Transforming Lives Through Foster Care: A Conversation with Dr. John DeGarmo

And they come to my house, they become members of my family. And I believe every child should have a forever family.

It's the Foster to Forever podcast. Happy stories of non traditional families born through Foster to Adopt. I'm your host, Rachel Fulgenetti.

I am so excited to welcome our guest today, Dr. John DeGarmo. He is an expert in the field of foster care and adoption. He's an advocate, he's a speaker, he's a writer.

And I'm just thrilled to have you here. Thanks for taking the time, John.

Oh, thank you so much for the opportunity.

Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got to where you are? Like, why foster care? Was there something in your past that connected you to that?

Tell me about your story.

Well, there was nothing in my past that connected me to. In fact, I didn't want to do it. I. I had no interest or desire to be a foster parent.

I believe so many of the myths, so many of the misconceptions that were associated with it, that the kids are bad kids, our foster parents are weird people. You know, that last one's true because you got to be a little bit weird to do what you do. It's a very different kind of lifestyle.

But what led my wife and I became foster parents was, um. My wife's from Australia. We lived there for a number of years.

And our first child died of a condition called anencephaly, or some pronounce it ancephaly. It's a condition where the brain or skull doesn't truly form. And my wife was in labor for 92 hours and.

Sorry.

Oh, yeah, yeah. And that was. That was, gosh, almost 30 years ago. And then years later, we moved back to the United states. We had three healthy children.

@ that time, I was teaching in a very, very rural school system in middle Georgia. And two things happened that really significantly led us to foster parenting. The first one was we had.

I had a lot of kids in this rural county who had issues of behavior, academics, attendance. And I kept asking, why? What's going on in this small county? And I met a lot of their birth parents, and I recognized, aha, it starts in the home.

And that time I also had a senior in my classroom who was pregnant with triplets. And I recognized that neither he, normally the father of the kids, was in any shape whatsoever to take care of those kids.

And the second thing was, in this rural county, Putnam County, Georgia, there was, at that time, in the late 90s, early 2000s, there was the largest child sex trafficking Ring in America happening there right under their noses. And most people did not recognize it. And I had a lot of those kids in my classroom who are victims.

The gentleman was, who was leading it was named Dr. Malachi York. He had this Nawabian nation. He was eventually arrested for bringing over a thousand children over state lines to have sex with them.

And then, and then many of those kids were in my classroom as victims. So I went to my wife and said, hey, you know, we lost our first child. I got this. These human trafficking victims in my classroom.

I've got this student who's pregnant with triplets. What if I brought those triplets home? And my wife said, and I should have listened to her, she said, as long as you change the diapers.

We went 20 years straight, no joke, 20 years straight with at least one child in diapers. We even had, oh, my God, one year. We actually had seven diapers in our house at the same time.

Oh, God.

Which I think should be. Well, I think that should be criminal. In all 50 states. That was insane. So that really led us to saying, you know, how can we help?

We lost our first child. How can we help other kids? That led to fostering over 60 plus kids. We've adopted three from the system. We've been blessed to do that.

And I'm very driven every day to make the system a better one.

Wow. So your wife was on board right away. That's imperative. I mean, you got to have that.

Were your children, your biological children already grown or what. What age were they?

When we first started, our oldest was five. So our kids have lived. That's all they've known. That's all they, you know, that's. That's their norm.

Right.

And I think that my children are much better people because of it. You know, none of them. I have six children, three biological, three adopted. And I think that while maybe none of.

None of my six might be foster parents in the future, I firmly believe every one of them will lead a life of serving others in some way because they've been able to see up close, personal and live with children who have suffered horrific abuse, trauma, neglect in their own home as their foster siblings.

A lot of people that I talk to are afraid of that. Can you speak to that? Like they're afraid of the impact that it will have on their biological children?

Well, I couldn't do without my kids, to be sure. My wife and I could not have done without the kids. My.

When a child's place in our home, our kids would quickly gather around them, lead Them by the hand around the house, give a tour, and next thing they know, they're playing with them. A little bit of play therapy, if you will. And again, I point back to. I think that my kids are going to. They're going to.

They're going to lead a life of serving others. They're quick to stand up for bullying. They're. They have much more compassionate heart towards those who suffer.

But, you know, when you get that phone call to be a. To for a placement for foster care, you've got to ask yourself the questions, is this a good fit for my family today?

Is my family a good fit for this child today? Is this child good fit for my family today? And sometimes an answer might be no, sometimes it might not be a necessarily good fit.

But overall, I think, I think my children by far have, Have. Have really been blessed to have so many kids come to the home. Have there been times and they said it's hard? Oh, yeah, to be sure.

Sometimes, dad, this kid's driving me crazy. And I say yes, drive me crazy too. But again, they are so much more compassionate than I think their peers, I bet.

