How A Lawyer-Therapist Turned Trauma Into Tools Any Parent Can Use with Paula Yost

What does it take to stand up for your family when the system feels stacked against you? We sit down with Paula Yost—both a seasoned attorney and a licensed mental health clinician—to unpack the real skills of advocacy through stories that move from foster care to the NICU and back to the courtroom. Paula’s journey, from first‑generation college grad to mother of four, grounds a conversation that stays clear-eyed about harm while refusing to give up on change.

We start with foster care myths and realities. Paula explains why the system can retraumatize kids yet still be safer than a violent or unstable home, and how a simple fix—transparent sharing of a child’s trauma history—helps foster parents care with precision. Then we shift to preeclampsia, the leading killer of pregnant women in the U.S., and how Paula’s own stroke-level blood pressure at 26 weeks turned into an emergency preterm birth. Her takeaway is blunt and lifesaving: know the signs, trust your gut, and bring someone who will speak up when you cannot.

From the clinic to the courtroom, Paula shows how to advocate without burning bridges. You’ll hear practical scripts for rushed appointments, when to ask for referrals, and how to stay calm and firm so concerns get action. She spotlights the SUN Clinic, a model that keeps substance‑using moms and newborns together under coordinated OB‑peds‑DSS‑therapy care—reducing stigma, improving outcomes, and proving systems can be redesigned to heal. A powerful case study of a woman with schizophrenia, stabilized with the right long‑acting medication and support, shows what recovery looks like when treatment and environment finally align.

Across every topic runs the same message: hope is not naive when it’s informed. If you’re a parent, patient, foster caregiver, or professional trying to do right in a messy world, this conversation offers tools you can use today. If it resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help others find these life‑saving insights.

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SPEAKER_01 0:12

Well, hello, and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we've got a very special guest. Her name is Paula Yost. And Paula is an incredible woman here. She's a seasoned attorney and a licensed mental health clinician. Um, and maybe as important as that, she's a mother of children with medical challenges and a survivor of life-threatening pre-isclampsia. And I want to know about that because I don't know a thing about that. And Paula's on a mission to help families advocate for their children and put themselves and themselves through storytelling, education, and unapologetic truth. I'm a big fan of unapologetic truth. So, Paula, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here today.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Thank you so much, Joe. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Nice. So why don't you tell me a little bit about you know yourself? I always like to hear a Genesis story. I mean, you've got this wealth of talent, um, and and you know, um, like like most attorneys, plaques all over the wall, I'm sure. Um, but why don't you tell me how did you get to this place?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Well, I'm a nerd who's really good at school. Okay. All right. Um, I'm an only child. I'm a first-generation college student. Um my grandparents on my mom's side were pretty rough, and my mom had a pretty rough upbringing. So I'm second generation away from a lot of that. Okay. And um went to Virginia Tech first, graduated from college. Um, 9-11 was my senior year of college, so the job market crashed. And I went to law school. Um, got to law school and realized that um I was not like other lawyers, even though I was completing school. Like I just don't have the personality type that many lawyers have. So I finished law school, but then when I got out, I became a licensed clinical mental health therapist. And so I went back to grad school and got a master's degree um in that. So I'm both a licensed attorney and a licensed clinical mental health therapist.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Wow. You are good at school.

Why Foster Care Still Matters

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Really good at school. I'm really good at it. Um, but then I also have four kids. Um, my daughter is legally adopted from foster care. I was actually her court appointed guardian. And when she aged out of foster care, I kept her. And I also have three sons who are biologically mine.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Okay. Wow. What a what an incredible uh set of experience. I I I raised two kids that came from my wife's, you know, biology and two of my own. So I I understand the value of raising a kid that you didn't birth. And it's yeah, it's it's powerful. It's uh in in many ways. I'm closer to my to the kids that don't have my blood in them than than the two that do. And you know, it's wild. So um I'm seeing that you're dealing with um helping people advocate. Um, you know, the foster system is brutal, the um CPS system is brutal. I I've been involved with a number of people over the years through a human rights organization that I had that went through CPS. And, you know, it once they get their claws into you, like the system is this giant matrix thing that you it's almost impossible to get out of. And it almost seems like it's designed to take kids from their families. Um, and I don't think it is, but it seems that way.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

It it's not. Um, you know, let's talk about some of the things that I see.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:11

