Fostering Change

Michael leads the executive efforts of the national nonprofit organization, Childhelp – a national leader in the prevention, intervention, and treatment of child abuse. 

Childhelp believes that every child has a unique contribution to make to the world.

Prior to his role with Childhelp, Michael has served in executive leadership roles with other national and international nonprofit organizations such as Easter Seals and Project CURE. Currently pursuing a PhD in Education from Seattle Pacific University, Michael is looking to advance the education, vocational, and communal support of children who have experienced, or at risk of experiencing abuse; as well as children and youth who are a part of our national foster care system

Childhelp has just launched the Courage First Hotline – a national hotline staffed with professional counselors to assist athletes, parents, coaches, and anyone in the athletic communities who are concerned about emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. 

Childhelp has also established the first evidence-based prevention education curriculum designed to educate students preK-12th grade on not only the signs and symptoms of abuse, but what to do when they witness or experience abuse. This curriculum has now included a new module around Human Trafficking.

Story Key Notes:

🖐️ About Childhelp

🖐️ A foundation to assist youth in foster care; as well as youth at risk for, or experiencing abuse

🖐️ The First Evidence Based Prevention Education Curriculum

You can find out more about Michaeli by visiting:

Website: www.childhelp.org

Facebook: www.facebook.com/childhelp

Instagram: www.instagram.com/childhelpf

Twitter: www.twitter.com/childhelp

Learn more about how you can affect change to the lives of youth in foster care by visiting https://www.comfortcases.org/

Listen to previous episodes of Fostering Change at https://www.comfortcases.org/podcast

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Originally posted in March, we couldn’t be happier to share Rob’s interview with his good friend, Mike Thorne, Mike’s focus of work is Human Transformation. He accomplishes this through an association with Vistage Worldwide, the largest Peer Advisory firm, and his work as Chairman of the National Council for Adoption.

As the author of the new book, Hustle With Heart: Unlocking Self-Worth Through Personal Trust Communities, he works to help people transform and thrive - at home and at work - to find a better way forward with their lives.

Mike is the former President of Yankee Candle and Russell Athletic and most recently CEO of Challenger Turf. He is a father of 3 adult daughters and has been married to his best friend for over 32 years. He invests his time with high integrity growth oriented leaders (and/or their leadership) who care about humanity and the environment

At age 46, Mike met his biological Mom and siblings, but not his dad. He was told that his dad didn't like successful people, but was talented at breaking and entering. Sitting in a living room with people he shared blood with but had never known until then was a turning point - Grateful vs resentful.

Mike shares so much in this interview with Rob Scheer, including these messages:

• Take care of your thoughts when alone. Take care of your words when with other people.
• The struggle of believing to belong: Belong. Build. Believe

Other Key Story Notes:

🖐️ Know and Own Your Own Story

🖐️ Define Your North Star

🖐️ Build Your Personal Trust Community Across All Aspects of Your Well Being

You can find out more about Mike by visiting:

Website: mikethorne.co

Instagram: @ptctransformer

Twitter: @ptctransformer

Linkedin:  linkedin.com/in/michaelbthorne

YouTube:@mikethorne3768 You Tube

You can purchase Mike’s book, Hustle With Heart, by clicking THIS LINK.

Learn more about how you can affect change to the lives of youth in foster care by visiting https://www.comfortcases.org/

Listen to previous episodes of Fostering Change at https://www.comfortcases.org/podcast

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

Please note that this episode initially aired in November, National Adoption Awareness Month. We acknowledge all, such as our guest Damon Davis, who continue raising awareness about adoption.

In this week's episode of Fostering Change, Rob Scheer talks with author and podcast host Damon Davis. Host of the "Who Am I Really?" podcast (www.whoamireallypodcast.com) Damon interviews people who share their stories of adoption and their attempt to find their birth families. He has interviewed nearly 200 adoptees from an array of life experiences from awful adoptions and amazing reunions to inspiring adoptions and unfortunate reunions.

In his autobiography "Who Am I Really? - An Adoptee Memoir" Damon shares his journey to becoming an adoptive parent and his emotions over the birth of his son, Seth. He opens up about the heartbreak of grappling with his adoptive mother's mental illness while balancing the joy of locating his birth mother working nearby. His journey took a twist when he located his biological father via DNA testing. 

