Foster Care - Voices of Lived Experience - Center for States - Child Welfare Capacity Building Collaborative Skip to main content

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Capacity Building

CENTER FOR STATES

Listen as resource parents explain what it means be a support to families of children in their care rather than a substitute for parents, and the training and support networks that helped them through challenges. Parent storytellers discuss the collaborative relationships they forged with resource parents and social workers to achieve better outcomes for themselves and their children. Youth and young adults talk about separation from siblings and culture and their journeys to reconnect, the stigma of being in foster care, and the importance of supportive relationships and of speaking up.

Find foster care stories that best meet your needs by selecting filters on the left and use them with activities from the discussion guide to build understanding and connections between people as you advocate, inspire, support, recruit, train, and coach individuals and teams.

Showing 1 - 5 of 13 Voices of Lived Experience Stories
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Hear a foster and adoptive father of African American boys talk about fighting cultural biases to support his sons’ well-being.

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Listen to a foster care advocate’s mental health journey.

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The video highlights the story of a kinship caregiver and how becoming a licensed foster parent working with social services and her local child welfare agency resulted in better support and resources.

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This video highlights the story of a kinship navigator in Rhode Island and how her own lived experience as a kinship caregiver supports kinship families.

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This video highlights the story of a grandmother's experience as a kinship caregiver and her work managing the Kinship Connections peer mentor program in Rhode Island.