So there is a huge movement now in America where people are saying the foster care system is so horrible and so re-traumatizing that we just shouldn't have it at all.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

And I understand how people are drawing those conclusions, but let me add that I fundamentally disagree with them. Okay. So let me give you some examples. I did a podcast recently where I had this conversation with um a gentleman who had been in foster care. And what he said was my mother was woefully inequipped to be a mother. She was a drug addict and a prostitute. And me and my siblings all have different dads. She was not able to parent us. My daughter's situation was very similar. Her father had been in prison from the time she was two or three years old. Her mother has an IQ, her had an IQ of 70 and was addicted to opioids. So they just simply were not able to parent her. Was the foster care system good? No. Was it we re-traumatizing? Absolutely. But the environment that she came from was worse. Like the environment she came from was hopeless.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

And most states don't have enough foster care parents to begin with, especially for our teenage youth. So they truly don't want to take your kids. Um, I see them taking kids because the parents are totally ill-equipped, because the parents refuse to work a safety plan, or because in many cases mom and dad are engaged in acts of domestic violence, and the kids just don't need to be there.

Transparency And Trauma In Placement

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Okay, that's fair enough. I I I know I've probably been exposed to some extreme cases and where there were laws, you know, especially um involving cannabis and things that just were not particularly dangerous to the kids, but they're not that big of a deal.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Right, right. But but that well, it was many years ago. I think things are changing away from those types of problems. But then the other side of it is you hear stories about the kid who uh you know died and and CPS wouldn't come out. They they were told and told and told that there's a problem and they just wouldn't seriously.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

So I see that too.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

And and it's a complicated world, you know. I know many foster parents, I don't know why, it just happens that I've you know come in contact. And it seems that most of the foster parents I know have multiple foster kids, and they don't just have one, they've got four, you know, and and I don't know, maybe it's because when the person is a right fit that they see the you know the overwhelming need and they got a giant heart and they're just you know willing to do it, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

I I I good foster parents are truly amazing. Um, they really are. And I've seen some wonderful ones and I've seen some terrible ones. Right. And you know, some of the things that I think are very important, I don't think always that foster parents are given the full picture because of confidentiality. A lot of times the Department of Human Services feels like they can't tell everything that happened to a child to foster parents. I don't think that's helpful. Um, I think you need to kind of, if you're gonna parent a child who's had significant trauma, you need to know the nature of the trauma. You know, um, is is it just poverty? Is there a physical health condition? Have we got a child that's been sexually assaulted? Because knowing those things will help you figure out how to provide the best care. And if we're not sharing all of that information, then we're not providing the best care.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Agreed. I I think transparency is paramount when it comes to this. I mean, you know, imagine you take out a kid and you don't know this most important thing about them, and the kid's not telling you because they they don't know what to do. You know, they're they're maybe they don't even remember it at the time. I mean, there's so many reasons.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Or there's a shame narrative. There's a lot of children who don't open up about what they've been through because they're ashamed and because they've been told not to talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Exactly. And I mean, it you know, we were talking about that with our uh with our prison program about you know the ACES concept, and you know, these kids from you know two to twelve that that have a terrible thing happen to them, and then the one person that's supposed to be their their their rock, the person who's supposed to they that they're supposed to be able to go to says, you don't tell anybody this or whatever. And I mean, I can't even imagine, you know, what what that would do to a kid, and yet it happens all the time.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Right. That's absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

So I I want to take a pause on this. I I keep seeing this word pre-isclampsia, and I have no idea what that means. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yeah, pre-eclampsia. So preeclampsia is the number one killer of pregnant women in America.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Um, no one knows what causes it, but I mean, there's theories about what causes it, but it's nothing that mothers cause. It's usually the theory is that the placenta doesn't attach to the uterine wall the way it's supposed to. And as the pregnancy progresses, it impacts the mother's blood pressure. So I had stroke level blood pressure when I was 26 weeks pregnant. Wow. And I actually had a micropremi who was born at 27 weeks. He weighed, yeah, he weighed one pound and 14 ounces. So my pregnancy took a heart. Yeah, he made it. He's great now. He's 10. We're both fine. I love it. But we were in a NICU for 90 days.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

I bet.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

And then he came home on a heart monitor that he was on for months and months. So we had a huge heavy road and a big uphill battle with him.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

