Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Stepping Out of Comfort Zones: Sarah Graves on Therapy, Foster Care, and Building Supportive Communities
Through a conversation between Rebecca Harvin and Sarah Graves, listeners explore the essential support needed in foster and adoptive families’ journeys. The episode stresses the importance of vulnerability, empathy, and community involvement to help these families thrive amidst challenges.
• Explores Sarah's background and journey into therapy and social work
• Discusses the emotional challenges faced by adoptive parents during home studies
• Highlights the complexities and feelings surrounding adoption dissolution
• Emphasizes the importance of holding space for families in need
• Introduces the role of Haven Retreats in supporting foster and adoptive families
Hi guys, thank you so much for joining us today. On the podcast, I'm your host, rebecca Harvin, and today's guest is Sarah Graves. Sarah is not only a therapist and a dear friend. She has been on the board of Haven Retreats since the very beginning, and today we sit down and tell you the backstory of what led her into a life of supporting foster and adoptive families, even though she herself is not one. I hope that you enjoy this conversation as much as I enjoyed recording it. Hi, thank you for being here and on the podcast and in my life.
Speaker 2:I love it. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:It is going to be a fun conversation. I know I mean so excited it is going to be a fun conversation.
Speaker 2:I know Wherever we can. I mean fun. I had been thinking about the I mean ever since you had initially sent me the email. I was like I don't know if I can do this, like I don't know if I can physically get through this, but it's good. You know, I've had marinating for a month or so and yeah, I'm like, okay, let's just try, let's see how this goes you have to marinate in things sometimes.
Speaker 1:sometimes I have to put things in front of you and be like hey, sarah, yeah, um, I have this idea and I want you to come along with me and you're like cool, I, I don't like your idea and I need to sit with it for a second. And not that you don't like my idea, but it pulls you out of your comfort zone. Yes, I'm like that's not safe, right, whatever you've just said, I think you keep me safe and I pull you out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I'm like that's not safe Initially. My flesh is like that's not safe initially. My flesh is like absolutely not yeah, but I know that that's not what needs to happen.
Speaker 1:It's just what hits me yeah, it's that the come, it's that the podcast is called honest conversations and you were like I could get on your podcast and I could have a professional conversation. Yes, I could have a, um, moderately honest conversation, but what you're asking of me is to come and like, say how, say how I feel right, yeah, and that's just I mean.
Speaker 2:I told you yeah my text I said I hold space for people to be vulnerable. But I'm not all that interested all the time to do that for myself. I'm just not used to it. It's very hard to be on the other side. It's like how doctors and nurses any medical professionals, they're just terrible patients. They're just terrible patients, and I am not great at being vulnerable and allowing another person to hold space for me, because it just feels backwards.
Speaker 1:It feels, very backwards.
Speaker 2:But guess what, here I am, here you are.
Speaker 1:I showed up, so some background information for listeners is that you are a therapist, I'm a therapist Social worker.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You have a background in well actually, why don't you tell everybody your background? How did you get into this field?
Speaker 2:Okay, First, I feel like I should say my name is Sarah Graves. We just started talking. I'm so sorry to the listeners who are like who the heck is this lady? First, I feel like I should say my name is Sarah Graves. We just started talking. I'm so sorry to the listeners who are like who the heck is this lady? My name is Sarah Graves. I am a therapist. I got into this field, you know, probably in middle school. I knew that I was going to be a counselor. I did peer mediation. Have you ever heard of that? It used to be an actual elective class in my middle school and you were trained by the guidance counselors to help people like your peers work out their conflict with each other. And so that was when I started was I was 12.
Speaker 1:And 30 years later you are still sitting at tables, helping people work out their conflict.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I don't even know how I came into that. I think I just was really interested in the guidance office. I liked that place. The guidance office was a safe space for me in elementary school when I was really little. My parents were getting divorced. I loved my guidance counselor in elementary school. He was amazing. His wife was like a fifth grade teacher. They were, you know, like parents to me at that school, you know like parents to me at that school.