Story Key Notes:

🖐️Who Am I Really? An Adoptee Memoir

🖐️Changing the Narrative about Adoption

🖐️While many children are very fortunate in our adoptions, let’s acknowledge that adoption starts with trauma.

You can find out more about Damon by visiting:

Website:Whoamireallypodcast.com

Facebook:facebook.com/waireally

Instagram:@damonldavis

Learn more at https://www.comfortcases.org/

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Today we kick off our "BEST OF SEASON 4" series. And what better way than to re-broadcast our first episode of the season, featuring Olympic Gold Medalist, Greg Louganis. So please enjoy - either for the 1st time or again. And stay tuned for additional "Best ofs" through the summer until we premiere Season 5 in September.

From the archive:

We are so thrilled to launch our 4th Season of “Fostering Change.” Over the past 4 years, we have spoken with more than 150 Good Humans, who have shared their missions and inspiring stories. For our premiere episode of Season 4 we could not be more excited to have Olympic Gold Medalist, Greg Louganis as our guest. Enjoy!

In this week's episode of Fostering Change, Rob Scheer talks with Greg Louganis, Louganis was adopted at 9 months by Frances and Peter Louganis, who lived in Lemon Grove, CA, just outside of San Diego. Teased and bullied as a child for the dark skin he inherited from his Samoan father and for his learning “differences,” he turned to what he could do well: sport. His first love was gymnastics and by nine years old, he was a “seasoned performer on the local talent show and convalescent-home circuit.”

Considered the greatest diver in history, Greg Louganis is the only male to win gold medals on both 3 meter springboard and 10 meter platform in consecutive Olympic Games (1984, 1988).

Across the globe, billions who watched either the 1984 or 1988 Olympics were enthralled by the poetry that was Greg Louganis: the beauty and power of his diving captured the world.

With a total of 5 Olympic medals, 5 World Championship titles and 47 national titles, more than any person in U.S. history, his records remain unbroken.

Today, as a coach, speaker, author, actor, activist and humanitarian he continues his tradition of excellence.

A trained actor, dancer, model and spokesman, Greg’s wide repertoire of skills keeps him in demand and in the public eye. 

As the undisputed GOAT of mindset, Greg shares his knowledge and wisdom through his meditation and mindfulness course, as well as through his books, interviews and speaking engagements.

Causes close to his heart include HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ+, Adoption/Foster Care, Mental Health/Addiction, Human Rights, Animals, Environmental Issues and Climate Change. 

Story Key Notes:

🖐️ Dogs/Animals

🖐️ HIV/AIDS/LGBTQ+

🖐️ Adoption/Foster Care Environmental Health & Wellness

🖐️ Mental Health

You can find out more about Greg by visiting:

Website: https://greglouganis.com/

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

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

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/gregorylouganis

Twitter: https://twitter.com/greglouganis

Learn more at https://www.comfortcases.org/

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Nolan Carr serves as the Marketing & Community Relations Manager for Amerigroup DC, a Managed Care Organization in the district serving residents eligible for Medicaid Health Insurance. In his role, Nolan coordinates outreach and community events to connect families to resources and services. Nolan supports the mission of Amerigroup DC to create a healthier District of Columbia. He is a proud graduate of Jackson State University.

Story Key Notes: 

🖐️ Supporting the foster care community together

🖐️ How Amerigroup DC is supporting the foster care community in the District of Columbia

🖐️ How we can work together to provide resources and support to the foster care community

You can find out more about Stacy by visiting:

Website: www.myamerigroup/dc.com

Twitter: @Amerigroup

Facebook: @Amerigroup

LinkedIn: @Amerigroup

Learn more about how you can affect change to the lives of youth in foster care by visiting https://www.comfortcases.org/

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April Dinwoodie is an Adoption Activist, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Consultant, and Parent Coach.  Dinwoodie’s podcast Born in June, Raised in April: What Adoption Can Teach the World helps facilitate an open dialogue about identity, family, and differences of race, culture, and class.  As a transracially adopted person (Black/bi-racial, adopted into a white family), April is fiercely dedicated to sharing her experiences to audiences of varied spectrums.  In this week’s Fostering Change, April shares with host Rob Scheer her thoughts on helping individuals get a better understanding of people with similar backgrounds.  She often consults with companies and organizations to develop stronger and more astute teams, and ultimately find even more purpose in our individual and collective work.  In addition to consulting with corporations, schools, and government grants, and keynote speaking and training,  April serves as Executive Director of Transracial Journeys.

Story Key Notes: 

🖐️  Adoptment – Mentoring Program

🖐️ The calendar as a practical tool for conversation and action supporting the needs of youth separated from family of origin. 

🖐️ Mothers’ Day – the realities of complicated holidays in adoption and foster care

You can find out more about April by visiting:

Website: www.juneinapril.com

April’s Podcast: Born in June, Raised in April: What Adoption Can Teach the World

Facebook: @juneinapril

Twitter: @juneinapril

Instagram: @juneinapril

LinkedIn: April Dinwoodie

YouTube: April Dinwoodie

Tilktok: @juneinapril

Learn more about how you can affect change to the lives of youth in foster care by visiting https://www.comfortcases.org/

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In today’s podcast Rob Scheer and his guests discuss the needs of families looking to adopt. This includes creating paths for families who need extra support for safety and stability. They look at what is working and what can be done differently to help children and families thrive.

Adoptions Together supports children and families formed through adoption, guardianship, foster care, and kinship care with specialized services offered at locations in Maryland, Virginia and DC. Support is available to every family for a lifetime of guidance, education, and counseling to ensure that each family stays strong together. 

Janice Goldwater is the founder and CEO of Adoptions Together. With an attachment focused, trauma informed lens, the agency provides a broad spectrum of clinical, educational and transformational services to strengthen relationships in first families, kinship, foster and adoptive families and the communities who support them. Janice founded the organization in 1990 and has been primarily responsible for its growth and development. As an adoptive parent of an older child who experienced maltreatment for ten years of life, Janice has utilized community-based services to support her child and family into effectively reaching adulthood. 

Lisa Dominguez, LICSW, LCSW-C, joined Adoptions Together in 2022 in the role of Chief Program Officer. She has over 20 years of experience working with children and families impacted by trauma and loss and has specialized training in working with foster and adoptive families. Ms. Dominguez has been trained in Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT), Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) and has a certificate in Advanced Trauma Treatment from the Ferentz Institute. In addition to her direct service with children and families and contract oversight experience, she is a seasoned supervisor and trainer.

Story Key Notes: 

🖐️  National Foster Care Awareness Month gives us the chance to reflect on practice

🖐️  How do we define safety and stability for children as a society

🖐️  What are the short-term and long-term possible psychological implications for children who experience abuse and neglect

You can find out more about Adoptions Together by visiting:

Website: www.adoptionstogether.org 

www.familyworkstogether.org

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AdoptTogether

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adoptionstogether/?hl=en

LinkedIn! https://www.linkedin.com/company/adoptions-together/

Learn more about how you can affect change to the lives of youth in foster care by visiting https://www.comfortcases.org/

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Stacy Huston is Executive Director of Sixdegrees.org, The award-winning nonprofit founded by Kevin Bacon with a mission rooted in connecting people to resources. Six Degrees supports impactful initiatives to sustain and enrich local communities by developing partnerships and solutions working collaboratively with local leaders, residents, and celebrities, on increasing youth empowerment, justice and equality, and improving a sustainable living environment. 

The organization prioritizes the lived experiences of communities that are commonly underserved and under-resourced. They reach their audiences through video, content and Public Service Announcements about subjects that are meaningful to the community, with a big focus on youth: particularly early education, arts programming and early literacy.

Stacy received the 2022 Harry Chapin Humanitarian Award for her work with SixDegrees related to Hunger. She has overseen social media campaigns such as “l Stay Home For”, garnishing more than 1.2 million posts and 2.1 Billion engagements globally, winning 4 Webbys and A Shorty Social Good award. 

Story Key Notes: 

🖐️  “Cake it Like a Kid” - in support of Pediatric Cancer Awareness

🖐️  SixDegrees.Org produced Play On

🖐️  Getting People Moving the Right Direction

You can find out more about Stacy by visiting:

Website: SixDegrees.Org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sixdegrees.org/

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sixdegreesofkb?lang=en

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacybradford/

Learn more about how you can affect change to the lives of youth in foster care by visiting https://www.comfortcases.org/

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Angela Featherstone - model, actress, philanthropist: Founder of the organization Fosteringcare.org, a nonprofit trauma-healing and trade school for youth aging out of foster care in Los Angeles.