That is wild. Okay. Well, I had no idea this was even a condition. And and um, you know, it's funny, there's all these medical conditions that unless you get exposed to it, they don't make the news. And, you know, it's a it's it's a deal. So how you know, I I see that you talk about, you know, this surviving it and and all of this. Um you help people that that are going through this and and help them to kind of understand it and and and maybe give them tools to overcoming it?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Well, with pre-eclampsia, the most important thing is that women know what it is and recognize it.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Um, in full candor, the only reason I'm alive right now is because I'm married to a nurse. Well, my husband is a nurse. Wow. Thank God. Because I and you know, we established this whole call by saying I'm a nerd who's really, really good at school, right? Like I have four college degrees. At no point in any of my education had anyone ever said the word preeclampsia to me.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

I was like you, I'd never heard of it before. I had no idea what it was. I'd already had one successful pregnancy, and that wasn't a thing. No one, I had zero education about a disease that was the number one killer of women. And I had I was clueless. The only reason that I'm alive right now is because when I really began to have preoclampsia symptoms, my husband recognized what was happening. And my husband took me to the hospital.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Because I would have gone back Yeah, seriously, I would have taken an ibuprofen and gone to bed, and I would have had a massive stroke and died. Pearson and I both would have died in my sleep.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

And my husband took me to the hospital and they were able to treat me for like some women wind up literally living in a hospital for like months and months because of this. Like they're able to stabilize, but they have to be in a hospital. Um, it can go left very, very quickly. And so I'm literally only alive because of that. So women need to have heard of preeclampsia if they're pregnant. And you know, you don't need to be paranoid about it, but you need to be able to know, like, if you see those symptoms, like this isn't a problem. I need to talk to somebody about it. Um, because it can, in fact, kill you. I mean, better women than me are dead right now because of pre-eclampsia.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Wow. Wow. Well, that's powerful. Well, maybe that's a way this show's gonna have an impact on somebody. They're gonna hear about this and do some research and and uh, you know, stop and think that maybe that that little symptom is more than, you know, more than more than a scratch or an itch or a bite or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Right.

Self‑Advocacy In Medicine And Parenting

SPEAKER_01 12:55

I love it. Well, you know, um, I love the term advocate. Um, I again I was working with um, you know, victims of the drug war for almost 20 years, and and um I as an advocate and as as a defendant myself, you know, and and and going through it and learning how to help people. Um I've just overcome cancer. So I've learned about being an advocate for yourself in the medical world because doctors are just people and they don't necessarily know what you need. And if you're not an advocate for yourself, uh nobody else is gonna be that for you. And and for kids especially, they don't they don't know anything. I mean, they don't they don't they don't know what to do, they don't know how to do it, they don't know even what they need. And having an advocate um, you know, for a kid or or a kid and their parent, I think is a noble and powerful um cause and and and trade or whatever you want to call it. Um, why don't you tell me a little bit about your advocacy work?

SPEAKER_00 14:01

So I think in many ways I'm a natural advocate because law school ultimately trains people how to be advocates, but you can be an advocate without any kind of fancy education. I think the only thing you really have to do is have the courage to know what you're talking about and say it. So what I see oftentimes, and and I am not railing doctors, like again, y'all just heard me say, I am married to a medical professional and I love him very much. Right. You doctors a lot of times are overworked because of the way the hospital system is structured. Oh, yeah. And so they come in, they're tired, you might be the tenth person they've seen that day.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

You know, they don't always have a lot of time. But I think if you've got a concern or you think there's something wrong, you need to discuss that with them. Oh, yeah. And if you feel like they're dismissing it or they're not really hearing you, or you don't feel comforted by what they've had to say, asking for a referral. You know, is there someone else you can send me to who this is a specialty that I can speak to or have a consult with? Or, you know, those conversations are very, very important. Um, I think a lot of times, especially what I see with young mothers, is moms, and you know, I'm from the South. Southern girls are I couldn't imagine. I know, I know that's shocking to you.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

I love that accent. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

I know, I know you're shocked. Southern girls are trained very much to be people pleasers and not to rock boats a whole lot. And that doesn't work if you've got a a child with a special need.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

And so, really just understanding like you're not being rude, mean, confrontational, whatever negative adjective you want to attribute to someone, you're not being terrible because you want to know answers. Right. That is what your job is as a parent. You're supposed to ask questions.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Absolutely. And I think if you learn to do it with some type of tact, that you can get taken seriously away.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