Speaker 2:So in middle school I started doing peer mediation and then I've always been. I enjoy being a friend that people can talk to. It's very easy for me, it comes naturally. People are always. I remember at a young age people were like you're just so easy to talk to and I always knew I wasn't a Christian or anything. But I always knew that it was just kind of who I was. It wasn't something I was trying to do, you know, it wasn't like a skill I worked at or anything. I was like I just I changed my major four or five times. My dream job was actually to be like a diplomatic ambassador for the UN. That was like my. This is my. If I can leave everything behind, this is the job that I would want to do.
Speaker 1:Which, by the way, is still sitting at tables and managing conflict Right, right, like that is.
Speaker 2:I was like that's the ultimate right Is worldwide to make that kind of impact on people and to help people resolve conflict. That was the ultimate goal.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I didn't want to leave my family. I didn't want to leave my family, I didn't want to leave everything I knew behind. And so I was like, eventually I came back around and majored in psychology again and went and got a master's in social work and Became a social worker. Became a social worker. Well, when I was in undergrad, I was with one of my psychology professors and I was nearing the end of my program and he was like well, what do you want to do with psychology? Are you gonna get your PhD? Are you going to do research? I was like no, I want to be a counselor. Like I want to do therapy. He was like you're in the wrong major. I was like oh wow, I thought I said that, I thought I said that before and I guess I did it. And he was like it's not too late, it's great to have a background in psychology, it's not terrible, it's not totally unrelated, one would think that psychology would go to therapy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what.
Speaker 2:I totally thought. But he was like, oh, being a psychologist is different than being a therapist, you know doing counseling. I was like, okay, well, tell me what I should do being a therapist, you know doing counseling. I was like, okay, well, tell me what I should do. I really wanted to help. I was already kind of in the works of helping start a church plant in Tallahassee, so I really wanted to stay in Tallahassee for graduate school. So he said my best, you know, option was to do a master's in social work, because you could be a licensed clinical social worker, a licensed mental health counselor, a licensed marriage and family therapist and they basically all can do similar things. You can have your own private practice, you can work as a therapist for another practice or a nonprofit. And so I was like, great, that's what I'll do. Went through school and it was great. I did internships with Children's Home Society in Tallahassee, working with really amazing people. You know I kind of got dropped into child welfare early on.
Speaker 2:you know, in Tallahassee especially, there's a huge need and opportunity for students to work and do internships doing that. So I worked for children's home society or just did an internship with them with all their adoptions program. So I worked with a birth parent counselor who she just worked with birth parents, and then I worked under her boss, who had been there for I don't know 40 years or something. I think she helped start the program she's amazing, but she was their adoption social worker. And from there I worked at Turnabout, which is a. At Turnabout, which is a, it's a intensive outpatient program for adolescents who are court ordered to go to a program after school because they have been caught with drugs by the police or they've been arrested or something like that.
Speaker 1:So after.
Speaker 2:I graduated. I did that. That is, to this day, the hardest job I've ever had. I love teenagers. You know this about me I'm a youth leader. I can't stop being around teenagers. I think they're so interesting. There's just a certain period of time in a human's life where you act like this and your brain functions this way, and they're fascinating to me.
Speaker 2:And they set the entire trend of society right. Everything that we do that is cool. Right now, it is very much up to a teenager whether or not it is, and so that was the hardest job I've ever had. All of these kids could see right through me. I was.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, they can see right through you.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean they're 14, 15 years old.
Speaker 1:Highly sophisticated, though in like street sense.
Speaker 2:Yes, way more than I was. I thought I was, because I was a little bit of a rebel, you know, in high school but not really. And these kids? I was barely 22, 23 years old. I was in the same generation as them. They were like I'm going to chew this lady up and spit her out that. I have to be here every day after school for three or four hours.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you're like bringing your book knowledge to them.
Speaker 2:Right, and also I think I am young enough to you know, relate to them, but also I'm so much smarter than them, right? I just have all this wisdom to give them.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, I'm just laughing.
Speaker 2:Nothing more humbling.
