The Forgotten Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Episode 160: Why Adoption Doesn’t End the Healing Journey (w/ Mia Arrington) Nov 14, 2022

Show notes

It’s National Adoption Month! In honor of that, the podcast will be weekly this month to provide more opportunities for you to share episodes with friends who might not know as much about foster care or adoption in order to increase awareness. Let’s spread the word!

In the adoption and foster care community, we often encounter stories of brokenness and heartache. At the same time, we find stories of hope, healing, and God’s faithful purpose. For Maria “Mia” Arrington, God’s purpose and faithfulness were weaved throughout every part of her story, from being a child in foster care to an adoptee to today being a licensed social worker, therapist, wife, and mom to a beautiful daughter and stepson. In today’s episode, Mia openly shares her journey of entering foster care as a toddler, experiencing a disrupted adoption, living in a group home, eventually being adopted, and how she is using her story to spread hope and healing to others.

Get 10% off BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/tfi

Show Notes: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/s13e10/

Episode 159: Raising Awareness: People Need to See It Before They Can Be It (w/ Jessica Hurlbut) Nov 07, 2022

Show notes

Once you become aware of the need within the foster care community, it’s hard to focus on anything else, right? For Jessica Hurlbut, that is exactly what happened when she adopted a sibling group from foster care in 2015. Once she became aware of the needs in the foster care community, she knew she needed to display to others how they can help. In fact, she founded a run that led to the amount of foster homes in her county doubling! In today’s episode, Jessica shares her journey of advocacy, how to push past the fluff and be real, what it’s been like to be a mother to five children, and much more.

Get up to 30% off the Dwell App: https://dwellapp.io/theforgotten

Show Notes: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/s13e9/

BONUS: Trauma & Real Life: When Diagnoses are Stacked Against You Oct 31, 2022

Show notes

Today’s episode is a special one! Not long ago my team and I got to spend the weekend at Replanted Conference, a conference in Naperville, Illinois, that provides a time away for caregivers to be refreshed, equipped, and inspired. While there, I had the privilege of speaking at some breakout sessions and also doing a live recording for this podcast! I sat down with Jessie and Carrie, whose stories are connected and intertwined in powerful ways. This was a very inspiring conversation, and I'm glad I can share it with you today!

Show Notes: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/s13replanted

Get a 10% off the Who Loves Series with code FORGOTTENPOD: https://www.wholovesseries.org

Episode 158: Prioritizing Learning & Growth in Fostering (w/ Joey & Sadie Dodson) Oct 24, 2022

Show notes

Joey & Sadie Dodson are about as involved in the foster care community as you can get! They are foster and adoptive parents themselves, Joey was adopted when he was a child, and Sadie is currently working as a Family Care Manager at a non-profit working with churches and families to foster and adopt. Sadie also leads various TBRI and trauma-informed trainings.

Join us as we have a conversation about how the desire to learn can help us be better equipped (not just as foster or adoptive parents, but as people), why it’s okay to feel like you are not fully equipped, how to look at the foster care journey through an attachment lens, and what it looks like to carry moment-by-moment dependence on God.

Show Notes: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/s13e8

Get 10% off your first month with BetterHelp: https://www.betterhelp.com/tfi

Episode 157: Learning to Celebrate Reunification (w/ Amanda Irby) Oct 10, 2022

Show notes

Foster care is full of confusing, and often conflicting, emotions. How do we handle those emotions? How do we prepare ourselves for hard transitions? And how do we champion reunification as often as we can? My guest today is no stranger to those feelings as both a foster parent and a case manager at an agency in Texas. In today’s conversation, Amanda Irby shares her experience fostering 10 children in a little over two years, how her perception of biological families has shifted, what a day in her life as an agency worker is like, how she’s been learning to say those hard goodbyes, and much more. I greatly appreciate her passion for this work, and for reunification specifically. Listen in!