Did they experience loss? I mean, I'm sure they did when some of the children were reunified or. How did you handle that? How did you guys work through that?

Oh, to be sure. You know, foster parents struggle a lot with feelings of grief and loss when a child leaves the home. You know, in our house, there's.

There's no label, there's no biological, there's no foster, there's no adoptive. They're all our children. And my own children feel the same way. They feel that this is their sibling.

And sometimes, yeah, there is, to be sure, heavy feelings of loss and grief when some of the kids leave. Yes, absolutely.

And are you able to keep in touch with them or. I guess it would be on a case by case basis.

It is a case by case basis. We just, we just this past Christmas, unbeknownst to my entire family, I had one of our former foster kiddos show up at our house.

He had been abandoned by his mother at age 17 for her boyfriend of one month who said, hey, make a choice, me or your son. And so she kicked him out, handed a homeless. And he was with us for quite some time and we hadn't seen him in six years.

And I, I had contacted him through social media and he showed up with his family, with his wife and his two kids, and my entire family was completely surprised. We try to stay in touch with as many as possible, but sometimes it doesn't happen.

Sometimes they go back to an environment and their birth parents say, you know what? That's a chapter in our life that we don't wanna remember.

Right, yeah, sure, I get that. What made you. Out of. You said you had 60. About 60 kids have come through. What made you adopt the three that you adopted?

I'm just trying to understand, were all the other ones reunified or was it just like, yeah, this isn't a good fit, or how does that work?

Well, you know, we've actually had four failed adoptions where we tried to adopt children, and for some whatever reason it might be, the adoption fell through with sabotage, et cetera. The ones that were up for adoption, that we've adopted, they just happened to come up for adoption. Termination of parental rights. Which means.

Which means, for those who might not know is the birth parents have a certain amount of time to work their caseload, and if they're unable to do so many times there's an extension, but if they're unable to do so, it goes up for adoption.

And if there's no biological family member or close relative or close family member who wants to adopt, and the foster parents often get the right to do so, and we didn't go into it setting out to adopt, by all means, we didn't do that. But I point again to the fact that when they come to my house, they become members of my family.

And I believe every child should have a forever family.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And unfortunately, as we know, that's not the case at all.

Right.

Would you say that the need now for foster families is greater or the same as when you started? Or is it different? Like, what are some of the differences that you see now versus when you first started?

Well, when we first started back in, gosh, 2001, 2002, we didn't have, I think, the issue that we're facing today, and I was just talking to a journalist a few moments ago, and I tell every journalist the real pandemic right now. It's not a virus, it's mental health. We are in a mental health pandemic for our children on a variety of levels.

A lot of it's due to the unnecessary lockdowns that we had in 2020 and 2021. You know, we have a 70% increase in teenage suicide attempts. When we had the pandemic, when we had.

Sorry, we had the lockdowns, here I was a lone voice in the wilderness, if you will, saying in April of 2020, we can't close these schools Down.

Because when you have 5 million children who experience domestic violence in their house every single day, they go to school for three things, for, for two meals a day, they might not be getting a home, a mandate reporter, but more importantly, for eight hours a day, they're not being abused, raped, whatever it might be. And what we did was we locked them at home with their abuser with no mandated reporter whatsoever.

And we thought, well, society thought this is the best interest of the children, we're protecting them. We didn't. It was horrific and we're seeing the results.

So we're seeing a huge issue, mental health issues, a number of ways at the same time, we don't have enough foster parents. We don't have enough foster parents. And of course we're seeing an increase in human trafficking as well.

The last four years have we seen a huge increase in human trafficking. Again, we don't have the foster parents. There's not enough foster parents. We lost a lot of good foster parents during the lockdowns.

Because what I was hearing from across the country was when the children and foster care were not going to school anymore, they're not, they're not getting the support services they needed because they're 18 months behind academically. They were not getting professional therapy and counseling services, they weren't getting in person visitations.

And their anxiety levels went through the roof.

Sure.

And foster parents would tell me, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a counselor, I'm not a teacher, I can't teach them this stuff they're doing online.

Right.

We can't do five day visitations online virtually. And foster parents, anxiety levels are through the roof.

And, and there was no support for them because no one could come and visit them and help them because again, of the lockdowns.

Right.

So we lost a lot of good flash parents. So more kids in crisis, more kids suffering from mental health issues, more children being human trafficking.

You have an opiate epidemic that has not gone away. In fact, it may have escalated yet. There's not enough people who will say, you know what?

I'm willing to make this unique lifestyle a life of sacrifice. Foster parenting is, I think, a life of sacrificing because you sacrifice a lot of your things to care for these children in crisis in.

And I'll say it's the hardest thing I've done. It's the most rewarding thing I've done, but it's been the most challenging thing I've done at the same time.

Yeah, of course it has. I can't Believe your energy level that you're able to keep it up for as long as you have done. Like, I just, I.