Speaker 1:Nothing more humbling. I did this up in Detroit. I did this with some kids up in Detroit where it was like I fell on my face first before I figured out my rhythm and worked with them instead of against them. Right right, you got to figure out how to work with them instead of against them.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes, yes. But I had amazing kind of bosses, mentors, leadership in that organization, just like at Children's Home Society. They were so patient with me. I would come in with my issues. I remember the two of them named Barbara. I would go into their offices. They had different programs that I worked under both of them. I'd meet with them, spill all of my information that I was struggling with. They were so patient. I mean I can imagine now what they were thinking. Every time I came to them with a problem, they're like I mean they just were so gracious with me and patient and listened and had a lot of empathy for my place and my position and just kept encouraging me and turning me around and sending me back out. And it worked every time. I left, encouraged and went back out there and tried again.
Speaker 1:That's so much of what we do still now.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That's what you do for me all the time. Yes, I mean that's you just listen, you encourage and you're like get on back out there. Yes, you got a job to do, you got to go do it. Yes, like that is. It's so much of like just what a human needs.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean a human needs us. I always say, when my clients first start with me, I start the session in some way letting them know that everyone comes here because humans have a desire to be seen and known, regardless of where they are. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:I do such a good job of that at a peer-to-peer relationship or even in a working environment. I do not do a good job of that, sometimes with my kids at home.
Speaker 2:Oh no, All of our girls are down.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so hard to. I was driving to school yesterday and I was taking kids back to school late and one of my kids that was at school was, um, causing a scene, and I was wrestling the entire way there like do I call her up to the front? Do I have like I'm gonna be there and I'm gonna have five minutes? The emotional state that I was in was precarious a little bit and I was like, do I call her up to the front office and get her in line, right, like bypass whatever is happening with the teacher and just be like listen, talk to her as only a mother can Right, talk to her as only a mother can right, like there's a look and a tone of voice that a mother has that can bypass all of the noise from other people. Do I do that? Or do I call her up to the front office and ask her what she needs right now and give her a hug, right, because she needs something? Or do I do nothing?
Speaker 1:Which is what I went with was I did nothing which sounds awful when I say it out loud, because what I I knew she needed to be seen Like she was. She was causing a huge disturbance, like she was begging to be seen in this class. But I walked into the office and you were in the office and you saw me, you hugged me and you listened and you encouraged and said like okay, keep going, you can do this Anyhow, that's a side note to that.
Speaker 2:I mean it's so hard with our own children because but there is a certain level of comfort we have in just the day-to-day with them. We're with them all the time. They're always on our minds. We know that we have this never-ending responsibility for them and to think that you're going to always be perfect, right in your approach to see them and know them. We all know none of us are going to do that. We're not going to do that with our spouses or our kids.
Speaker 2:It's so much easier with the one-off when you see someone every other day or whatever, for a certain pocket of time, to see that and know it. And it's not emotionally tied, right, your kids it's so emotionally tied. And also in the moment when you're going to your kid and you know you need to see and know them, I think there's a part of our brains that are like who is seeing and knowing me right now so I can do this for them? You know it's hard, it's so hard, so hard, um, but yeah, it's like all we can do is just turn around and go back out there and try again yeah, yeah, it's been a.
Speaker 1:it's been a rough 24 hours. Um, okay, let's, before I just start crying on the podcast, before I sink all the way deep into my feels and you guys get to see, like, what mine and Sarah's relationship looks like on these days. You end up coming here to Jacksonville. Let's fast forward just a little bit. You come here to Jacksonville and you start working with Children's Home Society and you have this experience working in adoption and as a social worker.
Speaker 1:You're doing home studies. You're working with families who want to adopt. You're doing all of the invasive questions that every new adoptive parent is so nervous about. Yes, and wants to make sure that they're perfect to be approved to be parents right like the feeling on our end of wanting to be, on our end of wanting to be approved to parent is. It's such a unique feeling and you're on the other side, approving or denying, right, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was such a wild experience. You know I came over here. That was my next job after Turnabout. We came over to Jacksonville and I applied for a couple of different jobs and you know I had I'd also done an internship at Mayo Clinic. Here I was trying to decide if I really liked kind of medical social work or if I liked working in adoptions more. And honestly, the Mayo Clinic job emotionally way easier right For me. It was so cut and dry. It was an incredible internship experience but my flesh wanted that job more because it would have been easier for me. Eight to five, baby Eight to five. So many other people on this team, so much more money to support the people that you were on a team to support the resources, everything, and I did not get that job.