If you go off the rails, you you get treated like a lunatic and thrown in a box. So I think that's that's an important um set of tools. Uh, I'm looking at at your book, Tumbleweeds, um, how to be an advocate for your children and yourself in a failing system. It sounds to me like uh uh an important uh handbook. Why don't you tell me a little bit about that? I mean, I know that this is important. I'm I'm hoping that, you know, our listeners that have that fall into a category where this might affect them, that they're they would go, wow, there's answers out there. Because, you know, I had to find everything out for myself. You know, I I went to the school of hard knocks. I don't have a degree of anything, but you know, I know how to do a lot of stuff. And and it was just because I'm willing to ask those questions and and willing to fall on my face enough times and and be an advocate. Most people don't have that though. It's it's it's I'm an anomaly, at least as far as I see it.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

You're probably right about that.

Building Better Systems: The SUN Clinic

SPEAKER_01 17:14

So so tell me a little bit about these, you know, your book in the sense of um what does some, you know, say say you've got a a a parent who maybe they're just getting uh learning about being a foster parent, or maybe they're a parent that is maybe unjustly having being threatened to have their kid taken away. Either side of that is relevant. Um, you know, you mentioned a failing system, and it doesn't mean it's entirely broken, it just means it's got some problems. Yeah, um, how does somebody learn? What you know, what do you do? The court systems and and family courts the worst because it's closed, you know, and and you don't get to have people in there with you, and and you know, there's a lot of problems. They don't tell you the rule book, and you go in there and they tell you what's gonna happen, and sometimes it's right and sometimes it's not, but you don't know.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Well, let's talk for just a minute about um this clinic that my town has that I love. So my community formed something called the Sun Clinic, the Substance Use Network Clinic. Nice, and it was founded by a retired gynecologist.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

And essentially what he does is he has created a network for um substance addicted mothers.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Okay.

Turning Stigma Into Practical Help

Law And Therapy Under One Roof

SPEAKER_00 19:34

So women who get who are heroin or cocaine addicted, who are now pregnant and who want to have their baby, but who are in fact using substances. And what they've done is they have created a community with the Department of Human Services, the hospital, and local therapists. So Dr. Dr. Suda, who's our fabulous gynecologist, he treats the mothers with the medication that they need to be able to sustain a healthy pregnancy. He tells everyone this infant is going to test positive for drugs. It's going to. And that's not a reason to take this baby away from its mother. We need the baby to be able to attach to its mom and to be able to go through the withdrawals and whatever, but it needs to do that with mom on a special unit in the PES ward with mom. So the pediatrician and the gynecologist work together to keep baby and mom together. And DSS knows about this, and they are they do not take the baby away from mom based on that. And then mom goes to therapy the whole time. And so they really try to unpack mom's issues. That is the type of stuff that we need nationwide. This is that is what we need because there's so many things about this. We we have not had any child. There's no infant that's gone through the sun clinic that has died. Wow. And we need this because what Dr. Suda always said is when women need motive, when women substance users need motivation to stop. There is nothing more powerful in inspiring that than a pregnancy with a child that they want to have. And so he talks about, you know, this is this is holistic healing because they've started using substances for some reason. We're not going to be able to get them to stop using substances until we have some form of mental health exploration and help them deal with the issues they've never dealt with before. And so they just have done an amazing job with this program. And I think far too often what we do in society is we stigmatize other people. We stigmatize our foster children, we stigmatize our substance using mothers, we stigmatize, you know, moms like me who are sitting there going, I think you're wrong, actually. This is what I think is going on with my kid. You know, we stigmatize people like that. And we've got to do a better job of meeting people where they are. Um, when I was in counseling school, that was one of the most important things I think they told us is like it doesn't matter where you are, it matters where they are. And you've got to meet people where they are and try to help them feel motivated to get to where they need to be. Um, so my book talks a lot about systems that don't work. Um, it's basically a story of all four of my children. It's a huge anecdotal story of what I went through with each child. But I try to give useful tips and pieces of information in that story that I hope are helpful for other people and like learning how to get from A to B or what to do if they feel overwhelmed. Most of all, I really just want people to feel hope. Um, I think for so many people in these situations, we just write them off like they're trash or they're the gut. Of society, and that doesn't help anybody do anything. Nobody ever improved their circumstances because someone stigmatized them and wrote them off. So um I I hope that it does that.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

And so tell me about your practice today. How does that all work?