I adopted two from the foster care system in la and so that was about two and a half years for one, two for the other. And I was just so exhausted after that experience that I cannot imagine. And here are doing trainings and speaking and doing all this stuff.

I'm assuming that you stopped teaching at a certain point and this became your life and your career.

Very driven.

Yeah, very driven.

Very driven. And you know, we've had as many as 11 kids in the house at the same time and it is exhausting.

But at the same time, every child's made me a better person in some way.

You said that, you know, the foster parents weren't receiving the support and I know that this is a part of what you do. Can you talk about how you support foster families?

Well, I do it through a number of ways, through the Foster Care Institute to begin with, I travel the nation providing in person training, in person support for those foster, adoptive and kinship parents. Because when you get a child, I think back to. And maybe you can relate, I think back to my very first placement.

I tell you what, I thought I was ready. I thought I was ready for this. I went through training, I had three kids.

I had been teaching my wife a degree in psychology and within 20 minutes, the first placement came at 10:30 at night and by 10:50, and I thought, oh my gosh, I am not prepared for this at all.

Oh yeah.

And then when the children left my home, I wasn't prepared for the amount of grief and heartbreak I was experiencing either. I thought they told me this was going to happen, but I'm not ready for this.

Right.

So I provide a lot of in person training as a port for those foster parents because you got to every time a child comes in your home, it's going to be a different experience. You know, they could have, you may have had kids who have experienced similar abusive traits, but every child's unique, every child is different.

So they're going to experience it differently.

Right.

Well, that means every time a child comes in your home, it's going to be a learning curve. So I provide those type of in person training and support services. I.

We have at the Foster Care Institute, we have over 80 hours of online training webinars where foster parents can get their licensing hours. But I think more importantly, jump on and find out, hey, this child has a reactive attachment disorder. What is that?

Right?

Child has sleep anxieties. How do I handle this. My. My own marriage is suffering. My own biological children are struggling. Well, how do I help?

Right.

I work with a lot of legislators to improve the system, reform the system. Lots of webinars. Books, of course. My next book coming out, I got a book coming out soon as well.

So tell me about your books and the one that's coming out next.

Well, I. You know, when I finished my doctorate, which was centered around foster care, I realized I love to write. So I wanted to write a book.

My first one was I wanted to write a book about the life of a foster parent from a. From a dad's perspective without sugarcoating it. The joys, the sorrows, the heartbreak, the successes.

That one's called fostering a loved one, Foster parents journey. And that led to a lot of different books.

My newest, faith in foster care, the church in foster care, the foster parenting manual, keeping foster children safe online. Lots of them. My newest one, I thought it was done. After my 12th book, I thought, okay, I'm done. What else do I say? And then I'm working.

I've been working the last several years with a dear friend of mine by the name of Jen Lilly, who used to live in Los Angeles. Yeah, she's an actress.

Yeah, Jen was just on the show, actually.

Oh, yeah.

She's so great. Love her.

Yes. Yes. Well, we are writing a. We've written a book together. It should come out 20, 25.

Amazing. I didn't even know that. We didn't even get to that. She's like, so I could talk to her forever. And we did not even touch on that.

So I'm glad you're saying it.

Maybe the two of us need to come on the show in the future together.

I would love that. Yeah, it'd be great.

It's a different kind of book because it has two different perspectives. It has a mother's perspective, a father's perspective, person who's a celebrity, and a person who's an expert in the field.

A person who's been doing it for a long time, a person who's not doing it such a long time. And I'm really excited about this book. It's different. It's tentatively called.

And of course, the publisher could change the name of it, but it's tentatively called everything you want to know about foster parenting, but we're afraid to ask.

Oh, that's great. I love that. I think that's so important. Are you also. Is it just the two of your perspectives, or are you also including other people's stories?

There are some other voices in. In the book, but it's mainly our two perspectives now.

Some of my books of foster care, Survival Guide Faith and Foster Care, they have other voices in that book as well. But this is just generally. Jen and I, we're talking about doing a podcast together as well. So there's a few other things that may come up the line.

I love that. That's so great you talked about.

You work sometimes with the government and trying to affect change, and it's something that I'm really, really excited to hear more about. What types of things need to happen? What are the reforms that still need to happen? What are you working on?

Well, you know, when it comes to Washington, D.C. a lot of legislators don't have the insight that they need about foster care. Foster parenting, it's not an issue that drives votes.

It's not a sexy issue, so to speak. I kind of parallel it to human trafficking. Human trafficking is America's ugly secret. It makes us feel uncomfortable, so we don't address it.

Our legislators don't address it, and they don't address foster care either, because, again, it's something people aren't familiar with. It might make people feel uncomfortable, so it's not addressed. So there's lots of rooms for improvement.

