In episode 218, we hear from lawyer and professor, Elizabeth Kirk. Elizabeth is the Director of the Center for Law and the Human Person, as well as a research associate at The Catholic University of America. Her work spans a variety of law in child welfare, parental rights, and adoption policy. In addition to her career, her lived experiences as an adoptee and an adoptive parent, give her a unique perspective and voice to speak into the conversation happening around adoption today. She talks with Brandon about the role that infant adoption could play following last year’s Dobbs decision at the Supreme Court, misconceptions around adoption, as well as insight on the decision making process for women that have an unplanned pregnancy.

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In episode 216, we hear from US care reform leader, Sarah Winograd from Together for Families. Sarah speaks passionately about the complexities in child welfare and foster care as a system, how poverty contributes to family separation, and the problematic ways we’ve seen and judged birth families. She asks the hard questions- if most children aren’t coming into foster care because of abuse, what resources and systems are we investing in to keep those families together? What are we doing to intervene and stabilize families in order to prevent separation and keep children in families? Can the church do better?

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In episode 215, we have the privilege of sitting down with Jenn Hook to glean from her experiences in the foster care system and hear about her newly released book, Thriving Families. Jenn is the Founder and Executive Director of Replanted. She’s also the author of Replanted: Faith Based Support for Adoptive and Foster Families.

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In episode 201, we’re talking with Simon Njoroge about his work in family based care, welfare reform and the adoption landscape in Kenya. A little change up, we gave Phil a break and recorded this episode live at the 1MILLIONHOME office in Tacoma, Washington. Apologies for slight audio issue at the start of interview, Brandon is a work in progress! We know you’ll learn a lot from Simon and his experience as an adoptee, an advocate and an administrator working in orphan care. 

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In episode 197, we’re speaking with author, professor and mother Brittany Salmon about the in’s and out’s of cross-cultural and trans-racial adoption. We learn not only from her family’s experience but also research and writing that she’s put together in her new book, It Takes More Than Love. After the interview, Brandon and Phil discuss race a little further and emphasize the importance of listening and building towards unity.

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In episode 196, we’re talking with Tori Hope Petersen. Tori is an author, speaker and foster care advocate with lived experience in the system (oh, yeah, she’s also Mrs. Universe). We discuss what foster care looks like from the inside, what changes ought to be made and what compelled Tori to go from being a foster youth, to now welcoming kids in to her home as a parent.

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In episode 193, we’re talking with Author and Advocate, Jamie Finn about foster care, adoption and reunification. Jamie has written extensively on her blog Foster the Family about how God has been working in their family’s life and we get to glean from the lessons that they’ve learned along the way.

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In episode 184, you’ll hear from Dr. Susan Hillis who works at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and also serves on the leadership team of World Without Orphans. In this episode, Dr. Hillis shares with us her own background as an adoptive mother, the importance of a global response for orphaned and at-risk children and the far reaching implications of the millions of children left orphaned by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

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In this recast, you will hear from Bruce Kendrick at Watermark Christian Church talking with Phil about: Continue reading →

In the recast episode 169, you will hear wisdom from Dr. Mandy Howard, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Samford University, who worked with Dr. Karyn Purvis at the TCU Institute of Child Development for several years.

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