Speaker 2:I sat at a roundtable with all the people who I thought the world of me right.
Speaker 1:That.
Speaker 2:I didn't have the experience that other people were interviewing for that same job for, so I did not get hired for that job. I also applied for Children's Home Society, for my initial job that I applied for was for adoptions, like archives, and it was to be a social worker in the archives and you got to basically take calls from adoptees or maybe birth parents, and they would say, hey, I want to, you know, search in the archives to see if I can find my birth child or my birth parent and if they were open, you know, if that was the case, that you know was signed before when the adoption occurred, then you could go into archives and give them all the information that you had. So, you, that was a job to me that was so fascinating and I really wanted that job. But they had filled the position and during the interview, the person who was interviewing me was amazing too. I reflect back and I remember that so many incredible women have been mentoring me throughout my entire career.
Speaker 2:Absolutely incredible women who are great leaders, who are great with people. And so I remember who I was interviewing with Tracy McDade she was one of the directors at that time at Children's Home Society and she was like this job is filled, but there's another position. There's this program that we're starting and it's post-adoption services and you'll be a therapist and you can, you know, we basically will send you to go do this training, to do this certain kind of therapy, and you'll come back and we'll have some therapists that help you kind of learn the ropes. So while I was at Children's Home Society, we did get to in. This program is a very niche program. We were with parents and the child. They were matched with, like during match process, and then we would do therapy with the family to work on parent education and attachment. We taught some of the classes. They weren't pride at that time, they were called something else. I forget what they were called, but we would Map.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, we would do those classes, teach at those classes and we would do therapy with them for two years until they were finalized, basically while the child transitioned to the home, while they were there, and then all the way into finalization. I'm sorry, two years it used to take. If it took up to two years, then that's what we would do.
Speaker 1:Sarah, do you know that now it's 90 days?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 1:Like between when they meet the children and when they're standing in front of a judge. It's 90 days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe it. In Florida, in Duval County. Yeah, now, it could have been that at that time, someone who was matched, they did have the 90 days and then we would be with them for two years, like during their finalization process. But some of these families they were fostering and the children were open to adoption and TPR had already occurred, and so we were just. It was still. It was the amount of time we were able to do counseling for this particular child in this program.
Speaker 2:That was the funding for it, so it could have been at that time that it was still 90 days or it could have just been, but the child was the client.
Speaker 2:The child was the client, not the family. So the child is always the client and it was. It was hard. You know it was a really hard. I thought it was. Honestly. I thought it was such a well-run program. Mentoring me had a lot of experience in adoptions and in child welfare and in therapy. They were awesome. And I was so new and I was just kind of seeing this all for the first time, learning from these women, learning from these families. And it was so hard because the way that the program looked on paper and the way it should run, you know you'd look at it and you're like this is going to be great. You know this is exactly what they need and I totally got it. You know, I totally understand why it should work. But I got to this point with some of the families where the parents were getting so frustrated they had already gone through finalization and they wanted to have a redo.
Speaker 2:And I remember getting so frustrated with the parents. You know you're never frustrated with the child because you have so much training, so much education on what these children have been through. It's very difficult, I mean, you're sometimes frustrated with the child, but they're a kid, right. So, and you know what they've been through. You understand what the brain is doing between the ages of zero and three and what they went through. So as the therapist or the social worker on the other end, you know you have done all of this. You know like work on behalf of the child and you are doing their home study for the family too. So you're already on the end of the child, right, they're your client. But because we are also responsible for the parent education during the home study process and then we, very methodically, were doing the therapy for attachment and everything, it just seemed like math, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A squared plus B squared equals C squared. We've done all these things.
Speaker 1:My favorite equation.
Speaker 2:Right, like we have. You know I have been with you since you. I did your home study. You know we've gone through all of these issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know what you were walking into.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like this was my position.
Speaker 1:I did my job.
