Welcome back to our “Best of Season 5” series. Maybe you’ll be listening to this on the beach as you celebrate Independence Day, in your car on your way to work, or at home. Wherever you listen, we thank you for your support!

Today we revisit our interview with Laura, whose mission is to educate and support people about the foster care system. Often, new foster parents are not prepared for everything they need to know before their first children come to them.

Laura discuss how the “cracks of child welfare are deep”, from misplaced birth certificates to wrong names of the child, and without knowing the right types of questions to ask, you run the risk of not knowing these things and have to play catch up - which is not the situation a new foster parent - or their child - wants to be in!

In this insightful conversation, you will hear:

• What sweeping changes need to be made in the foster care system
• What should be considered when setting up your home for a foster child
• How every state has different rules and regulations and how that affects parents and youth
• How we should be moving from “mandated reporting” to “mandated supporting”

You can learn more about Laura by visiting her here:

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/foster.parenting

Website: https://www.fosterparentpartner.com/

Instagram: @foster.parenting

TikTok: @fosterparenting

YouTube: @foster.parenting

Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-a74dff14

Our next “Best of” episode will air July 16. As always, you can find an archive of all 5 seasons of Fostering Change here: https://comfortcases.org/podcasts/.

If you have any questions, please feel free to send us an email at info@comfortcases.org.

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Welcome to our first episode of Fostering Change’s “Best of Season 5”. Today, we revisit Rob’s interview with Mark Daley, author of SAFE: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Family. We knew right away that this interview would be in our “Best of” series, and we think you’ll agree. So whether this is your first, second or third time listening to this interview, please enjoy!

Today, on Fostering Change, Comfort Cases’ founder Rob Scheer has an enlightening conversation with Mark Daley, author of SAFE: A Memoir of Fatherhood, Foster Care, and the Risks We Take for Family. The book offers a deeply personal window into what happens when the universal longing for family crashes up against the unique madness and bureaucracy of a child protection system that often fails to consider the needs of the most vulnerable parties of all—the children themselves.

You will hear Rob share that he believes that SAFE is an important resource for anyone who is interested in learning more about, or is actively participating in our foster care system. You will hear Rob and Mark discuss how having a community of support all around you is so important. In fact, finding community is “Step Number 1!” - be that community family, church, neighbors or others who can support you as you work to juggle this new lifestyle.

Mark shares some important tips for new foster parents, including:

• Go in with your eyes open. Do your homework.
• Don’t rush to judgment on the families of the child/children you’ve brought into your home. You likely do not know the “whole story.” Be empathetic.
• Speak up and be “the voice” for your child/children

To purchase SAFE, please visit your local independent bookstore or purchase online on sites including:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Bookshop.org

You can follow Mark on Social Media:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markdaley00/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/markdaley00

Our next “Best of” episode will air July 2nd. Stay tuned!

You can always catch up on previous episodes of Fostering Change by visiting www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.

If you have any comments, questions, or guest suggestions, we’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at info@comfortcases.org.

As always, thank you for listening!

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Welcome to the Final Episode of Season 5. Thank you for joining us on this journey - whether you’re a new listener or if you’ve been with us all five seasons.

Season 6 will debut in September, but following today’s episode, we will air some of our favorite episodes from the past season once again bi-weekly. So stay tuned!

And for our final episode of the season, we wanted to go out on a HIGH NOTE, and couldn’t have looked any further than today’s guest, Rob Scheer’s good friend, Sarah Fraser.

Many first became aware of Sarah’s talents when she was the co-host of Hot 95.5’s “The Kane Show” in Washington, DC and then on DC’s 107.3’s “Sarah, Ty, and Mel”. She was also an entertainment contributor for FOX 5 in DC for 13 years!

But DC couldn’t hold a talent like her, and she recently moved to the Bright Lights of Los Angeles, and is the host of “The Sarah Fraser Show,” one of the top-trending pop culture podcasts in the country. (More than 15 MILLION downloads!) Sarah covers reality TV, interviews unique guests and talks about her own fun life. She has so much more going on, we highly recommend you follow her on social media (links below) to keep up-to-date!

Sarah is also looking to become a foster parent. She and Rob have a lively discussion about the hoops many need to go through to become a foster parent - and Rob also offers a possible solution to Sarah that she hadn’t considered before. (You’ll have to listen to the end for this!)