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Yeah, so um I am an attorney about 30 some hours. Well, honestly, I have no idea how many hours a week I work. My addiction is work in full candor. My addiction is work. If I didn't have my children, I would really be a workaholic. But my children are the thing that stops me from being workaholic. That's right. We, you know, um my drug of choice is work, but my kids are are my anecdote. Um I practice law a lot, but I also am a therapist and I also do actively see clients for counseling, um, usually about 10 hours a week, but I have another, I have other therapists who work with me and for me. And so, you know, two businesses both doing pretty well. Um honestly, some days I just sort of do whatever I'm needed the most. You know, um, some days I'm helping somebody in a crisis, other days I'm in court getting somebody declared incompetent or involuntarily committed. I mean, it just sort of depends on what I'm supposed to do that day.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

So, so your um attorney practice is centered around the same people that you're counseling?

SPEAKER_00 24:36

No, not all, no, not usually. I don't like to wear a hat for the same person. Okay, right? That's not good. And so in my law practice, I pretty much do court-appointed work relating to involuntary commitments and incompetency hearings, but I also run the gamut of things like probate, estate planning, trademark.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Oh, okay, okay.

A Schizophrenia Case That Turned Around

SPEAKER_00 24:59

Yeah, but with my counseling practice, if somebody wants to hire me to be a lawyer, that's great. If someone wants to hire me to be their therapist, that's great. Um, I don't do both. Right. I don't do both. And I can't tell you though how many times somebody comes to see me and I'm like, are you hiring me for law or therapy? And they're like, I don't really know. Can I just speak to you? And I'm like, sure, we can come and have a conversation and figure it out. But a lot of people think they need a lawyer and they book an appointment with me because they think they need a lawyer. And I'm like, you do not have a legal problem.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

You need 10 minutes of legal consult to have someone tell you this is not a problem a lawyer can help you with.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

You have a counseling mental health problem, and you need some guidance on that. And so I do do that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Nice. Well, I know we're running a little low on time, and I always try to get to uh an anecdote like this. You've you've worked with and helped a lot of people the way I see it. Um, is there one case that stands out where you just came in and and there was a dramatic uh change or impact that you had?

Final Message Of Hope And Resources

SPEAKER_00 26:09

Yeah, I had a schizophrenic client once who was a whole mess. She was screaming about religious things in the jail in the middle of the night and keeping all the other inmates awake. So they had to put her in solitary where she did not belong, and which made her schizophrenia symptoms exponentially increase. I mean, she was the type of schizophrenic who was painting on the wall with her feces at that point. Rapid, rapid deterioration. And I had some phone calls from the police department and from our local DA who were like, we do not want this person in the jail. She doesn't belong here. Her crime was real dumb. Like I think she spit in an ER nurse's face or something because they asked her to leave and she wouldn't. And so, in any event, I got her guardian. I got her on the in vegas shot because the in vegas shot is 93% effective in the United States with most schizophrenics. Got her on the in vegan shot, and she is now out doing great and actually has a successful job at a restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Wow, good job, good job.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

So we can turn a lot of people around as long as we understand what's going on with them and are able to treat whatever condition it is that they have.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Now, I know that this may be even impossible because of the wide range of things you're doing, but um, is there a central message you'd like to leave our listeners with today?

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Yeah, I think I would like to just tell your listeners that there's always hope. It it's so easy some of the time when you feel negative emotions to feel like it's never gonna get any better. But tomorrow is always another day. And so some of the time you need a good night's sleep. Some of the time you just need to find the right human.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Nice. That's beautiful, Paula. Well, um, how does somebody get a hold of you? How does somebody find your book? Tell us about uh how to reach here.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

So my website is Paulayoast.com, and my Facebook and Instagram are Paula J Yoast Author, and you can find me on any of those places.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

And your book is Tumbleweeds, and it's available on Amazon.com.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Beautiful, beautiful. Well, Paula, this has been delightful. Um, I'm glad to have gotten to meet you. And um, I the invitation I gave you before is definitely um on the floor. There's so much more we could talk about. Um, I if I wish people had a longer attention span, but they generally don't. So I uh just want to thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Yes, sir. Thank you so much for having me, Joe.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Beautiful. Well, this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. And I am your host, Joe Grumbon. I want to thank all of our listeners to make this show possible, and we will see you next time.