In addition, there's 50 different states, which means there's 50 different ways of doing foster care, and no state does it perfect. Some states do it better than others. So you're working at a state level and at a federal level, I've been doing that. Jen and I went to D.C.

in the midst of the lockdowns in 2020 to talk to legislators about improving reunification. 50% of kids in foster care are reunified, but other than 50%, 20 to 30% come back into care later on.

Further traumatize further, sometimes further abuse or sometimes even die when they go back home because for a variety of reasons. So we worked on that as well. More support services are needed for foster parents and the birth parents. I would like to see.

I'd like to see foster parents get professional therapy and counseling services as well as well. There's a number of things.

It's just I'm working with a university as a consultant, and they called me up and said, hey, we would like you to be a consultant for us as we do this foster care program. And as we've been talking, they have realized, oh, my gosh, we did not realize this issue was so huge.

Where do you start on fixing foster care in America?

Right?

You can work on this. You can Work on this. You can work on this. There's so much. And again, many of our legislators just don't know.

Yeah, absolutely. And even for our listeners, let's touch on the human trafficking, how it ties in with foster care for people who aren't aware of that connection.

Well, sadly, human trafficking is in every single community in our nation. It's the number one global business. And many people just will not acknowledge it or recognize it because, again, it makes them feel uncomfortable.

Such a horrific crime.

Is it? I've never heard that. It's the number one global business that is appalling because I could.

I could sell this. I could sell this magazine one time and that's it.

Well, I could sell a child 10 to 12 times a day, seven days a week, 10 years, over and over and over and over and over again. So what is Eclipse drugs? It's Eclipse drugs. Many children. Well, let's look at the lockdowns. You know, when we.

When we locked our kids down at homes and told them to go do their schoolwork on the computers, they weren't doing their schoolwork. Not at all. We know that now. Pandemic, learning loss.

But many kids in the foster care system, even before the lockdown, they were going online for one reason. Looking for love, looking for acceptance, looking for normalcy, looking for someone to love them. And that's where the human predators are.

They're lurking there looking for the most vulnerable children. And many of those kids are in foster care. And lure them in with false hopes, false promises, false dreams, if you will.

And many of these kids run away to that dream of a better lifestyle. Every child wants a family. Every child wants to. Every child wants to be. To be told, I love you.

And for kids in foster care particularly, they're looking for that love. And those predators are there waiting for them to come online with false Personas, et cetera.

So many times there's a clear link from foster care to human trafficking because they run away from their foster care homes. I've had kids in my own home over the years who have been victims of human trafficking before they came to live with us.

Wow. Thank you for explaining that. And also the connection to the pandemic and how it went up. I'm assuming that's why.

Cause you said it's more prevalent than ever now because of the pandemic and kids being on the computer so much. Is that the connection?

Part of it. Part of it. And then, of course, our border is very, very open.

And we've seen thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children coming into our nation across a very, very open border. And our current administration has just not been diligent enough to address the issue.

Well, thank you for mentioning that because, I mean, it's something that I think everyone can agree. It boils my blood. I want to do something, and I don't know what to do. I have this podcast. I'm trying to spread awareness.

I think a lot of people feel, what do we do about this? What can I do as just a citizen?

Do you have any advice for people like myself or other people that are just like, God, I want to do something, but I don't even know what.

To do when you're doing it, you're bringing awareness to an issue. And I think awareness equals advocacy. The more people you become aware, the more advocates you'll have fighting for this.

A lot of people, as I mentioned earlier, just don't want to admit that our open border policy has led to this catastrophic, horrific crime that's happening to our children. You know, our legislators are more concerned about budget instead of the lives of children, which just angers me.

You know, you can help human trafficking by recognizing the signs. It's a number of ways. I have an all my articles is 5 Ways to Help Victims Help Prevent Human Trafficking. And two of those are awareness.

Becoming an advocate.

Yeah.

Recognizing the signs.

Right?

Yeah.

I remember when we were in our foster care training, we had to take classes about that, and that was when my eyes were first opened up to. Cause it didn't. I don't think I even realized that it happened in this country until I started taking those classes. And I was like, oh, my God.

And the signs of it. What are some of the signs I think I remember from my training? It's like, you know, a young girl with like a man with no luggage. They don't have any.

Yes, yes. Children who will not look you in the eye. Someone traveling with, apparently a stranger.

There are a number of tattoos they can use that are used for branding. Children do not have a. Children do not have a home. They go from place to place. Those are a few of the signs.

Yeah. You have such a great website and I'm sure there's a lot of stuff on there.

I'm going to link to it, but I just want to say it out too, so I don't forget. Drjohndegarmofostercare.com or just simply look for the Foster Care Institute.

Or the Foster Care Institute, which is, of course something that you started. Tell me about that and how you started it. And what that institute is doing, well.

That'S where we have all of. If you go to the Foster Care Institute, I kind of call it a one stop shop. You will for all things foster care.

There's my four years as a podcast host, all of our articles, webinars, videos. It's all there for foster care, adoption, human kinship care. Again, that's where we work with legislators to reform the system. That's where we go.

We go across the country working with child welfare programs, foster care programs, foster parents, staff, caseworkers. You know, today, today's caseworkers are overworked, overwhelmed, under resourced, under supported, understaffed and underpaid.

And they quit and at a high rate, as well as foster parents. Such a burnout job.

So we also try to help support caseworkers as well because they suffer from something that foster parents often suffer from and that is secondary traumatic stress, otherwise known as compassion fatigue. And I love that term, compassion fatigue. Think about that. Fatigue. Exhaustion from compassion, from caring.

And many foster parents and caseworkers experience compassion fatigue. And they say, you know, this is so hard, I can't do this anymore.

Right. Yeah. I can only imagine what that must be like.

I always tried to remind myself when I was going through the process and you know, you have to meet with them a lot and sometimes like they would maybe be grumpy or they wouldn't be. And I always remind myself like, you have no idea what they're dealing with.

All day I tried to be like the light in their day, like just pour light into this person because he or she needs it. You know, they're human and they're dealing with just the crap all the time, like just the really hard stuff all the time. So yeah, I hear that.

That's great. Do you think that you are. This is just a. This is kind of like a out there question in a way.

But I am always really interested in spiritual or sort of like some kind of a meant to be aspect to you devoting your life to this from where you went as you were just a teacher. And I'm curious to hear your take on that.

Well, as I mentioned, it's the hardest thing I've done. And I also mentioned I never wanted to do it. I never intended planned on it. I looked at foster parents. Very strange. You guys must be weird.

We're weird. To do what we do. Bring a child to your home in crisis 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's tough. Yeah, A child does not want to be there.

Child that Most likely has issues of trust, has issues of attachment, has maybe anger management challenges, whatever it might be. So, yes, I. I definitely feel I've been called.

And, you know, the vast majority of foster parents across the country say they do it because of their faith. That's why I wrote the book Faith in Foster Care. I was interviewing foster parents across the country. Why do you do this?

And the majority of them said, I do it because I feel called to do so. And. And that's why I wrote the book the Church in Foster Care, because I don't think that this is. This is too big for the government.

I think this is the church's next great mission field. You know, we don't have to go to. I've been to Mexico. My children have been to Honduras and Nicaragua. That's wonderful. Life changing.

But there's a mission field in every community across this nation, and I think the church is being called to do that. So for me, yes, it is definitely a calling. There have been days where I thought, God, I can't do this anymore. I need your help.

I'm struggling right now. I need your help. Yeah, sure. Or Lord God, why did you allow this to happen to a child? How can this happen to me?

You know my book Fostering Love, My book Love and Mayhem relate a lot of the stories about the kids come to my home. And some of those stories are just heartbreaking, horrific stories.

I know. And that it takes me back to thinking about how brave you've been not only for yourself, but for your children, because you know that.

Okay, so you had biological children in the house. And these other children are coming in that have a lot of trauma. And, you know, the fear of, like, oh, they're gonna.

Something's gonna happen or they're gonna do something or act out or this is gonna affect my kid. And did you ever experience any of that? Like, did. Were your kids affected? I mean, they had to have been, in some ways.

Oh, sure, sure. Yeah, they've all been affected, but I think they're all much stronger for it.

Of course, you know, we had this when my wife and I first started fostering. For a number of years, we had this unwritten rule, if you will, that we would not take a child into our home older than our oldest child.

Preserving the birth order.

Right. And then we got a phone call years ago. This may have been our fourth or fifth year doing it. About a 13 year old. The time my oldest was 10.

I think somebody spent maybe five years into it. And I said, no, no, he's 13. And the caseworker said, well, listen to a story. Please listen to a story. And it was his birthday.

And he was driving along a tremendously busy interstate in Atlanta, Georgia, with his mother. And his mother pulled over the side of the road and said, son, it's your birthday. The presents are in the trunk of the car.

Get out the car and open the trunk up and bring them in the car and we'll celebrate right here. And he's very excited. It's his birthday. His mom remembered, he's got all these gifts ready for him. And they got out of the car, close the door.

And mom took off, abandoned him there on the side of the highway on his birthday. And when my wife and I heard that, we said, we have to help.

So when he came to us, not only was he incredibly traumatized, confused, scared, wondering, what did I do wrong that isn't my fault? His mom not love me anymore. Will I ever see my mom again? He's also old enough to recognize that I'm in foster care, a label no one child wants.

And I remember it was 2:00 in the morning and I could hear him in the bedroom trying to stop from crying. He was sobbing heavy. So I said to my wife, I'm out of here. I jumped in the car, drove 45 minutes to a local, to the nearest Walmart.

We live right in the woods. And we made his next morning, his birthday, very, very special.