Speaker 2:I did my job and prepared you for this process.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we have done counseling and we have done parent education, we have talked about attachment and now you're going to tell me you want to dissolve this adoption. It would make me so mad and I finally got to a place where I was like it is not helpful to get mad at these parents. They are not the problem. There is something else that's the problem, and I don't know what it is, but they're not the problem. It's not because they want to give up. It's not because they're not working hard enough. It's not because they didn't retain all the knowledge I gave them and shared and you know, about attachment and what was going on in their child's traumatized brain. It's not because they're being selfish. It's because there's something missing and I don't know what it is and I don't know what else to do. I'm running out of time. I've got two years with this family and now they want to dissolve and I remember just being so I don't know broken, disappointed.
Speaker 2:I wanted answers and I just didn't understand why this wasn't working. On paper, this is what was supposed to work. It was supposed to reduce the amount of dissolved adoptions in the state of Florida and I didn't understand why it wasn't every single one right, but it was a lot. And you know what? The ones that weren't dissolving still struggling, parents still considering bad idea. This was not a good idea for us. We shouldn't have done this.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's a scene in Instant Family, this with mark walberg and I don't know I don't remember the names of the other people but, um, there's a scene where they're sitting in bed and they look at each other and they're like we can call and not tell anybody and we can, just we can call the caseworker, yeah, yeah, and we can reverse this Right Before they go before the judge and adopt these kids right.
Speaker 1:And you have to watch the whole movie. You have to get to this scene. But I am telling you that it is by far the majority of people that that foster or adopt that at some point that scene plays out in real life. I couldn't believe that scene was in the movie because it was too honest. Yeah, it was too like I watched that. I just I was sobbing watching that scene in the movie theater. Brad was like are you okay? I was not okay.
Speaker 1:One of our placements had just left, like three days before and that movie unlocked so many things for me, but, um yeah, the ones who were being really honest with you wanted to dissolve and the ones who didn't want to dissolve were still really struggling they were still really struggling.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, the ones who had the child placed in their home but they weren't finalized yet were also like.
Speaker 1:Maybe we're not finalizing.
Speaker 2:We're not doing this, we've decided. And that scene I remember watching that movie as well. That scene I remember thinking, oh, this is the same thing that happens in my counseling office when I was at Trinidad and Tobago Society. They all considered maybe this isn't, maybe this isn't the right match, maybe this isn't the right plan.
Speaker 1:And can I? Can I interrupt for just?
Speaker 2:a second.
Speaker 1:This is something that we talk about in a different podcast. Danielle is on that podcast and Danielle and I talk about putting every card on the table, and it's not every card on the table until it's the card that says we can dissolve. We can walk away from foster care. That card is also a card in the deck and you have to put it on the table and you have to stare at it. You have to because otherwise it's still in the deck of cards right Like it's still just swirling around inside of you, this knowledge.
Speaker 1:You have to put it on the table, you have to stare at it and you have to make a decision.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And say not that card, not today, like that's not what we're going to do. We are not dissolving this adoption, or we are, but most people choose not to Right, but you have to stare at it. Choose not to Right, but you have to stare at it yes.
Speaker 2:I mean, you have to stare at it over and over again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have to wrestle with it.
Speaker 2:Yes, and this is the thing, though. If you stare at it on your own and you wrestle with it on your own with your spouse, more than likely you're going to keep wrestling with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, you're going to keep looking at that card. My mistake as a therapist early on was when my clients would show me that card. Clients would show me that card if I met them with disappointment, with maybe not even as far as disappointment with just trying to fix it, trying to talk them out of it instead of holding space for that card. It wasn't helpful. I thought I was being helpful by when they felt vulnerable enough to show me that card and I would say well, what else can we do here? How do you think if I turned the card and faced it to the child and said, are you sure you could do this to them? I was asking the wrong questions. You know I was asking them, not about them. You know I was not coming at it from the perspective of what can I do for you, rather than what can I do in order for you to change for this kid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like looking at them and saying I see that your heart is breaking and that you feel broken as a person right now that you are an adult. An adult there's so many times, so many times. It's not funny, but I'll look at Brad and I'll say I am a college educated adult woman, yeah, with all kinds of gifts and talents and critical thinking skills, and I am also nothing. None of those things are keeping me from the feeling of brokenness that I feel right now.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And I want to be able to reason my way out of this feeling.
