When young adults leave the foster care system they’re left trying to find housing or employment on their own. Oftentimes, the thing they yearn for the most is family. In this special episode, Gloria chats with the president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Center for Systems Innovation, Sandra Gasca-Gonzalez, and CEO at Foster Forward, Lisa Guillette. Our guests discuss how they’re helping youth aging out of foster care age into an ecosystem of belonging. Whether it’s legally creating ‘soul’ families or providing affordable homes, they tell us the ways they’re working with former foster kids to break the cycle and achieve stability.

This episode was made possible with support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, an organization devoted to building brighter futures for all children, youth and young adults, and ensuring they have the family, community and opportunity they need to thrive. Learn more at www.aecf.org. Views expressed in this episode are solely those of the participants.

No One is Coming to Save Us is presented by Neighborhood Villages. Neighborhood Villages is a Massachusetts-based systems change non-profit. It envisions a transformed, equitable early childhood education system that lifts up educators and sets every child and family up to thrive. In pursuit of this vision, Neighborhood Villages designs, evaluates, and scales innovative solutions to the biggest challenges faced by early childhood education providers and the children and families who rely on them, and drives policy reform through advocacy, education, and research.

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In the third and final episode of our miniseries on foster care, we hear from David Ambroz, a national poverty and child welfare advocate and author of the memoir 'A Place Called Home'. David shares his first hand account of growing up in the American foster care system, his experience becoming a foster parent, and how he learned to practice forgiveness.

This episode is presented by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, a national nonprofit public charity that is committed to dramatically increasing the number of adoptions of children waiting in North America’s foster care systems. For more information visit www.davethomasfoundation.org.

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In this second episode of our miniseries on foster care, we hear from Jeanie Gaskill, a parent who connected with her kids through The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. Jeanie gets real with Lemonada host Gloria Riviera about what it’s like to navigate trauma and support an open adoption in her family. Plus, Gloria learns what people should consider before fostering or adopting.

This episode is presented by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, a national nonprofit public charity that is committed to dramatically increasing the number of adoptions of children waiting in North America’s foster care systems. For more information visit www.davethomasfoundation.org.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.