What a terrific way to end the season.

A reminder that our first “Best of” episode will air Tuesday, June 18. And then episodes will air on alternate Tuesdays until the start of Season 6.

Thank you again for being such supportive listeners!

Follow Sarah here!

Facebook

@thesarahfrasershow

Instagram

@thesarahfrasershow

Twitter/X

@sarahfrasershow

TikTok

@thesarahfrasershow

Our next episode will be the start of our “Best of Season 5”. The first “Best of” will post on Tuesday, June 18. We’ll then stay on our schedule of alternate weeks until Season 6 debuts in September.

You can always catch up on previous episodes of all 5 seasons of Fostering Change by visiting www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.

If you have any comments, questions, or guest suggestions, we’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at info@comfortcases.org.

As always, thank you for listening!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the final episode of Fostering Change for National Foster Care Awareness Month. We hope you have done something meaningful to help our youth, the fantastic people who work in social services, our teachers… and yourself. This is the month they “give us,” but as Rob often shares, “when you invest in a child, you invest in YOUR future… because they are the leaders of tomorrow.”

We end this month with a very special guest: Emi Nietfeld. Emi is the author of an amazing book that we highly recommend you purchase right now: Acceptance. In her memoir, Emi shares how she did something that only 3% of youth in foster care do: she went to college—and not just any college, but Harvard!

As a homeless teenager writing college essays in her rusty Toyota Corolla, Emi Nietfeld was convinced that the Ivy League was the only escape from her dysfunctional childhood. But upward mobility required crafting the perfect resilience narrative. She had to prove that she was an “overcomer,” made stronger by all that she had endured.

In her interview with Rob, Emi shares the life lessons she’s learned, particularly of challenging our ideas of what it means to overcome - and find contentment on your own terms.

To learn more about Emi and her memoir, please visit https://www.eminietfeld.com/

You can also find and follow Emi on social media:

Substack:

https://eminietfeld.substack.com/

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/eminietfeld/

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emi-nietfeld

Twitter/X

https://twitter.com/eminietfeld

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/eminietfeld

TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/@eminietfeld

Our next episode is our final episode of Season 5 and will air June 4.

Throughout the rest of the Summer, we will be sharing some of our favorite episodes of Season 5. Stay tuned!

You can always catch up on previous episodes of all 5 seasons of Fostering Change by visiting www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.

If you have any comments, questions, or guest suggestions, we’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at info@comfortcases.org.

As always, thank you for listening!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today we share the story of an amazing woman who has the biggest heart - the epitome of what we love to call a “Good Human”.

We’ll learn how in the period of just 3 years, Kate Rapier quickly went from being single, to becoming a foster mom, soon an adoptive parent of two and then married to a man with 3 wonderful kids from a previous marriage!

Kate was single when she first began the process of becoming a foster parent in 2020. And like many parents who take this journey, her life changed with a phone call that there was a child coming into custody that day and would she be able to take her? Just about 5 hours after stating an emphatic “YES”, a caseworker arrived with 1-week old “Gigi”.

After having adopted Gigi in 2021, she was just six weeks into dating her now husband when she received another life-changing phone call. This time about baby Ryland.

You’ll hear Kate share more about her life with Gigi, Ryland and her new family and this amazing journey she is on.

Kate is one of the loveliest people you’ll meet. We know you’ll agree and will enjoy her story as much as we have.

You can learn more about Kate on her Instagram feed: @katerapier

Our final episode during National Foster Care Awareness Month will drop on May 28! You can always catch up on previous episodes of Fostering Change by visiting www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.

If you have any comments, questions, or guest suggestions, we’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at info@comfortcases.org.

As always, thank you for listening!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As you likely recall, in Season 5, we moved to posting new episodes of Fostering Change bi-weekly. Well, we’ve just met so many amazing humans that we thought we’d make an exception during National Foster Care Awareness Month, so we have four episodes running this month!

Before we get on to today’s show with the amazing Benjy Grinberg, just a suggestion to visit the Comfort Cases website - www.comfortcases.org, and see all of the programs we are working on this month, with some genuinely unique organizations. Thanks.

And now, as they say… “On with the Show!”

On today’s episode, Rob Scheer speaks with Benjy Grinberg - yes, a GOOD HUMAN.

