A Home and Healing for Every Child

Adopt Change

‘A Home and Healing For Every Child’ is an Adopt Change podcast where we host conversations with global thought leaders, experts and individuals with lived experience on topics including foster and kinship care, adoption, child welfare, trauma and healing. Adopt Change is a not-for-profit organisation founded to ensure A Home for Every Child and healing for those who have experienced trauma. We believe that every child has the right to grow up in a safe, nurturing and permanent family home, and that all families need the appropriate supports for children to thrive.

  1. In between cultures, fully myself: Jonah Bobongie on belonging, stigma and owning Your experience.

    08/11/2025

    In between cultures, fully myself: Jonah Bobongie on belonging, stigma and owning Your experience.

    In this open and reflective conversation of A Home and Healing for Every Child, Board Member and Adoptee Gabrielle Stricker-Phelps sits down with Ambassador and fellow Adoptee Jonah Bobongie for a conversation about growing up, identity, and the many sides of adoption.   Jonah shares what it was like to grow up in Brisbane with a loving adoptive family while feeling disconnected from his Papua New Guinean roots and how that shaped his understanding of culture, identity, and belonging. Together, Gabi and Jonah explore the support they found in their families and friends, the early awareness they had of being adopted, and how stigma can linger even in the most positive of adoption stories.     From Launching Led By A Heartstring and finding the time to live life as a young adult, Jonah is able to reflect on the power of storytelling, the nuances in family, the strength that can come from healing in a way that can come in a way that doesn’t fit with society’s expectations of what an adoptee’s journey “should” look like.     This is a conversation about connecting, choice, and the importance of making space for all adoption stories.   Help us find #aHomeForEveryChild   Get in touch:   You can find out more about us at www.adoptchange.org.au    Like this episode? Share your thoughts with us on   Instagram    Facebook   LinkedIn  Show credits:   Host: Gabrielle Stricker-Phelps, Adopt Change Board Member  Guest: Jonah Bobongie, Adopt Change Ambassador  Audio Producer: Fernanda Dedic, Adopt Change   Executive Producers: Emily Hikaiti, Adopt Change, Ashton Kobler, Adopt Change, Renée Leigh (Carter), Adopt Change

    21 min
  2. Threads of identity: Phoebe Garland on adoption, belonging and bold advocacy

    06/30/2025

    Threads of identity: Phoebe Garland on adoption, belonging and bold advocacy

    In this moving second episode of A Home and Healing for Every Child, Ambassador and lived experience advocate Emily Hikaiti speaks with Phoebe Garland – Co-founder of a successful brand management and fashion & business consultancy agency, intercountry adoptee from Vietnam and advocate for ethical adoption and permanency.  Phoebe shares her powerful story of being adopted to Australia in the wake of the Vietnam War, and the lifelong journey of navigating identity, belonging and reconnection. Now at the helm of a thriving fashion business, Phoebe reflects on how her personal history informs her work, resilience and commitment to advocating for systemic change for children growing up without stable families.   Note: In this episode, Phoebe refers to her “adoptive mother” but meant to say “birth mother”.  This is a story of courage, creativity and using your platform to speak truth to power.  Help us find #aHomeForEveryChild   Get in touch:   You can find out more about us at www.adoptchange.org.au    Like this episode? Share your thoughts with us on   Instagram    Facebook   LinkedIn     Show credits:   Host: Emily Hikaiti, Adopt Change Ambassador   Guest: Phoebe Garland, Adopt Change Ambassador  Audio Producer: Fernanda Dedic, Adopt Change   Sound Engineer: Grant Konemann  Executive Producer: Ashton Kobler, Adopt Change, Renée Leigh (Carter), Adopt Change & Emily Hikaiti, Adopt Change  Adopt Change acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded and edited this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respect to Elders past and present and end that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

    32 min
  3. Redefining Home: Emily’s journey through the care system

    06/16/2025

    Redefining Home: Emily’s journey through the care system

    In the first episode of Season 2 of A Home and Healing for Every Child, our CEO Renee Leigh (Carter) sits down with Emily Hikaiti, a passionate advocate with lived experience in the foster care system. Emily shares her powerful story navigating placements, finding moments of belonging and what the word home has come to mean for her. Now a strong voice for change, Emily uses her experience to advocate for better support, greater understanding and long-term outcomes for children and young people in care. Together, she and Renee explore what needs to shift in the system to truly support healing and stability.  This is a conversation about resilience, representation and why listening to lived experience is key to building a better future for every child in government care.  Help us find #aHomeForEveryChild   Get in touch:   You can find out more about us at www.adoptchange.org.au    Like this episode? Share your thoughts with us on   Instagram    Facebook   LinkedIn     Show Credits:   Host: Renée Leigh (Carter) Guest: Emily Hikaiti Audio Producer: Fernanda Dedic Sound Engineer: Grant Konemann  Executive Producer: Ashton Kobler & Emily Hikaiti Adopt Change acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded and edited this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respect to Elders past and present and end that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

    53 min
  4. 12/25/2023

    Understanding trauma and its impact on healing with Dr Bruce Perry & Deborra-lee Furness

    In this episode Bruce. D. Perry, MD, Phd. and Adopt Change Founder Deborra-lee Furness AO chat about understanding trauma and its impacts on healing. Dr Perry is an active teacher, clinician and researcher in children’s mental health and neurosciences holding a variety of academic positions. His work on the impact of abuse, neglect and trauma on the developing brain has impacted clinical practice, programs, and policy across the world. He is also co-author of best-selling book “What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience and Healing”, with Oprah Winfrey, and Principal of the Neurosequential Network. Adopt Change founder Deborra-lee Furness is an internationally acclaimed actress as well as a passionate supporter of children and defender of their human rights across the globe. Deborra-lee’s humanitarian work for children is a driving force in her life. This conversation was recorded for Adopt Change Virtual National Permanency Conference 2021.  ⁠Help us find #aHomeForEveryChild⁠  Get in touch:    Find out more about Dr Perry at ⁠https://www.bdperry.com   You can find out more about Adopt Change at ⁠www.adoptchange.org.au⁠    Like this episode? Share your thoughts with us on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠Facebook⁠  or ⁠TikTok⁠        Credits:    Host: ⁠Michelle Stacpoole⁠, Adopt Change    Guests: ⁠Dr Bruce Perry⁠ & Deborra-lee Furness AO  Audio Producer: ⁠Fernanda Dedic⁠, Adopt Change    Executive Producer: Lily Allsep, Adopt Change       Adopt Change acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded and edited this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

    39 min

About

‘A Home and Healing For Every Child’ is an Adopt Change podcast where we host conversations with global thought leaders, experts and individuals with lived experience on topics including foster and kinship care, adoption, child welfare, trauma and healing. Adopt Change is a not-for-profit organisation founded to ensure A Home for Every Child and healing for those who have experienced trauma. We believe that every child has the right to grow up in a safe, nurturing and permanent family home, and that all families need the appropriate supports for children to thrive.