Fostering Voices Podcast

Welcome to Season 8 of Fostering Voices. We are thrilled you are here for this season opening episode. Jihae and Chris talk all about their highs and lows of the summer, including how some of our kids learned to fly - metaphorically and literally. 

In the final episode of the season Jihae has a deep, insightful, and powerful conversation with Peter Mutabazi. Peter is a single fostering dad who is an advocate for children. he is incredibly active and terrific on social media. His YouTube channel and IG feed are especially active and terrific. We can't wait for you to hear from Peter and hear his passion and commitment to fostering children.

This week we are interviewing the lovely Hitomi Mewhinney the Director of the Birth Parent Program at Foster Care Initiatives. She shares how she has been partnering with birth moms to walk with them through their journey. It is beautiful work, and you can join them!

It is easy to discard kindness as just a suggestion, but not something that actually makes a difference. And we beg to differ on that. We think that kindness is a big piece of what is missing in society at large. Don't overthink it. Just be kind. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Listen to understand, not just to respond.

Join us for a wonderful and deep conversation with Rita Soronen, President & CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. So thankful to be able to partner with likeminded organizations who care about foster kids and providing safe and forever homes for them all!

Technology is great and terrible for our families. Millions upon millions of families have come before us with little to no technology. And they did pretty well for themselves. But here we are with too much technology and what are we supposed to do now? Todd Watson, CEO of Showit, has some great tips for us!

Parenting fails are always fun to hear, but less fun to live through - especially if you are the parent (or the child of that parent!) We have 7 kids, which doesn't make us parenting experts. It just makes us a couple that has more parenting fails than the average family. We are sharing these with you to encourage you, and educate you, on your parenting journey!

We all struggle with doing stuff that we don't want to do. If you are struggling - you are not alone! But just cause you don't want to do something is not reason enough to NOT do it!  We struggle with apologizing (especially to our kids), being affectionate, exercising, cleaning, and the list goes on and on. But we have to do these things. To be healthy, clean, and to have good relationships! So we hope you feel encouraged by this week's episode!

This is a great episode with Jason Johnson, the Director of Church Ministry Initiatives at Christian Alliance for Orphans. We talk about his journey in being a foster family, to an adoptive family, to mobilizing individuals and churches to be stronger disciples and to live out the gospel.

What if we found as much joy in washing our face at home every day, as we did in having a spa day? Cause who has time for spa days??? But we do have to wash our face every day (unless you are a man, and then you might accidentally wash your face in the shower on occassion.) But this episode talks about choosing simple little things that bring you great joy in your everyday life.

We recorded this episode on December 30th, 2020, with the intentions of releasing it the next day... Well, here we are almost 3 weeks later! Gotta love those good intentions! So welcome to season 7. We had an absolutely incredible season 6, and we are so thankful for all of the new listeners who joined us on our journey this last year.

None of us know what we are doing as parents and are always looking for solid parenting advice. Julie Lythcott-Haims has some strong suggestions. She may possibly be the most quoted author on our podcast. Julie is the New York Times Best Selling Author of "How to Raise an Adult", as well as "Real American", and has a new book "Your Turn" coming out in 2021!

Leadership is something we talk about a lot on the podcast, because we are all leaders! It is your choice if you are going to be a good one, or not. Parenting is one of the hardest leadership positions you will hold. And all the more as a foster parent! This episode is essentially a review of 'The Motive' by Patrick Lencioni, and 'Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before they Happen' by Dan Heath.

We are beyond honored to have the Honorable Justice James Beene on our podcast! Justice Beene, aka Jim, has served on the supreme court in Arizona for the last year, and had served in Family and Juvenile court for over 4 years, here in Arizona.

Trauma is something that is common to all humans. But trauma and abuse are not a part of everyone's story, but it is for this week's guest. Monica was put into foster care as a baby, and was soon adopted by an abusive family. She was actually put back into foster care a few years later, but then returned to the previous adoptive family. Talk about a traumatic childhood!