And he was only with us for a short time, but he had a tremendous impact on my own children. And that was a very positive experience for my own kids.

Wow. Yeah. So you just don't know, like, you don't really know how it's gonna affect anyone in the constellation.

Yeah. We had no plans on adopting the three that we adopted, but they are very much part of my family.

And I said earlier, every child that comes from my home is part of my family in some way. And we would have done it over and over again if possible.

How did you have the space for? You said at one point you had 11 children in the house. You must have a big house.

Well, every spare. I don't have a. We don't have a storage room anymore. Every room we've turned into a bedroom, basically.

Wow.

Yeah.

That's amazing. Yeah.

You should see our house at Christmas time. Oh, my goodness.

Oh, I bet it's incredible. It must be really fun though, like, to have all these kids.

I mean, I know it's not always fun, but, like, to have all of those kids and for all of those Kids to kind of feel like they're a part of a big family. I mean, that it's magical. Yeah, yeah.

It's a blessing. You know, again, I go back to Christmas. Christmas is such a wonderful, joyous time at our house because all these kids come back and it's just.

It's just there's so much joy, laughter and love in the household.

Oh, that's incredible. I love that so much. If you were to.

A lot of the listeners are people that are interested in being a foster family, but they're, like, just dipping their toe in the water, what kind of advice would you give to them?

The first thing I would do is suggest you talk about your partner or your spouse. Because if you're going to be a foster parent and you are married or in your relationship, both have to be fully committed.

It is not something that one person can do and the other person halfway does it. You both have to be fully committed. So after you have the discussion, sit down, have a discussion with your kids as well.

And then you contact your local child welfare agency and say, we're ready to go. You know, you don't have to be rich, you don't have to be married, you don't have to have a house. I'm sorry, a big house.

You don't have to have a job. You just have to. You know, that'll all be sorted out.

The most important thing is to discuss it with your spouse, partner, your family, and make sure you've got some type of support system involved and. And then buckle up for a wild roller coaster of emotion and adventure.

Right. Wow. All right. That's great. Specific advice. Yeah, I. It's funny.

Jen and I were actually talking about how, like, oftentimes one of the people in the couple is really into it and the other person is like, maybe not so sure. And I experienced that in my marriage. I was like, this is what we're doing. Like, we need to do this.

He was open to it, but he was very fearful about it. And so I also just wanna say that just because they're not, like, 100% on board yet, like, I mean, they can kind of, like, get there sometimes.

And obviously you shouldn't, like, push somebody into it.

But, you know, through the classes, when he realized what a need there was, and when he really dove into the subject and became educated about it, then he was like, yeah, let's do this.

When I approached my wife about it, she had been thinking about it as well at the same time. So we were both heading down that path. If you will. You mentioned Jen and I mentioned support services. You've got to have support services.

There have been many times over the years Jim would call me up and say, hey, I need. What do you tell me what to do? Tell me what to do. I got this child in my house who has got this problem, this problem, this problem.

So you've got to have that support system in place.

Yeah, it's very important.

I believe that foster parents belong to some type of foster parent support group or foster parent association. And we lost a lot of those during the, during the lockdowns because they couldn't go out.

But foster parents had to surround themselves with people who have walked the walk, so to speak, if you will, because our friends, our family members, those closest to us, truly don't understand what it is like 24 hours a day with a child in our house who is an absolute crisis. So you need to surround yourself with people who've been there, done that, so to speak.

So you can laugh with each other, you can cry, you can vent to somebody who's not going to judge you or look at you and say, I understand, I've been through this. And let's look at this, let's try this, and learn from their own experiences.

But sometimes, sometimes you need to surround yourself with some people who get it. And you can just laugh at some of the absurdities that come along with being a foster parent, because again, it's not a normal lifestyle.

Sometimes it is just so absurd. You've got to laugh at some of the situations that your family goes through.

Yeah. Can you point to a few of those? Can you think of any examples?

Where do I start?

I think back to a time we had these three boys in our house and they had no conception, if you will, on hygiene, didn't know how to use a toilet, et cetera. And one time my wife went downstairs to their bathroom and I could hear her upstairs yelling, this is not chocolate in my hand. You know what I did?

I ran away. I ran outside because I don't want to face it. We've had, I think, 26 cases of lice come through our home. Brutal.

I think we have the lice championship belt of the world. I don't want that.

Oh, man.

You know.

You know, I was also interested.

I was on your website and I was seeing that you were discussing special needs and foster care and that a lot of children have special needs, ADHD or oppositional defiant disorder or something like this. Can you talk about that a little bit? And do you think it's going undiagnosed or is it being handled? What do you think?

I think there is. I think it's being diagnosed more now because there's more awareness and understanding of it.

For so many children during those formative years, those birth through five years of age, they have to have a number of things including a loving, supportive, nurturing environment. And some of these kids don't experience that in foster care. And they develop reactive attachment disorder.

