The Imprint Weekly
Episodes
290 episodes
One State’s Attempt to Build a Foster Care-to-College Pipeline
On this week’s episode we are joined by Toni Watt, a sociology professor at Texas State University of San Marcos, who has worked diligently along with others to help foster youth in the state get to college and get a degree. A recen...
Helping International Adoptees on the Road to Healing and Growth
On this week’s episode we welcome back Ian Forber-Pratt, former president of the Children’s Emergency Relief International, who has launched The Ties Foundation to help people who experienced an international adoption travel to their homelands ...
InnerViews – “I’ve Lived It Twice”: Experiencing Child Welfare as a Child and a Parent
Billie has experienced child welfare from multiple perspectives: as a child in foster care and group placements, and later as a parent. In this deeply personal conversation, she joins InnerViews host Ivory Bennett to discuss grief, bei...
Headlines: ICE and Child Welfare, State Spending Woes and More
On this week’s episode we review some interesting research on kinship diversion, emergency placements and the nexus between child welfare systems and immigration under Trump. Then we discuss some local headlines on state child welfare spending ...
How We Count Youth and Family Homelessness in America
On the week’s episode, SchoolHouse Connection founder Barbara Duffield joins to discuss the different approaches the U.S. government has for tallying youth and family homelessness. We also discussed recent Trump policy announcements around the ...
Youth Justice Headlines, and Liz Ryan’s New Media Project
On this week’s episode, we review some recent headlines on youth justice, including Minnesota raising their floor and some questionable comments on the system by officials in Mississippi and New Mexico. Liz Ryan joined to talk about...
The Playbook for Supporting Young Adults in Foster Care
For three years, a collaborative effort was made to develop core principles and concepts around how best to support young adults as they prepared to exit the foster care system. That effort culminated in the publishing of Improving Outcomes for...
InnerViews – Beyond Aging Out: Building a Life, Finding Your Voice & Pursuing Justice
What happens after you “age out” of foster care? InnerViews host Ivory Bennett sits down with Leigh-Anna Faith, a former foster youth, law student, and advocate, for a candid conversation about navigating adulthood without a traditional safety ...
Liberating L.A.’s System-Involved Girls
There are dozens of girls incarcerated in Los Angeles’ juvenile justice facilities, and virtually everyone agrees they don’t need to be there. On this episode, we talk to Jessica Nowlan of Reimagine Freedom and Lisa Small of the Liberty Hill Fo...
Headlines: A 50-State Foster Care Competition, 13-Year-Olds Tried as Adults, and More
On this month’s Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we start by discussing the latest details on A Home for Every Child, which every state in the nation has officially opted in for.Among the other headline we cover: the new ...
InnerViews – The Village We Need: Motherhood, Trauma & Rebuilding Community
In this deeply personal episode of InnerViews, host Ivory Bennett welcomes back Dr. Alison Davis for an honest conversation about single motherhood, parenting children who have experienced trauma, and the village so many families are searching ...
Before Their Crimes: A Conversation with Author Wendy Smith
On this week’s episode we are joined by Wendy Smith, author of the new book "Before Their Crimes: What We're Misunderstanding About Child Trauma, Youth Crime, and the Path to Healing."Smith, who is a veteran psychotherapist and former pr...
Headlines: Trump Accounts, TANF Changes, and More Headlines
On this month’s Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we start by discussing a new announcement by the First Lady enabling states to start and contribute to Trump Accounts for kids in foster care. We also discuss a new bill that woul...
Getting Police to Think Differently About Kids
On this week’s podcast we talk to Anthony Pierro, executive director of Strategies for Youth (SFY), a national policy and training organization dedicated to improving interactions between law enforcement and youth. Pierro took the helm at SFY l...
High Risk and Hard to Reach
On today’s episode we are joined by David Muhammad, founder and executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. We talked to Muhammad about “high risk, hard to reach youth,” which is a term he and fellow justice reform...
InnerViews – Healing, Masculinity & The Stories We Tell Ourselves
In this powerful episode of InnerViews, Ivory Bennett sits down with author, musician, and creative visionary Qpidluv for a deeply honest conversation about foster care, masculinity, identity, and healing through storytelling. From ent...
Headlines: D.C. Activity, Parental Relinquishments, Fentanyl Legislation and More
On this week’s Headlines edition of the podcast, we discuss the latest on the Trump administration’s A Home for Every Child initiative and some child welfare bills moving in Congress. We also discuss The Imprint’s recent reporting on parental r...
The Sun Keeps Rising, with Christopher Baker-Scott
In 2021, Christopher Baker-Scott joined The Imprint Weekly Podcast to talk about Sun Scholars, a new nonprofit he started to help support Connecticut foster youth on college campuses. Unlike many school-based approaches around the country, Sun ...
A Fashion Forward Experience for Foster Youth with Sixto Cancel and Sharon McDaniel
On this week’s episode, we were joined by Sixto Cancel, founder and CEO of Think of Us, and Sharon McDaniel, founder and CEO of A Second Chance. We talked first about their relatively new joint venture between the two organizations called Fashi...
InnerViews – The Amazing Begins to Outweigh the Terror: Entering the ‘It Gets Better’ Era
In this episode of InnerViews, Ivory Bennett sits down with Nesta N. Johnson to explore what it means to reach an “It Gets Better” era after surviving systems and trauma. Together, they unpack the slow, nonlinear journey toward healing...
Recent Trump Administration Action with Alex Adams
Alex Adams, assistant secretary in charge of the Administration for Children and Families, joined the podcast last year to discuss his background and the child welfare goals for President Trump’s second term. This week he returned t...
The Dark Past of Sterilization and the Bright Future for Birth Justice
On this week’s episode, The Imprint’s Nancy Marie Spears sits down with reporter Suzette Brewer to discuss her recent two-part series on the tragic past and promising future of birth justice for the Native American community. The series examine...
InnerViews – Artivism, Credible Messengers, and Community Power: Reclaiming Youth Voice in Brooklyn
In this episode of InnerViews, Ivory speaks with Tishon Sudlow and Sarah Robinson about youth voice, credible messengers, and community-led change in Brooklyn. Through artivism and coalition-building, they explore how young people tran...
The Buried History of Cheltenham
On this week’s episode we are joined by Marc Schindler of Georgetown’s Center for Youth Justice, to discuss the Forgotten Children’s Initiative, which was born of research that he led about the history of the Maryland House of Reformation &...
Headlines: New Data on Foster Care Capacity, Mental Health-Driven Incarceration and More
On this week’s episode we start by discussing the new update to Who Cares, which is The Imprint’s project on foster care capacity data around the country, and how it connects to the Trump administration’s central child welfare goal for the pres...