The school is contributing to halting the negative outcomes that so many youth who age out of foster care experience, including homelessness, incarceration, and human trafficking. Moreover, the school is also very importantly training young people in healing modalities, so that they leave school with a trade/occupation that will enable them to achieve self-sufficiency.   They are now working with Jae Canas from UCLA Behavioral Sciences who is now creating a trauma-healing template from our paradigm for the Dept of Mental Health.

Who is Angela?  

Within a year of emancipating herself from foster care at 17, Angela Featherstone became Canada's top model when her September, Flare magazine cover broke all previous records for sales. 

She quickly expanded upon her success and left for New York where she signed with the illustrious Click agency. She would travel the world as a top fashion model, working with such great photographers as Oliviero Toscani, Piero Gemelli, Irving Penn, Albert Watson, David Bailey, and Bruce Weber. 

But for her life's work of acting, she downplayed her striking features to play unlikely roles, emerging as an actress with exceptional versatility. She is best known for playing Chloe in Friends and the fiancé (Linda) who left Adam Sandler's character (Robbie) at the altar in The Wedding Singer. 

Most recently she played the role of Maggie on Showtime’s Ray Donovan and Jame on Girls for HBO. She has created sitcoms for Sony, DreamWorks, and NBC television, and written nonfiction for Time, Jane, Flare, The Huffington Post, Dame, and Zoomer. 

Her essay about childhood trauma, God Said No, was published in the 2014 edition of Gargoyle Magazine and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. In 2011, she curated Fuck Pretty, a show at the Robert Berman Gallery featuring important and emerging female photographers, and recorded “Coattail Glide” with Raymond Pettibon and the band The Niche Makers. 

Angela, a committed advocate for children in foster care, volunteers with the Children's Action Network curating their Heart Gallery from 2011- 2019 and served on their Winter Wonderland committee 2014 & 2015. She has also mentored a child in foster care through Kidsave from 2011-2020. In 2014, she lectured at the ICAN Nexus Conference; Violence Within the Home and its Effects on Children and continues to lecture and write about healing PTSD, child abuse, human trafficking, and intimacy. Her 2015 essay on child sex trafficking for DAME was picked up by Salon.org and MSN and exposed to over 7 million viewers. That year she was also an adjunct lecturer at the UCLA Professional Producing Program. 2022 marked her 14th year studying Moral and Spiritual Psychology with Rabbi Mordecai Finley, Ph.D. 

Recently, Angela served as a consultant on the important documentary about the effects and healing of trauma, Cracked Up.

You can find out more about Angela by visiting:

Website:  www.Fosteringcare.org

Instagram: @thefosteringcarehealingshool

Twittter: ​​@ppp_healing

Learn more about how you can affect change to the lives of youth in foster care by visiting https://www.comfortcases.org/

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The Diaper Bank, Covering South Florida, has been operating for 11 years and has distributed over 5 million diapers, serving 3500 families each month. We are members of the National Diaper Bank Network- a collaboration of over 300 diaper banks around the nation working to end diaper inequity.

We break the cycle of diaper inequity by providing diapers to those who cannot afford them.

How do we do this? By providing P.E.A.C.E. –

Partner, Educate, Advocate,  Compassion and Elevate

We PARTNER with local non-profits who serve families that fall at or below the federal poverty level to help eliminate the diaper need in Palm Beach and Broward Counties.

We EDUCATE the community on the importance of ending diaper need.

We ADVOCATE for federal assistance to families to provide diapers. 

We provide COMPASSION as a  dedicated resource to so many partners and families in our community.

We work to ELEVATE the awareness of diaper need and provide families and children the opportunity to ELEVATE and shine. 

Story Key Notes: 

🖐️ Defining Diaper Need

🖐️ The Diaper Bank, Covering South Florida mission and how we do it-

To give children the opportunity to shine

🖐️ How to help/ get involved.

You can find out more about Ashley by visiting:

Website:  https://diaperbankcoveringsofl.org/

Instagram: @diaperbankcoveringsofl

Facebook: The Diaper Bank, Covering South Florida

Learn more about how you can affect change to the lives of youth in foster care by visiting https://www.comfortcases.org/

Listen to previous episodes of Fostering Change at https://www.comfortcases.org/podcast

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