They develop disinhibited social engagement disorder, the sed. They have oppositional defiant disorder, anger management, issues of trust issues, attachment.

Because every adult in their life has betrayed their trust in some way, in some fashion, if you will. And as they go from home to home to home, they fall further and further behind academically. They have more issues of trust.

But a lot of those I think are now being understood and there's more training, support services in place for that.

You know, we at the foster Care Institute, we've really tried to focus on those type of, those type of issues because foster parents have to be equipped with some strategies and tips to help the children and help the family when they have those placements.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's why I point back. That's why I point back to. Every child in foster care should have regular, consistent professional therapy and professional counseling services.

And is that something that is covered by, can it be covered by Medicaid? Like every child in foster care has Medicaid. Correct.

Right. But every state's different. So you know what you're going to be getting is different.

And a lot of foster parents aren't aware of their services that their provider might have for them.

Right.

Of course, budget issues as well. So there might be budget cuts as well. It seems like foster is always the top of the list to be cut when it comes to budget issues.

But you know, again, I go back to 20 minutes of my first placement. I thought, what is going on with this child?

Looking back on it, the child had a, had a number of disorders that my wife and I were, we had been briefly taught Right.

During training, but we did not have any where near the knowledge, the insight, the experience, the strategies that we needed to best help that child.

Right.

So that's what we try to hear the foster parents do is equip, equip foster parents with those type of skills. But I going back to your question, I think there is, I think there is more understanding now about these issues.

But mental health issues are skyrocketing in our country and so it's even tougher.

Yeah. And the Mental health issues. They're skyrocketing because of the pandemic. Right. But also because of what, in your opinion?

Breakdown of homes, Breakdown of values.

No kidding.

You know, I hate it. You know, my daughter just turned 15. One of my daughters, I have five, just turned 15. She's in ninth grade, and she just got a phone for Christmas.

Yeah. You know, I've seen kids who have 3, 4, 5 years of age on phones. I think you do not know what you're giving your. Your child.

Your child is now on a device that has unlimited access to a whole bunch of horrible, horrible things. Yes, there can be some wonderful things on there, but my goodness, whether what our children today are being exposed to.

Yeah.

Is far different than when I was exposed to when I was a child.

Yeah, it's true. It's true. And it's really challenging. Like, I'll speak as a parent of young children. It's really hard not to give them the phone sometimes.

I mean, sometimes it's just like you've got to do whatever you are doing. You've gotta, like, get this thing. And it is like the thing that keeps them glued, and it's horrible. I hate it, too. Yeah.

That's why I wrote the book Keeping Foster Children Safe Online. I think that's the most relevant issue facing foster care today is that of social media. You know, you and I inhabit a social media world.

I'm sorry, you and I live in an online world. Our children inhabit it. They inhabit that world. And if.

If parents are not consistently diligent on shielding, guarding, protecting, and watching for the children online, it could lead to a very bad situation.

I know. And it's kind of like the texting and driving thing. Like, people know that it's bad, and they're like, I know I shouldn't be texting.

And then they're still texting because it's this, like, addictive thing that we can't get away from somehow.

And the frontal cortex does not fully develop in a human being until 25 years of age. Some are now saying 30 because of social media.

So there's no way a child who is in elementary school is at all equipped, capable of navigating the many, many dangers that social media give them. And that's what we did during the lockdowns. We let these kids go home. We forced them to go home, put them on a computer.

And so many parents had no idea what they were looking. Oh, they're doing their schoolwork.

Yeah, I know. My brother is a biology teacher, and he said like, oh, God, those kids. Like, they're so behind now. Like, it's just not even. It's not even.

Yeah, it's just crazy. They did nothing.

And, yeah, I'm sure there were some kids that did something, but in the population that he's working with, he's like, no, they just lost those years.

Right, right, right. And they'll never get it back.

Yeah.

The other thing, at the same time, they're being exposed to some stuff that's gonna really harm them in a number of ways without, again, without any type of monitoring, any type of mandated reporter.

Yeah. And no matter how hard as a parent I try to do the safety things or you know what, it doesn't seem to.

I mean, I've taken YouTube off of my phone, like, and my daughter's 8. She just adds it back in. Like, and then she just, you know, like, she just adds it back in.

Sure, sure. Foster parents will tell me, oh, my child does not have access to a phone. I say, great, you're wrong.

Because as soon as they go to school, as soon as they go to school, they're going to be sitting next to somebody in the cafeteria and they're going to get on the phone, they'll be talking to somebody. And again, the most vulnerable children are the victims.

What do you recommend, aside from not giving your child a phone until I agree with you? I think 15 is probably a great age to do that. Did you do research on that? Is that the age?

We don't even begin to have a discussion until you're at least a freshman in high school. We don't even begin that discussion. There's no way we will consider it, at least until you're in high school.