Speaker 1:I want to be able to justify my way out of this feeling. I want to be able to problem solve my way out of this, and I can't do any of those things right now. And it is truly the people that can sit across from me in those moments you being one of them that can hold space and say this is hard, this is hard, what you're doing is really hard, and I get that it's overwhelming. And not fix it, not do like, not just be right and it's like okay, okay, somebody, I'm not crazy, you know what it does. That does for me is it says you're not crazy. Rebecca, right, you feel crazy inside you, you are experiencing a lot, um, but you're, you're not, you are not crazy. This is hard, okay, great.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:All right, and it's like my brain can reshuffle itself into all right, okay, okay, okay, all right. We don't have to get through the rest of my life in this day, I just have to get through today.
Speaker 2:Today, this hour, this today, today, this hour, this hour, yeah.
Speaker 1:This hour and when you're holding space you say, you will also say like what do you need right?
Speaker 2:now my work, because my the therapist who taught me how to be a therapist basically to this day is. I mean, I idolize her.
Speaker 1:For good reason. For good reason.
Speaker 2:She's amazing, sherry, and I remember sitting in one of her sessions and you know the program itself on paper really looked like any other program. Okay, so a caseworker, as you know, there for the kid right.
Speaker 1:When they call you.
Speaker 2:They basically are just telling you this is what's happening right now. The kid has a court date, they have this meeting they have to go to. They are on behalf of the child. Every program like that in child welfare is going to be on behalf of the child, and this was similar, except it was trying to be for the family, right, but the child was still the client. And so what I saw that speaks volumes, first of all to the parents, to the caregivers. They saw what we were trying to do. But then what I saw with sherry was, instead of when a parent presented something that they were struggling with with their kids, you know, when you say that to a caseworker, the caseworker, the image of it is like the caseworker is holding the kid's hand and the parent is telling the caseworker and they're just kind of like, well, sorry, this is just how it goes and you're going to need to deal with it, basically, if you're going to still have them in your home, what Sherry was trying to do was take a child's hand and take a parent's hand and put them together Instead of holding on to it like this is mine, I'm responsible for this one and I'm trying to get you to a place where you can do a good job with what I have, and every time, sherry, that parent would say I don't know if I can do this, and Sherry would take their hand, sometimes actually take their hand, and take a child's hand and put them together and help them. See, we're here for both of you. We're here for all of this, for this to happen, for this to be healthy, for this to have healing and for you to be part of their healing.
Speaker 2:The program itself, though, was not, you know. The parents still knew, because what did we have to offer? We had counseling, and that's what we were trying to do a good job with. It was holding space for those parents and the child, for them to understand attachment and understand each other and come with their issues and have some kind of healing through the process. But outside of that, the program said it all. There was a once a month support group for parents, once a month for an hour or two, and that was the support for parents in this program, and that was the support for parents in this program. Everything else was surrounded by having the. You know, we would pay for camps for the child. We would pay for all you know all these things.
Speaker 2:Everything was based on the child. Yes, and so it's not that it was wrong, but it wasn't enough.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:It wasn't enough and so I walked away from Children's Home Society. I got pregnant and I knew that I wanted to get licensed and do private practice and so when I got pregnant, I left Children's Home Society feeling settled about what the work that I did and the work that was going on Um, they were really trying. But I just felt like, oh, there's something else, there's something more. You know they need more help, they need more and I still love that agency, they, they do great, great work and um, but I remember just feeling like they need more help. They need more help for these parents if they're going to stay in it. And so after that I kept doing home studies. I worked for CCAI, which was International Adoption Program, and I still kept writing home studies. I always loved going in. I love, love the home study process. I love going in to the home and disarming parents because they all-.
Speaker 1:Oh, we're wound tight Tight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just would just do my very best to disarm them that you know. This needs to be a process of transparency, and I'm going to be transparent with you about what the expectation is, but also what that's not, what the expectations are not.
