Some of my core beliefs

As former foster youth, we have the opportunity to:

• Seek to build a future that is brighter than our pasts
• Make things better for the next generation of foster youth
• Advocate to elevate the voices of young people in and from the foster care system

There is a way to make things better for others who have experienced our situation.

We have a responsibility to listen to our younger siblings of the foster care system. 

Volunteering behind the scenes is rich with purpose. I say this as someone who has been volunteering my time to support the OHIO YAB since 2006 -- almost 20 years. 

As a former foster, I volunteered my time before that as well. I went back to my prior placements, including group homes and emergency shelters, to seek to support current residents and give them hope. 

Steaksgiving 2025

 Just a glimpse of hubby love:

Window of Tolerance

I've been researching something called the Window of Tolerance. There are many images online that try to capture it in different ways. This is one of them.

We do our best work when we are in the Optimal Zone:

But things can happen that lead to hyper-arousal:

When that happens, what can we do to get back to feeling calm again?

Taking Care of My Candle

I was recently working on an assignment from a legislator to map out examples of young people in Ohio who lost their lives to abuse, including specific details on how these losses could have been protected. 

This assignment was an important one.

It also broke my heart:

• I’m a fixer - and I wanted to go back in time and fix each situation. 
• I’m a protector - and I wanted to step in to protect each child. 
• I expected myself to just push through, but there was an ache in my throat, and a feeling of danger in my nervous system that I needed to listen to...

Sometimes I think that those of us who have been at this work for a long time can expect ourselves to be super-human. Which isn’t really fair to ourselves. 

I’m trying to listen to my body this year, and take time to make sure I’m being attentive to my own needs. It’s a growth area. I’m calling it: Taking care of my candle. 

We had a Security Day at my workplace last year, and one of the trainers shared the quote above. He said that we need to normalize compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress as part of our work. He pointed out that it would be inhuman if we were able to witness such painful things and had no emotions about it and didn’t care. 

This is likewise true when it comes to how foster care advocacy work can intersect with both primary trauma and secondary traumatic stress. The next step is figuring out what to do, and how to care for ourselves when this happens. Not IF — but WHEN. 

As a late night worrier who wakes with renewed hope...

There is something about sleeping on a problem that reinvigorates creativity. 

See the Light

In 2025, I will hold onto hope and continue to work with others to brainstorm, identify and create proactive solutions.

My heart gets heavy with worries on some days. I worry about threats to resources that support current and former foster youth, such as Pell Grant funding, JobCorps, and iFoster AmeriCorps. I worry about loss of personnel and supports that transition age youth rely on. And so much more.

But the world doesn’t need my anxiety - it needs my persistence. It needs my brain to keep thinking creatively. It needs my heart to stay strong. It needs my mindset to stay grateful for the many others who care as well.

May 2025 Visit with the Kiddos

Link to more photos

Proud of:

• Edward for coming up with excellent alliteration (Going on a Picnic, Going to the Toy Store, etc.) and for helping with all the rules to different games.
• Fran for doing an entire dance show for us, complete with awesome costumes.
• William for being a good listener, and coming up with so many rhymes.
• Ginnie for the great job she did swimming and cutting out the craft at the library.

Additional highlights:

• Edward did a great job with his drone.
• Fran made me a beautiful bracelet. 
• Williams was very respectful with his Nerf guns.
• Ginnie did two amazing rock n roll dances. 
• 
  

Library Funding Matters

The world needs more safe places, and we as advocates can become the safe people we lacked in our younger lives. We can create resources that never existed when we were younger. We can surround ourselves with fellow difference-makers and, together, accomplish great things. 

In my adult life, I serve in two roles. As a foster care alumni advocate and as a librarian. There have been many times in my life when books provided me with a lifeline when I needed it. 

This is one of them:

As a teen, in between foster care placements, I spent two weeks at an emergency shelter. The first night I spent there, eight girls jumped me and beat me up. It wasn’t anything personal; they were hurting and the pain and anger they were each experiencing made them look for a temporary scapegoat. 

At that particular time and at that emergency shelter location, staff were neither highly paid nor highly trained. It was a minimum wage job, and I’m not sure if they received any trauma or de-escalation training at all. The staff member on duty didn’t intervene in the moment. But later, he let me know that I had two sleeping options: in the room with other residents, or I could lock myself in “the book room.”

So I did. For two weeks, I locked myself in the book room every day while I was there. I read every book on the shelves - and as I read them, my mind traveled far away and far beyond that emergency shelter. I lost myself in books, until I was moved to the next placement.

Words have power. Books have power. They can take you to a better place when you are in a negative one. When a situation makes you feel powerless, and you are not sure how long it will last - books transport you. 

But my love for libraries goes far beyond just that. Because public libraries provide so much more than books. They are a “third place” for people to gather and build community. 

Library services include school help centers, after school snack/summer lunch, Kindergarten readiness classes, reading buddies to support students in Grades K-3, and resource pathfinders for teens and young adults. 

Libraries also serve as a Safe Place for youth in crisis. I have the utmost respect and appreciation for Huckleberry House (and for Star House as well).

Teens and young adults need and deserve safe spaces and safe places, as they navigate challenges and complications, while seeking to lay the groundwork to build successful futures.