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
Empowering Change: Child Advocacy, Foster Care, and Finding Your Voice with Olivia Smith
This episode focuses on the vital role of advocacy in supporting children, particularly in foster care and educational systems. We touch on personal experiences, the importance of knowledge about rights and relationships, and strategies for effectively advocating within complex systems.
• Understanding the role and significance of PACE
• Navigating challenges in the foster care system
• Empowering oneself with knowledge of rights and policies
• The emotional landscape of advocacy work
• Building key relationships within educational and care systems
• Importance of curiosity and community support in advocacy
• Techniques for responding versus reacting professionally
• Fostering collaboration for effective outcomes.
Do you ever find yourself in situations where you have to advocate for children that you love but you don't know what to do or even where to start? Maybe you leave those meetings feeling overwhelmed or overlooked, like you don't really have a seat at the table. I know that I've certainly left meetings feeling like I didn't know what to ask for or what my rights are as a mother, and certainly not as a foster mom. So I didn't know how to ask for what my kids needed or when I should speak up and when I should be quiet. Our podcast today is about advocacy. I'm your host, rebecca Harvin, and my guest on the show is Olivia Smith.
Speaker 1:Olivia is an adoptive mom and former foster mom who found her passion for advocacy working at a local licensing agency. She went on to work at an organization called PACE that works with young teenage girls, developing her skills as an advocate there, learning about policy and procedures and how to work with the government to get the things that you need done. She now sits on Pace's board as a young professional. She's a key player in the local elementary schools that her children attend. She's a member of the Junior League and the Jacksonville Chapter of Association for Fundraising Professionals, where she's a committee chair for the National Philanthropy Day. She also sits on our gala committee at Haven and is a passionate advocate for Haven in our city.
Speaker 1:On a personal note, olivia is a friend that I call when I don't know what to do in a situation with my kids, when I don't know who I should talk to to get something resolved at school. Know who I should talk to to get something resolved at school. She's who I send political memes to. She's the first and only person in my contact list who will send me texts that start with did you see the most recent house bill? I'm so happy that you get to hear our conversation today. I hope that you end the podcast feeling encouraged and empowered and that you leave knowing that you can advocate for your kids when you need to Enjoy the conversation. Hi Olivia, thank you so much for being on our show today. I'm really glad actually, that you're here.
Speaker 2:I'm really glad to be here. It feels strange to record a podcast, Excitingly strange though it feels strange.
Speaker 1:It's a new thing for us in our friendship.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:It's a new thing for me in life. Well, welcome. Can you tell us about yourself just a little bit?
Speaker 2:A little bit about myself. Sure, I'm Olivia. Obviously, obviously I'm 32. I like long walks on the beach. No, I really do, though I actually love the beach. Um, I am an adoptive and biological mom, former foster mom. Um, with the hope of one day being a foster mom again, just not right now in this season. I work full-time in nonprofit world and support other organizations in the community through board service and volunteer service, and am getting my master's degree right now in public policy at JU. Go Dolphins.
Speaker 1:Go Dolphins. So what I want to talk about is actually your work in the community and the way that you engage in various organizations, the way that I've watched you engage at the school that both of our kids go to, and how you relentlessly pursue social justice in all of these areas.
Speaker 1:And I don't actually know if social justice is the word that I'm looking for. It's more like how can I help these, whoever you're serving? How can I help Sometimes it's underprivileged kids, sometimes it's teenagers, like all different capacities? How can I help them get everything that is rightfully theirs in this world?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good. I don't know that I have like the most eloquent way to talk about it.
Speaker 1:It's just a conversation, so let's start with Pace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Pace. I knew about Pace when I was in high school. I grew up with the founder of the organization. Her daughter and I were really good friends. So I was there when Vicki Burke was initiated to the Women's Hall of Fame in Tallahassee for her work in founding PACE and I was really overwhelmed when I went to the capital for this event this like inauguration or whatever it was called. I was just really floored at the impact that she had had in her work for girls and I was like Whoa, and I loved it and she was always like you should work with girls and I was like hard pass, hated teenage girls. When I was one, definitely not going to do it for a living. Like not going to do it. Long story short, ended up working at Pace, was there for five years and now and now I'm no longer there as a staff member but chaired and helped found their Young Professionals Board and am now a board member there.
Speaker 1:And what is PACE?
Speaker 2:PACE is an organization that exists to prevent girls, middle school through high school, from entering the juvenile justice system and really interrupt cycles of trauma.
Speaker 2:A lot of the girls there we like to use the term at promise instead of at risk but they have a lot of factors in their lives. So a lot of the girls who were there have experienced the foster care system, substance abuse, mental health struggles, substance abuse, mental health struggles, are behind academically, have family experience in the justice system, whether it be direct incarceration or other prevention programs, and some of them have that themselves. Also teens who are teen moms. So PACE is a program that gives these girls a place to get wraparound services. It's non-residential, they get education through the county public school system and they get counseling and we have a therapist on staff for the girls and every girl is assigned a counselor to help with kind of behavior modification. But it is kind of what it is, but really it's there, they're, they are like their champion and they're there to help them implement tools to change whatever the, to help interrupt the cycles that they may be trapped in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know about pace from a placement that we had. We had a 17 year old girl years ago that had been in Pace, had moved to a private school and needed to go back to Pace and she loved her time there. She found the support from the staff to be just a safe place. I think is how she would describe it if she could use those words. She loved the way that she talked about Pace, the way that she talked about being supported at Pace, the way that she talked about sometimes finding loopholes in the system. But you were there and you found a passion for these kids, for these girls that really have so many like you were talking about all of the different things that are against them in life, but I think one of the things is like they just don't have a lot of people in their corner. When they walk into a room they're not expecting open doors.