Benjy is the Founder and CEO of Rostrum Records, an independent record label known mainly for developing artists early in their careers and championing their vision. Grinberg started in the music industry at Arista Records as an assistant to record executive Antonio “L.A.” Reid.

A career-long champion of the indie community, he leads the labels’ well-recognized, innovative, artist-centric approach driven by his commitment to ensuring the long-term success of his artists. Over the course of two decades, the label has had a diverse roster of chart-topping artists, including Mac Miller, Wiz Khalifa, DC The Don, The Bird and The Bee, 24hrs, Mod Sun, Rockie Fresh, Problem, KT Tunstall, and more.

How does this relate to Foster Care? Well, Benjy recently became a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate)! CASAs are everyday community members appointed by a judge to advocate for children in need of care. On today’s show, Benjy speaks with Rob about why he chose to become a CASA and what it means to him.

Definitely an inspirational conversation.

To learn more about becoming a CASA, please visit https://nationalcasagal.org/

To learn more about Benjy:

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/benjybenjy

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjy-grinberg-ba85653/

Our next episode will air on May 21. You can also catch up on previous episodes of Fostering Change by visiting www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.

If you have any comments, questions, or guest suggestions, we’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at info@comfortcases.org.

As always, thank you for listening!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

May 1 was the first day of National Foster Care Awareness Month. The team at Comfort Cases wants to take a moment to thank and recognize all of the foster parents, foster families, youth who are currently in foster care and those who have “aged out”. Thank you to the CASAs and the social service agencies and workers who are doing their best.

And thank you to YOU, our faithful (and new) listeners of Fostering Change. We produce this podcast for you and in support of all you are doing. Thank you for your comments and sharing episodes with friends, family and colleagues.

We couldn’t have asked for a better guest for this first episode airing during National Foster Care Awareness Month. Award-winning journalist Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the Air Force, and surprisingly attending elite universities in his raw coming-of-age memoir, Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family and Social Class.

Rob’s book was an instant USA TODAY Best Seller. In the book and in his interview with Rob Scheer (who is a Navy veteran), he discusses his pioneering concept of “luxury beliefs”: ideas and opinions that confer status on the Upper Class while inflicting costs on the less fortunate.

Rob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, ultimately shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. Divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his adolescent and teen years, propelling Henderson to join the military upon completing high school.

An unflinching portrait of shattered families, desperation, and determination, Troubled recounts Henderson’s expectation-defying young life and juxtaposes his story with those of his friends who wound up incarcerated or killed. He retreads the steps and missteps he took to escape the drama and disorder of his youth. As he navigates the peaks and valleys of social class, Henderson finds that he remains on the outside looking in.

Rob Henderson is a columnist at The Free Press and his weekly newsletter is sent to more than fifty thousand subscribers. Learn more at RobKHenderson.com.

To find out more about:

Visit Rob’s Website and Subscribe to his newsletter: https://www.robkhenderson.com/

Twitter: @robkhenderson

To learn more about or purchase Troubled, please visit: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Troubled/Rob-Henderson/9781982168537

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Today’s episode of Fostering Change is an in depth discussion with Susan Rich, founder and president of 7th Generation Foundation, about FAS: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

FAS is close to home to our host, Rob Scheer, as one of Rob’s children has FAS. And although the diagnosis for Rob’s son was that he may never walk, or even talk, his son has achieved amazing things in his life, including being the President of his Student Government in High School, and has been accepted into the college he’s loved for years.

Susan and Rob discuss the importance of animal therapy on those diagnosed with FAS (one reason Rob and his husband Reece moved his family to a farm!) 7th Generation Foundation operates an inclusive, sustainable green care farm animal sanctuary with programming for children and youth.

Author of The Silent Epidemic: A Child Psychiatrist’s Journey Beyond Death Row, Susan and Rob also discuss the thousands of inmates on Death Row who were in Foster Care and diagnosed with FAS at a young age. This is not a coincidence, and there is much that our society can do to curb this horrifying statistic.

To learn more about or to purchase Susan’s book, please visit: www.prenatalalcoholexposure.com

To learn more about 7th Generation Foundation, please visit:

Website: www.7thGenerationFoundationInc.org or www.dreamcatchermeadows.org

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TheDreamCatcherFarm

Blog: www.bettersafethansorryproject.com

Book: www.prenatalalcoholexposure.com

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