228 episodes
Fostering Change Rob Scheer
-
- Business
-
-
4.9 • 35 Ratings
-
Comfort Cases founder Rob Scheer hosts this inspiring show about how communities can come together to bring dignity and hope to children in the foster care system. Guests will include former youth in foster care, foster parents, celebrities touched by the foster care system, child welfare advocates, and everyday people working to improve the lives of kids in care. Rob brings a sense of positivity and humor to his conversations. If you have a story to tell as it relates to foster care or any questions, please email fosteringchange@comfortcases.org. And please follow Comfort Cases @comfortcases.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Yes, Single People Can Become Foster Parents and Make a Huge Difference in Children’s Lives
Today we share the story of an amazing woman who has the biggest heart - the epitome of what we love to call a “Good Human”.
We’ll learn how in the period of just 3 years, Kate Rapier quickly went from being single, to becoming a foster mom, soon an adoptive parent of two and then married to a man with 3 wonderful kids from a previous marriage!
Kate was single when she first began the process of becoming a foster parent in 2020. And like many parents who take this journey, her life changed with a phone call that there was a child coming into custody that day and would she be able to take her? Just about 5 hours after stating an emphatic “YES”, a caseworker arrived with 1-week old “Gigi”.
After having adopted Gigi in 2021, she was just six weeks into dating her now husband when she received another life-changing phone call. This time about baby Ryland.
You’ll hear Kate share more about her life with Gigi, Ryland and her new family and this amazing journey she is on.
Kate is one of the loveliest people you’ll meet. We know you’ll agree and will enjoy her story as much as we have.
You can learn more about Kate on her Instagram feed: @katerapier
Our final episode during National Foster Care Awareness Month will drop on May 28! You can always catch up on previous episodes of Fostering Change by visiting www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.
If you have any comments, questions, or guest suggestions, we’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at info@comfortcases.org.
As always, thank you for listening!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
This Award-Winning Record Producer Becomes a CASA to Support Youth in Foster Care - Benny Grinberg
As you likely recall, in Season 5, we moved to posting new episodes of Fostering Change bi-weekly. Well, we’ve just met so many amazing humans that we thought we’d make an exception during National Foster Care Awareness Month, so we have four episodes running this month!
Before we get on to today’s show with the amazing Benjy Grinberg, just a suggestion to visit the Comfort Cases website - www.comfortcases.org, and see all of the programs we are working on this month, with some genuinely unique organizations. Thanks.
And now, as they say… “On with the Show!”
On today’s episode, Rob Scheer speaks with Benjy Grinberg - yes, a GOOD HUMAN.
Benjy is the Founder and CEO of Rostrum Records, an independent record label known mainly for developing artists early in their careers and championing their vision. Grinberg started in the music industry at Arista Records as an assistant to record executive Antonio “L.A.” Reid.
A career-long champion of the indie community, he leads the labels’ well-recognized, innovative, artist-centric approach driven by his commitment to ensuring the long-term success of his artists. Over the course of two decades, the label has had a diverse roster of chart-topping artists, including Mac Miller, Wiz Khalifa, DC The Don, The Bird and The Bee, 24hrs, Mod Sun, Rockie Fresh, Problem, KT Tunstall, and more.
How does this relate to Foster Care? Well, Benjy recently became a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate)! CASAs are everyday community members appointed by a judge to advocate for children in need of care. On today’s show, Benjy speaks with Rob about why he chose to become a CASA and what it means to him.
Definitely an inspirational conversation.
To learn more about becoming a CASA, please visit https://nationalcasagal.org/
To learn more about Benjy:
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/benjybenjy
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjy-grinberg-ba85653/
Our next episode will air on May 21. You can also catch up on previous episodes of Fostering Change by visiting www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.
If you have any comments, questions, or guest suggestions, we’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at info@comfortcases.org.
As always, thank you for listening!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
An unflinching portrait of shattered families, desperation, and determination
May 1 was the first day of National Foster Care Awareness Month. The team at Comfort Cases wants to take a moment to thank and recognize all of the foster parents, foster families, youth who are currently in foster care and those who have “aged out”. Thank you to the CASAs and the social service agencies and workers who are doing their best.
And thank you to YOU, our faithful (and new) listeners of Fostering Change. We produce this podcast for you and in support of all you are doing. Thank you for your comments and sharing episodes with friends, family and colleagues.
We couldn’t have asked for a better guest for this first episode airing during National Foster Care Awareness Month. Award-winning journalist Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the Air Force, and surprisingly attending elite universities in his raw coming-of-age memoir, Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family and Social Class.
Rob’s book was an instant USA TODAY Best Seller. In the book and in his interview with Rob Scheer (who is a Navy veteran), he discusses his pioneering concept of “luxury beliefs”: ideas and opinions that confer status on the Upper Class while inflicting costs on the less fortunate.
Rob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, ultimately shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. Divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his adolescent and teen years, propelling Henderson to join the military upon completing high school.
An unflinching portrait of shattered families, desperation, and determination, Troubled recounts Henderson’s expectation-defying young life and juxtaposes his story with those of his friends who wound up incarcerated or killed. He retreads the steps and missteps he took to escape the drama and disorder of his youth. As he navigates the peaks and valleys of social class, Henderson finds that he remains on the outside looking in.
Rob Henderson is a columnist at The Free Press and his weekly newsletter is sent to more than fifty thousand subscribers. Learn more at RobKHenderson.com.
To find out more about:
Visit Rob’s Website and Subscribe to his newsletter: https://www.robkhenderson.com/
Twitter: @robkhenderson
To learn more about or purchase Troubled, please visit: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Troubled/Rob-Henderson/9781982168537
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
How Children and families affected by conditions such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome can benefit from exposure to farms and farm animals
Today’s episode of Fostering Change is an in depth discussion with Susan Rich, founder and president of 7th Generation Foundation, about FAS: Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
FAS is close to home to our host, Rob Scheer, as one of Rob’s children has FAS. And although the diagnosis for Rob’s son was that he may never walk, or even talk, his son has achieved amazing things in his life, including being the President of his Student Government in High School, and has been accepted into the college he’s loved for years.
Susan and Rob discuss the importance of animal therapy on those diagnosed with FAS (one reason Rob and his husband Reece moved his family to a farm!) 7th Generation Foundation operates an inclusive, sustainable green care farm animal sanctuary with programming for children and youth.
Author of The Silent Epidemic: A Child Psychiatrist’s Journey Beyond Death Row, Susan and Rob also discuss the thousands of inmates on Death Row who were in Foster Care and diagnosed with FAS at a young age. This is not a coincidence, and there is much that our society can do to curb this horrifying statistic.
To learn more about or to purchase Susan’s book, please visit: www.prenatalalcoholexposure.com
To learn more about 7th Generation Foundation, please visit:
Website: www.7thGenerationFoundationInc.org or www.dreamcatchermeadows.org
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TheDreamCatcherFarm
Blog: www.bettersafethansorryproject.com
Book: www.prenatalalcoholexposure.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
From Rock Bottom to Bringing a Family Together Again: A Foster Care Success Story with Jackie Polk
After you listen to today’s episode of Fostering Change, take a moment. Take a breath. Reflect on what you heard, and ponder how you would handle the situations that our guest Jackie Polk faced.
Here is part of the note Jackie sent us when she inquired about sharing her story:
I'm a boy mom of 3. I have 8 year old twins, and an 11 month old baby. 6 years ago I completely rebuilt my life from rock bottom. My rock bottom was filled with drug addiction, domestic violence and having my children removed from my care. I changed everything about my life and regained custody of my children and have been sober for almost 7 years. I'm happily married to an incredible man who's also in addiction recovery.
I share my story in order to inspire and encourage others to never give up on themselves no matter where they find themselves in life. There's so much of my story that I could feel guilty or embarrassed about which would make it easy to keep to myself but there's so many people struggling the same way that I was and I want them to know that there's hope for a better life. I'm no more special than anyone else, I just decided I wanted a different life and I worked really hard to have it.
In our interview, Jackie stated: “Foster care gave me the chance to be a better person… a better mom.”
Our host, and founder of Comfort Cases Rob Scheer shared that “We all have the ability to change and write your own life chapters. Don’t let anyone else write them for you.”
A reminder that Fostering Change now posts on alternative Tuesdays. Our next episode will drop on April 23! You can always catch up on previous episodes of Fostering Change by visiting www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.
If you have any comments, questions, or guest suggestions, we’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at info@comfortcases.org.
As always, thank you for listening!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. -
A Foster Care Journey and How Change Must Happen to the Broken System
Jerold Hawkins was introduced to Rob Scheer and Comfort Cases in 2023 when the company he works for, Aptiv, held a “Packing Party,” packing up backpacks filled with new essential items to be delivered to local social service agencies for distribution to youth entering foster care in Michigan.
Following the event, Jerold reached out to us because he wanted to share his story: his experience in foster care, moving to a variety of homes over a 5 year period - recalling “all my life’s belongings dumped into a black trash bag.”
Jerold shares his journey with Rob and also his now mission to help make positive change to the foster care system.
We know you’ll enjoy today’s episode.
A reminder that Fostering Change now posts on alternative Tuesdays. Our next episode will drop on April 9! You can always catch up on previous episodes of Fostering Change by visiting www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.
If you have any comments, questions, or guest suggestions, we’d love to hear from you! Please write to us at info@comfortcases.org.
As always, thank you for listening!
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Customer Reviews
Amazing, FINALLY giving us all voice!
This podcast has made me feel less alone.
I was an unconventional “aged-out” foster youth who was placed “permanently” with my bio dad at age 17.5 (ending all foster child support services I’d had) Reunification wasn’t the right choice and at age 18 I wasn’t eligible for any service related to assisting aged out FFY because I didn’t formally age out. I had no safety net like so many others from the system, and I ended up chronically homeless and couch-surfing for several years after turning 18. I could never understand why FFY resources were so fragmented and hard to find, and why red tape excluded me from FFY services. I feel the system did a disservice to me by “placing” me with my bio dad right before 18 and I had no legal help or representation to help with the choice, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has experienced this rushed improper reunification. When I asked people for help/direction in my late teens and early 20s people didn’t know what to do with me since I didn’t formally age out, or they would suggest things I didn’t have access to. I thought the problem must have been me because I didn’t fit anywhere. So for a long time I slipped through the cracks time and time again.
Although I’ll always personally feel that being a FFY is ingrained in my identity, FFY statistics don’t have to define us even if we check off many of the boxes.
Yes, I was a high school drop out, yes I was homeless, yes I have been arrested, and fit more of the disheartening statistics. BUT I got my GED, and after a mentor took interest in me I became the 3% of FFY who have graduated college, and I am now a successful scientist with a stable career and desire to make the world a better place. That said, the college experience was terribly lonely as a FFY, and the 3% graduation statistic makes my stomach turn; It’s unacceptable and I can’t believe that colleges aren’t doing more to help kids from the system (I plan to address this with my alma mater now that they might listen to my voice this time around). Now, 15 years after “not formally aging out, but aging out” I have some ground to stand on and I have every intention to change the system and share with other kids in care and FFY what I can, and tell them that they can achieve their goals too. I can’t wait to make a difference within this community (beyond zip codes!)
Lastly, I am SO grateful you are bringing these amazing people together and connecting people and organizations!!!
Until now I have looked around and thought, “Where are all the other people from the system like me, I know there’s stigma but I when I share my story I don’t find others like me” and now I am finding them through your podcast and seeing that people actually do CARE, we are just finally finding one another. From the bottom of my heart I am so grateful you’re out here making changes. Please KNOW you are making a difference, on the hard days remember that!!! Thank you <3
Fantastic Podcast
Your podcast is amazing!
An Important & Informative Podcast
The Foster Care system needs to change. That's obvious. Rob Scheer, founder of Comfort Cases, brings on terrific guests that talk about their personal experiences with foster care. Rob was in foster care and adopted 5 kids as well! Sometimes it's a tough, emotional listen. But well worth it for sure!