And my poor daughter, she spent her first half of the year as a freshman year in high school, probably the only student in high school without a phone. But we recognize she is not in a position for that yet because of the number of issues that she has. So, you know, you've got to be.

If you're going to give your child a device, you've got to monitor it on a regular, regular basis. You know, some. Some people tell me, and I've heard legislators tell me that, you know what? You can't. You can't be looking through your child's phone.

It's an invasion of privacy. And I say that's. That's nonsense. I'm not invading the privacy. I'm protecting my child. I'm protecting my child. So the phones stay downstairs.

They don't go up their bedrooms they stay downstairs. They charge them downstairs. My wife can look through me anytime she wants to see who's. We do that again, not to the privacy, but to see who is.

Who is contacting them. A child.

Sure.

Who my child is talking to. What are they looking at? You know, no child needs to have a thousand friends on social media.

One of our rules is if you don't know the person personally, they're not your friend on social media.

I love that. These are just like common sense things that people.

My bookkeeping foster show Unsafe Online has just. Just a bunch of strategies and tips for people to navigate. Because again, I think that's the most relevant issue facing our children today.

Yeah.

It's not going to go away. You know, this is not the day and age of the Brady Bunch in Gilligan's island anymore. This is a much scarier world.

That's right. Not to mention just the attention issue that it creates because they're so used to everything happening really fast and this.

And I can click here and click here and click. You know, they can't. They have no attention span to like, read a book or like, you know, even watch like just a movie, one movie all the way through.

It's like they have endless Netflix and this and every. You know, it's just. It's really maddening.

If you saw the episode and you probably. You may not even know it, but my wife and I were in wife swap years ago.

Okay. Okay.

And we did wife swap because we were told that we were going to be promoting foster care and adoption. They went to a new network. They're going to show social issues.

They've been pestering us for a long time, so we thought, okay, if we can show foster parenting adoption in a. In a positive light, we'll do it.

Yeah.

And we had a lady come over to her house who, you know, my wife went to their house and she went to a home where they were very, very social media oriented.

Okay.

Their oldest child, I think was maybe seven or eight, and she was filming four YouTube videos a day. And the mother's promoting it and the mother came to our house and we didn't have any of that stuff.

Yeah.

And my kids are outside and so my kids are taking her outside to go play and in the mud. And she had wanted nothing to do with that. My kids had a vivid imagination.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so true. I'm always telling my kids, like, don't just be a consumer, you're just consuming, consuming. We want to create, be a creator.

Create.

You Know, and you can't even have the space in your head to create if you're just constantly doing something. You know, Another thing is, like, kids aren't bored anymore. And it's like you kind of have to be bored.

Like, it's not a terrible thing to be bored sometimes.

Or they are bored because they don't have any imagination.

Well. Or that. Yeah.

And my youngest, who is 12, for Christmas, she got a typewriter. An old fashioned, Old fashioned typewriter. You know, the kind you got to.

Sure, yeah.

And a bunch of colored markers and a drawing pad because she loves to draw.

You know, we did no Barbies and we did no electronics this Christmas. We were just like, yeah. No. My daughter was like, PlayStation. I was like, no, not this year. You're eight. Like, you don't need it.

You don't need a foster in high school. Got a Xbox, right?

And I think that's. Yeah, that's fine. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, it's so great to talk to you, John. Thank you so much. Is there anything else on your heart to say?

Yeah, there's two things. Those people who are watching, who are not foster parents. Not everybody can be a foster parent, but everybody can help a child in some way.

There are a number of ways that you can help a child in crisis where you live. You know, you've got 5 million children experiencing domestic violence in their house every single day.

You've got 400,000 kids in foster care, 3,300 thousand human trafficking victims. That means in every county, in every community, every neighborhood, there's a child crying out for help. And you can help in a number of ways.

And my second thing is to. Those foster parents are listening. You know, I know how tough it is. I know there's some times where you want to quit. I've wanted to quit at times.

There have been times where I've thought, this is so hard.

But at the end of the day, I want foster parents to recognize this, that years from now, years from now, a child in their home might not remember their name. Years from now, they might not remember their face, but years from now, they'll remember this.

That for a time in their life, and maybe the only time in their life, somebody loved them. And you can't change the world. Rachel and I can't change the world. But for those children in our homes, their world is changed by what we do.

Oh, that's so beautiful. Thank you. It's a great note to end on. Thanks for your time today, John.

Thank you so much.

This has been the Foster to Forever podcast.

Happy stories of non traditional families born through Foster to Adopt, Produced by Aquarius Rising, edited by Jason Cerubi at Split Rock Studio Videos Original music composed by Joe Fulginetti. For more information or to stay in touch, visit from foster to forever.com.

that's from foster the number2forever.com and stay connected with us on Instagram at foster2forever podcast. That's foster the number two forever podcast. We'll see you next.