Speaker 1:Perfection Right If you are listening to this and you want to do a home study. There is no social worker that is expecting perfection.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:But our social worker said I want to see chaos here, I want to see daily life, I want to see what happens and how you and Brad react to it. And I was like, well, if chaos is what you want, this was before. This was like Zoe and Slade were four and two, something like that. This was before foster care. Gosh and Slade lit my centerpiece on fire oh my goodness took this plant like this, like fake arrangement for my key or something, and he dipped it into the candle that I had lit, like while we were doing something else. And then brad's like this plant is on and he's walking into the kitchen. Oh my gosh, it was wild. It was wild. Our dog escaped in that one. Anyhow, this is neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:It's a very funny story in our family's history of what the crap just happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was real life. I mean, that is what social workers are walking into. They want the meat, you know. They want better context for what's really going on here. Um, and I think that most social workers know I mean I did walking into a home how very humbling and brave the parents must be to allow this stranger in their home, like they get this far in the process that this is what it takes to adopt a child yeah, it's so much and I just loved.
Speaker 2:I loved the whole process um but I still continue to do, um, just private practice counseling along with that, um very part-time with families who I had worked with at Children's Home Society. If they were no longer, you know, they didn't qualify for services or whatever it was. They found me and I worked with a lot of those families. They came and did some private. I remember the shift and allowing the parents to be the client and I felt very satisfied because I felt like I get to do this, you know, because I wasn't run by, you know, big Brother or anything like that.
Speaker 2:I get to make the parents the client here, and so it really shifted everything. But it was expensive. It's expensive for these parents who are already adopting, and so I remember being like gosh, well, this isn't all the answer. This is every week or every two weeks. This is a big expense for them to sit across from someone and be seen and known.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, so that was my background to haven, I guess and then then we sit across the table from each other at southern grounds and I say, hey, I have this idea yeah, I remember you know, ashley Draper introduced us to each other and Ashley said, when we first started going to RCC, ashley and I are really good friends.
Speaker 2:And she said you have to meet Rebecca Harvin because you'll just, you'll love her and you'll love everything that she does. And she, she, um, she does a lot for foster adoption. Um, foster adoptive families. Um, I think I came up to you. I remember I came up to you in like the hallway you know, and I was like, I'm Sarah Graves.
Speaker 1:I actually said we'd have to meet and I was like, all right, cool.
Speaker 2:Great Um. And I remember coming to one of your kind of support group nights that you did at RCC just to see. You know, I didn't, obviously I wasn't an adoptive or foster parent, but I just wanted to see what it was like and what I could do and if I could be like of any help at all. And then we went to lunch and you were like I want to do this thing. And you gave me the entire story of sitting in church and God putting it on in your heart and I remember immediately, I mean hearing you say it.
Speaker 2:I remember immediately being like oh, this is it. I had thought and searched for so long. How do we help families to not give up, how do we help families to not dissolve and thrive Not just survive, but thrive?
Speaker 2:And I had not figured it out and thrive not just survive, but thrive and I had not figured it out. And when you said I want to start this thing to do retreats for foster and adoptive caregivers, I was like it was like the angels started singing, like the heavens opened and the light bulbs came on and I was like, yes, this is great. What can I do? How can I help?
Speaker 1:I was watching you have this moment. I was watching you go, oh my. I was watching you connect all of these dots in your journey. And what I didn't know at the time that I was tapping into because because really truly this was our first real conversation was I didn't know that you are somebody and you're my favorite kind of this person. That is like I don't want to foster or adopt.
Speaker 1:That is not what's going to happen inside of my home, but I am called to and compelled to support foster and adoptive families, yes. So how can I do it? Right? And the question that you keep asking is how can I do this and how can I do it better?
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, and you've never stopped asking that question for as long as I've known you, for as long as I've known you, and so for my spot in it, like that question asked by a good friend says Rebecca, you are not alone. Like you are, yes, you are the one that has to go to the school and pick up your kid when she's throwing chairs across a room, but you don't have to do it alone. Right, and from my place of being, like my yes to foster care and adoption when it's met with your yes of supporting foster and adoptive parents, like that's some good stuff right there, like that's the answer. That's really. It is like how do we, how do we go in to to families, how do we wrap around families that are fostering, how do we wrap around families that have adopted and say, hey, I see you and I know that, even though you don't say anything about this, even though there's not that many people that you trust with all of the details of what is happening inside of your house, what is happening inside of your heart.
