster youth, an issue brought into sharp focus last year when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

05/23/2023

This week we discuss the race between Texas and New York to pass the first “Family Miranda” bill for child welfare investigations, clergy as mandated reporters, and the 28th state to ban juvenile life without parole sentences. 

Serita Cox of iFoster joins to discuss some of the most interesting results from the organization’s second annual foster care survey, including some notable responses from current and former foster youth about reunification or adoption

05/15/2023

This week we review some new research on older youth in foster care, and the impact of mother bonding in the treatment of withdrawal symptoms for opioid-exposed newborns.

We also discuss several recent stories published in The Imprint, including the first installment of a series looking at the haphazard rules around sexual and reproductive health for youth in foster care; how a small group of parent activists eventually effected the closure of California’s state-run youth prisons; and more.
Coming Soon: SafeCamp Audio, the forthcoming podcast network from Fostering Media Connections, which will feature terrific audio projects on child welfare, youth justice and more. Click here to join the SafeCamp newsletter!

05/08/2023

A recent law journal article lays out three arguments against the rate at which many child welfare systems terminate parental rights. “The Ties That Bind” lays out data, outcomes and legal reasoning to support that idea. 

We are joined this week by the co-authors of this paper: Christopher Church, a pro-bono attorney for the CHAMPS Clinic at the University of South Carolina School of Law and a co-director for the Appeal for Youth Clinic at Emory Law in Atlanta, and Vivek Sankaran, who directs the Child Advocacy Law Clinic and Child Welfare Appellate Clinics at the University of Michigan.

05/01/2023

This week we discuss SafeCamp Audio, the forthcoming podcast network from Fostering Media Connections, which will feature terrific audio projects on child welfare, youth justice and more. Click here to join the SafeCamp newsletter!

We also review some recent headlines, including new research on racial disparities in the child welfare process, renewed Congressional interest in congregate care, family separation in Ukraine, and more.

04/24/2023

Last week we talked to Keri Richmond, manager of child welfare policy for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), about a 50-state look at the new federal rules prompted by the Family First Prevention Services act around the use of group homes, residential programs and other forms of congregate care.

On this week’s podcast we talk to Jim Czarniak about a deep dive on the same topic that focused on New York. Czarniak’s work surfaced very similar findings to the national review done by AAP.

04/17/2023

On this week’s podcast we discuss a new California law that grants more time for reunifying families in some child welfare cases; the ever-worsening situation in Los Angeles juvenile facilities; and Congress takes an interest in kids that run away from foster care. 

Keri Richmond, manager of child welfare policy for the American Academy of Pediatrics, joins to discuss AAP’s recent assessment of the new limits on federal funding for group homes, residential care and institutions for foster youth. And we chat about the excellent podcast Keri helps produce, Unbelievably Resilient.

04/10/2023

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 Policy at Columbia University join to discuss their simulation of what different anti-poverty measures would do to child protection services activity in America.

04/03/2023

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 Perez and Amal Kharoufi, both of whom work on the YouthNPower project for the Children’s Defense Fund-New York, spoke to the broader idea of what community mental health should include and how the limitations around mental health services impacts youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.

03/27/2023

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 YAP’s rich history and why he thinks America hasn’t developed more programs dedicated to serving youth who have committed serious crimes in the community.

03/20/2023

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 has seen of late.

03/13/2023

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 adoptive parents in March of 2018.

03/06/2023

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 Act to discuss the law’s finer points, what conversations states are having about this law today, and more.

02/27/2023

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.

02/20/2023

Part Two: A song for orphans

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 Indigenous families from being separated. 

This conversation comes just months after the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case called Brackeen v. Haaland, in which several non-Indigenous families and the State of Texas have claimed that ICWA is unconstitutional. A decision in the case is expected to be delivered this summer.

02/13/2023

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 recounts her own adoption story, which began in 1955, decades before the Indian Child Welfare Act was passed to protect Indigenous families from being separated.

This conversation comes just months after the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case called Brackeen v. Haaland, in which several non-Indigenous families and the State of Texas have claimed that ICWA is unconstitutional. A decision in the case is expected to be delivered this summer.