Get up to 30% off the Dwell App: https://dwellapp.io/theforgotten

Show Notes: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/s13e7/

Episode 156: Breaking the Cycle of Trauma (w/ DJ Johnson) Sep 26, 2022

Show notes

When we talk about breaking the cycle of trauma, there is no clearer example of this than in the life of DeAntwann “DJ” Johnson. DJ experienced a traumatic childhood that included child abuse, domestic abuse, homelessness, and emotional trauma. As a result of his family life, he entered the Indiana foster care system when he was about 10 years old. As DJ grew up in foster care and entered adulthood, he began to peel back the layers of his story to uncover cycles of trauma and embark on his own healing journey. In this episode, we talk about DJ’s story, how he is working to break generational cycles of trauma, how to cultivate empathy for others, and so much more. I loved this conversation and I know you will too!

Show Notes: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/s13e6/

Learn more about the TFI Advocate role: https://www.tfiadvocate.org/

Episode 155: The Call of the Church: Seeing & Serving the Orphan (w/ Sean Myers) Sep 12, 2022

Show notes

In the foster care community, we often encounter stories full of pain, hardship, trauma, and difficulties. With each story, we can’t help but consider that this isn’t how God intended life to be. Even so, God is faithful, just like He has been in the life of today’s guest, Sean Myers.

Sean, a pastor in Peoria, AZ, had a tough childhood. His parents struggled with drug addiction, and he experienced homelessness, foster care, instability, and more. In the midst of all the difficulty, God had a greater plan for him that included salvation, adoption, community, and a future full of hope.

In this episode, you’ll hear why the safety of what’s familiar is often more desirable for children in foster care, why the Church needs to be even more involved in supporting the foster care community, the importance of community in discipleship and growth, and so much more. This is one you don’t want to miss!

Show Notes: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/s13e5/

Get a Special Discount on the Dwell App: https://dwellapp.io/theforgotten

Episode 154: Naming Your Family's Unique Values (w/ Beau Johnson) Aug 29, 2022

Show notes

Whatever your role is in the foster care community, your life looks different from the lives of many others. You have some unique values that guide your decisions and lean your heart toward the foster care community. In difficult times, being able to actually name those values is core to being able to cling to your passion and purpose in life.

My guest today is Beau Johnson, who is not only an expert in helping others find their motivation and purpose at The Table Group, a company led by Patrick Lencioni, but he has also been a foster parent for twelve years. In this episode, Beau helps us consider the importance of setting family values, some insights from his experience as a foster parent, and how the roles we have to fill can either fulfill or frustrate us.

Show Notes: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/s13e4/

Use Discount Code forgottenpod to Get 10% Off the Who Loves Series: https://www.wholovesseries.org/

Episode 153: Walking an Unexpected Path of Family & Foster Care Aug 15, 2022

Show notes

Imagine going from zero children to five children overnight. That’s the story you’ll hear today! When Kristal and Jared Black decided to start a family, they quickly realized that their path would be different than they expected it to be. While walking through infertility and then an expected adoption that ended unexpectedly, God was working in their hearts to overcome the fear of foster care and open them up to other possibilities. Little did they know that God would take them on a journey that was even crazier (and even better) than they could have expected! In this episode, listen in as Kristal shares her family’s journey, what she learned in a long season of waiting, how she and her husband have navigated such a big transition, and the work God did in her along the way.

Episode 152: Acknowledging a Child's Unique Life Journey Aug 01, 2022

Show notes

Foster care rarely looks the way you expect it to, even in the “best” of circumstances. My guest today has been in the foster care community both as a foster parent and as an advocate. Caring for a child with secondary trauma has caused Jillana Goble to change her definition of “normal” and recognize the deep importance of walking alongside a child on their unique life journey. Jillana is a speaker, author, advocate, and parent whose greatest passion is to encourage other families that are loving children from hard places. Jillana’s honesty and insight was so valuable; this truly is an episode you don’t want to miss!

To get started with Dwell, go to dwellapp.io/theforgotten to get 10% off a yearly subscription or 30% off Dwell for life.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected