INNOVATE‪!‬ Innovate! Podcast

ReEnvisioning Foster Care Champion, Dakota Roundtree Swain, teaches Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and is the Diversity & Inclusion Manager at Harvard Medical School. Dakota has a Ph.D. in Social Policy from Brandeis University and uses their understanding of policy to create pathways that help foster care alumni identify their dreams and develop the skills they need to achieve them. Dakota has a strong desire to help young people who feel a responsibility to ...

ReEnvisioning Foster Care Champion Gaelin Elmore is a former NFL player who chose to retire from football and become a full-time advocate for children and youth whose lives have been impacted by foster care. A visionary leader who experienced life in our nation’s child welfare system, Gaelin shares his wisdom, lived expertise, and award-winning ideas with child welfare professionals across the country. His frame: Belonging is a fundamental human need. Belonging helps us rise to our potential ...

Charles and Molly Lerner were adopted by the same parents when they were children. They are siblings by adoption. Today Charles and his husband, who live in Boston, are parenting Molly’s son. They are his adoptive parents. Molly, who lives in Texas, is co-parenting her son with them.Listen in as Angela speaks with Charles and Molly at the 9th national ReEnvisioning Foster Care conference in Boston about what it’s like to co-parent. Their shared journey requires them to confront the reality of...

ReEnvisioning Foster Care Champion Demetrius Napolitano is a passionate advocate for children and young people who are experiencing foster care and their peers in NYC public schools. Using his knowledge of yoga and meditation, plus his lived expertise, he launched a nonprofit called Fostering Meditation to provide concrete skills that enhance the health and well-being of his students. Demetrius recently presented his compelling yoga and meditation approach at the 9th national ReEnvisioni...

2023 REFCA Champion Keri Hope Richmond is a change maker, storyteller, and a passionate advocate for children and families. She is the manager of child welfare policy for the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Executive Director of Unbelievably Resilient (UR) - a nonprofit that is fully staffed by professionals with lived experience and works to rewrite the foster care narrative.Keri helps people with lived experience not let their foster care experience define them. To move through...

REFCA Champion Patty Chin is a visionary advocate for young people in foster care. Using her lived expertise, she created a compelling new option to support the needs of the 20,000 youth who age out of foster care every year without the benefit of a legal, permanent family. It’s called Soul Family.SOUL Family allows a young person to identify and design their chosen circle of caring adults who have a legal role in their lives. SOUL Fam­i­ly adults pro­vide sup­port, oppor­tu­ni­ty, uni­ty and...