02/06/2023

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 reporter Joe Shapiro joins to talk about his coverage of the nationwide practice of charging parents for the cost of foster care. 

01/30/2023

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.

01/23/2023

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. 

01/16/2023

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.

01/09/2023

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 more.

01/02/2023

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 but for changes over time in the state’s view about a second chance for young offenders. 

First you will hear a brief interview with Julie about the new season, and then we will present Episode 1 of AfterLife.

12/19/2022

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 making a donation. And if you do so this month, during Newsmatch, your donation will get doubled!

Fostering Media Connections is very lucky to have some terrific philanthropic supporters, advertisers and sponsors, and subscribers to our business and policy section that help make this organization go. But we really cannot do it without donors like you who read our stuff, listen to our podcasts and attend our online events. 

There are tons of really great nonprofit, independent news outlets to support out there, and we hope you consider us one of them. To give today it’s easy! Visit www.imprintnews.org/donate.

12/12/2022

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 care funding that Florida is using to place hundreds of youth in group settings.

12/05/2022

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.

11/21/2022

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 case involving a foster youth.

11/14/2022

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 seemed to be on the mind of the likely “swing votes” in the case.

11/07/2022

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.

10/31/2022

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, an AI Bill of Rights, and the placement preferences required by ICWA.

10/24/2022

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.

10/17/2022

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.

10/10/2022

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.

10/03/2022

On this week’s episode we discuss new child mental health legislation, an investigation into abuse at Head Start programs, and child poverty in America continuing to plummet.

09/26/2022

On our 100th episode of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we discuss a raft of new youth-related legislation introduced by Congress, moving teens to one of America’s largest adult prisons, and a new investment in adoption training.

09/19/2022

On this week’s podcast we discuss a major drop in the use of powerful psych meds on California foster youth, and discuss how child welfare metrics behaved during the prolonged decline in child poverty that was recently analyzed by Child Trends.

09/12/2022

On this week’s podcast we discuss developments in the legal battles over access to gender-affirming care for youth, the U.N.’s critique of American child welfare laws, and problems with the planned closure of California’s state-run youth prisons. 

08/15/2022

No interview this week! We’ll be back with more great guests after Labor Day. On this episode, we catch up on a whole slew of headlines in child welfare and juvenile justice from the summer. Then, we highlight five things to keep an eye on this fall in terms of federal law and policy.

08/08/2022

On this week’s podcast, we feature an online event hosted by Fostering Media Connections called “Stability Now: Getting Proactive About The Child Welfare Workforce.” This conversation features several child welfare experts who in different ways have worked on putting either their organization, or the system in general, in a better position to retain and support good workers.

Thanks to our sponsor, Binti, for supporting this important discussion.

08/01/2022

On this week’s episode we discuss a new bill to protect the rights of disabled adults involved in child welfare cases, and the resurgence of a lawsuit in West Virginia.

07/25/2022

Dee Wilson is a former leader in Washington’s child welfare system who writes the monthly child welfare commentary Sounding Board. Wilson joined us to discuss a range of topics, including his view on the abolition movement, his ideas around boosting reunification efforts, the Family First Prevention Services Act, and professional foster parenting.

07/18/2022

On this week’s episode, we discuss new findings that connect anti-poverty measures to reducing child maltreatment, the Democrats’ plan for unaccompanied minors at the border, and the Road to Healing Tour.

07/11/2022

On this week’s episode, we discuss the federal about-face on child support payment policies for youth in foster care; how the workforce crisis is impacting Texas juvenile justice; and the latest on localizing juvenile justice in California. 

06/26/2022

On this week’s episode, we discuss some alarming high school graduation data for foster youth in one of America’s largest cities; Oregon’s move away from an algorithm; and how the bipartisan gun bill could bring accountability to Medicaid services for children. 

06/20/2022

On this week’s episode we discuss the Biden administration’s possible crackdown on the use conversion therapy, Los Angeles’ new child welfare director, and a promising new legal clinic for mothers of newborns.

06/13/2022

On this week’s episode we discuss the worsening capacity crisis when it comes to older youth in foster care, calls for better juvenile judge training, and an update on the legal battle over investigating gender affirming care as abuse in Texas.