INNOVATE!

May 02 2024 4
INNOVATE! Podcast artwork

Welcome to INNOVATE! Podcast host Angela Tucker sits down with Re-Envisioning Foster Care Champions  - visionary leaders using their lived experience expertise to improve life outcomes for our nation's children and youth in foster care. They are creating a Culture of Possibility, changing the foster care narrative & leading the nation forward. To learn more about INNOVATE!, the Re-Envisioning Foster Care Movement & the Treehouse Foundation, go to treehousefoundation.net. 

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S04E01: Belonging: It's Transformational Value

May 02 2024 41 mins  
ReEnvisioning Foster Care Champion Gaelin Elmore is a former NFL player who chose to retire from football and become a full-time advocate for children and youth whose lives have been impacted by foster care. A visionary leader who experienced life in our nation’s child welfare system, Gaelin shares his wisdom, lived expertise, and award-winning ideas with child welfare profession

S3E10: A More Expansive Definition of Family

Nov 22 2023 40 mins  
Charles and Molly Lerner were adopted by the same parents when they were children. They are siblings by adoption. Today Charles and his husband, who live in Boston, are parenting Molly’s son. They are his adoptive parents. Molly, who lives in Texas, is co-parenting her son with them.Listen in as Angela speaks with Charles and Molly at the 9th national ReEnvisioning Foster Care co

S3E9: Healing Through Meditation

Nov 15 2023 31 mins  
ReEnvisioning Foster Care Champion Demetrius Napolitano is a passionate advocate for children and young people who are experiencing foster care and their peers in NYC public schools. Using his knowledge of yoga and meditation, plus his lived expertise, he launched a nonprofit called Fostering Meditation to provide concrete skills that enhance the health and well-being of his studen

S3E8: Healed People Heal People

Jul 08 2023 38 mins  
2023 REFCA Champion Keri Hope Richmond is a change maker, storyteller, and a passionate advocate for children and families. She is the manager of child welfare policy for the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Executive Director of Unbelievably Resilient (UR) - a nonprofit that is fully staffed by professionals with lived experience and works to rewrite the foster care narrativ

S3E7: Soul Family - Young People Choose Their Circle of Caring Adults

Jun 12 2023 28 mins  
REFCA Champion Patty Chin is a visionary advocate for young people in foster care. Using her lived expertise, she created a compelling new option to support the needs of the 20,000 youth who age out of foster care every year without the benefit of a legal, permanent family. It’s called Soul Family.SOUL Family allows a young person to identify and design their chosen circle of car

S3E6: How Mandatory Reporters Could Become Mandated Supporters

May 30 2023 33 mins  
REFCA Champion Jasmine Snell has a dream: to create a primary school that supports two generations of Americans - children and their parents; a community based resource that is available to children experiencing foster care and their peers. While bringing her vision to fruition, Jas uses her lived experience to coach young people living in foster care as well as to mentor young adu

S3E5: The “Schism’s” and the “Isms” Within Foster Care

May 29 2023 28 mins  
REFCA Champion Carloe Moser discusses the ways that the Crosby Scholars LIGHHT Program in Winston-Salem, North Carolina helps young people living in foster care see a light at the end of the tunnel while facing racism, classism, conflict, and discord; to give them hope and a way forward.Carloe has seen the way the streets can be a battlefield. The way they can prevent youth in fost

S3E4: How The Supportive Words of A Child Attorney Led Cristal To Her Dream College

May 22 2023 32 mins  
In the 6th grade, REFCA Champion Cristal Ramirez had a dream … to attend San Diego State University. She knew that very few kids living in foster care ever receive college or graduate-level degrees, but she wanted to break through the barrier of dismal statistics that stood in her way. Thanks to an attorney who supported her dream for two decades, Cristal wholeheartedly embraced

S3E3: How Being in Foster Care While in College Led to the Creation of Foster U

May 14 2023 35 mins  
As a freshman at Old Dominion University, Melvin encountered a plethora of resources colleges have for almost anything you can think of - tutoring, counseling, intramural sports, and clubs. What he wasn’t finding was support for kids in college who were also in extended foster care. So, he created Foster U. Under Melvin’s stellar leadership, Foster U encouraged those in foster

S3E2: The Voices of Foster Youth & Alumni in Ohio Are Being Elevated

May 07 2023 33 mins  
REFCA Champion Lisa Dickson is involved in a wide array of initiatives in Ohio that amplify and honor youth voice and experience. She works diligently to ensure that young people living in foster care are designing and implementing on the federal level, including speaking directly to HUD leadership. In this episode of INNOVATE!, Lisa shares the story of how she helped create a yout