Speaker 1:I'm here and I see you and I know that what you're doing is hard and I want to support you yeah how can I do that and how can I do it? Well, and I am thankful that you keep asking that question.
Speaker 2:I mean it is. I remember the shift in my head. I, you know, probably you know well before I became a therapist working in adoptions, I thought I would like to adopt or foster and as things kind of shifted for me, I realized that was not what God was calling me to. And it was when I got close to foster and adoptive families I realized they need more advocates. It takes more than just foster and adoptive caregivers to care for the orphaned and I knew that if I tried to step into being a caregiver who was going to help and support caregivers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we needed more people who were going to take, who was going to help and support caregivers. We needed more people who were going to come alongside people. It takes a lot of different people to care for the orphaned and you and other families that you know Haven supports. You all are on the front lines of it that someone has to be coming alongside you guys and wrapping around you guys and helping you have everything you need and resourcing you.
Speaker 2:And so I remember it being very clear and it even more so being very clear when I met with you and I thought, oh, this is, this is the answer. You know, this is what's going to be helpful. This is how I can step into supporting.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Foster adoptive caregivers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's like what we were talking about at the beginning. Like doctors make the worst, patients and therapists don't tend to like to be vulnerable, and people who advocate for fostering like people like me do a really bad job of asking for help, and so it takes somebody to job of asking for help, right, and so it takes somebody to kind of override that system, right.
Speaker 1:People like me, being like foster moms, are the hardest people. I'm just soapbox moment here for a second. There are, like sometimes truly in Haven and you experience this like we have to say, hey, I am helping you. Tell me the best way to show up. Or like hey, I am going to send you food tonight, so do you want a flats or do you want barbecue? And you do that. You actually do that very well. So thank you.
Speaker 2:You know anyone in my position who is close enough to foster adoptive families. It is easy to keep showing up, because if you get close enough to a foster or an adoptive family, you realize how you get a glimpse of how hard it actually is to, 24-7, day in, day out, care for the orphaned. You get a glimpse of it. And so my position of coming alongside you or any other family it's like it feels like the least you can do is just to keep asking how can I help? Because you have put yourself on the front lines by choice, not by force, by choice, and so asking how I can help is it's just. It just feels like it's the least we can do.
Speaker 2:And I know not everybody feels that way. And people will feel different who care for foster and adoptive families. They will feel like that help looks different for them. It could look financial, it could look like you know, I don't know, you know like providing for cleaning houses or you know, just taking them to coffee every once in a while or something, but they might be limited in what they are able to offer right.
Speaker 2:But everybody's able to offer something, and that's what I always felt. I always felt like, but I wanted to be the person who figured out what it was that you needed. Yeah, who? Figured out what it was that you needed and Haven. Just it's just been so. It's been so special to me. I never thought I would still be here. Honestly, you tried to quit a couple times.
Speaker 1:I tried to quit a couple times.
Speaker 2:I never thought I would still be here. Initially it was can you be on the board? Right? And I knew, okay, I've never been on a board before, but I know that people do not stay on boards forever and so but I am my husband, can you know?
Speaker 1:Help guide.
Speaker 2:Yes, he's been on boards. He's been on a board but also he knows he and I are really good at helping start things.
Speaker 2:Yeah knows he and I are really good at helping start things. We don't always stay for the longer term because that's just not where our gifting or whatever is anymore, but we have always loved and done a good job starting things and so it wasn't out of my comfort zone to help in the beginning. But I never thought because of how history has shown me I never thought I would still be here, because I just thought, well, I just I'm good at starting things.
Speaker 1:Maintaining is a whole other ballgame.
Speaker 2:Maintaining is a whole other ballgame.
Speaker 1:Yeah, truly, and you and I know this more than anybody Haven wouldn't be here without you. There are a lot of people that have been helped because you said yes that day in Southern Grounds. Thanks for being on the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thanks for your friendship.