Speaker 1:Right Like in the, which is different than like when I walked into a room, um, um, I never had applied. I never applied for a job. I didn't get.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, A lot of these girls you know they come in and they are at a place where they like. The program is voluntary so technically they cannot be mandated to come there.
Speaker 1:And yet.
Speaker 2:And yet voluntary doesn't mean you have to be excited to come, so many of them are not real thrilled about coming.
Speaker 1:Cause it's voluntary, like you can either go to juvie or you can go to pace. Right, we can't tell you to go to pace, like your parents can be like.
Speaker 2:Oh no like you're gonna like. Not all the girls who come to pace come to us from a referral. Some of them do Some of them come because their parents are like. Because their parents are like I don't like she's struggling and I don't know. And some of our girls really like they just need small class sizes. They need more direct support academically because of their emotional or mental health needs.
Speaker 1:And they get that here in the world of advocacy and started like watching people and how they worked and understanding that kind of to use our podcast name like behind the curtain of politics there are channels that you can go through that smooth the path or don't smooth the path and where you're like, oh, it actually is important to know this House Bill number 581. I have no idea what House Bill 581 is, just for the record, I'm just saying a number here.
Speaker 2:It's a good legal disclaimer.
Speaker 1:Like for the record, I am not up to date on House Bills, but you are Certainly like. You have texted me like, oh my gosh, have you seen this latest house? But I'm like no, olivia, I haven't. I haven't seen the latest house, but I wasn't sitting around in my living room waiting to see what the Florida state representatives did, but you learned at Pace. Hey, this is actually really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so before I went to, before I started working at Pace, I worked in child welfare, so I worked at Jewish families and I worked in the dependency system, so I was supervising visitations. I was, you know, writing notes and doing all things, which is where I got really introduced to what foster care truly was, and that field is where I got heavily exposed to systemic barriers and injustices. So how can someone in Jacksonville, the biggest city, land wise in the country? How is a single mother who has now lost her children, rights to her children, how is she going to work a full time job to pay her bills, to escape poverty? And she doesn't have a car? She's going to take public and do three visitations a week and drug court and let me clarify.
Speaker 1:When you're saying has lost rights to her children, what you're saying is her children have been removed.
Speaker 2:Yes, tpr hasn't happened yet right, yes, no, so she's got a case plan that she's expected to work because her kids have been removed and put into the foster care system. How I mean? The public transportation system in Jacksonville, while it is improving drastically and we have really good people leading JTA now who really want to improve access, that's not the reality. The reality is not the reality.
Speaker 1:The reality is it can take two hours to go 30 minutes down the road. This is something that we've actually talked about, that numerous people have brought up on the podcast so far of the expectations on the biological families in foster care to work a case plan without the resources to do it, and it just feels like an uphill battle without the resources to do it, and it just feels like an uphill battle 100%.
Speaker 2:If I was given a case plan today, as someone who has a lot of support in my life, right Like I have family here, I have friends here but if I had my children removed today and they handed me some of the case plans that these people have to work, I, as a very established human being, would have a very difficult time working that case plan, just because it's so much, it's so much and you can't. It is literally logistically impossible sometimes to fit all of it in. So it feels like we're setting families up systemically to fail when it comes to the court system. Sometimes, yeah, because on the other side there's a lot of work that has to be done systemically to fail when it comes to the court system. Sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Cause on the other side there's a lot of work that has to be done. I mean, when you're that far into a hole to where your children are being removed and we're assuming that all things point in every case to like that the children are rightfully removed from the home. But when you, when you're that far in, there is a huge hole to climb out of.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Which is good and right. The kids in the story here deserve justice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it just is complicated. I mean, you know, I was sitting in a room full of people this weekend and she was addressing the crowd and she was addressing the crowd. The speaker was addressing the crowd and she was like I know that in a room full of 1300 foster and adoptive moms I am around some justice oriented moms and there's this like nervous laugh that goes through the the room because it's the our need for justice inside of us can sometimes feel like a fire that could burn a whole building down, 100%. That's, I could burn it Like that could burn a system down.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The. The need inside of me is so strong for justice. I remember sitting at court. It was the day that our kids' parents were facing the judge and it was going to be TPR or not TPR and we had sat through the whole morning.
Speaker 1:And you know, I actually am going to talk about this because I don't think that this particular day in court is talked about enough, where you have to watch the judicial system make a move in the best interest of children that you love.
Speaker 1:But it's so incredibly complicated and it is so heavy and I was physically sick to my stomach that entire day. We had to sit through the whole morning in court and the judge moved us to the afternoon because he couldn't make a decision with some of the things that were that was happening. And I walked to the bathroom and I was, as I was coming back, the American flag was standing outside of the window waving on this, like we were on the third floor, and I was just eye level with the American flag and I started reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to myself like, I think, just out of habit. And when it got to justice and liberty for all, olivia, the fire inside of me that turned on because it hit that justice core and there were four children that required justice and their need for justice mattered the most in that courtroom. Like that's what we were at court for was what is just and good, and it is complicated.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:It is to know how to advocate in those situations. I watch you do it and you do it really well.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 2:I sometimes don't always feel that I do a great job, like I don't know that I I'm a very wordy and I'm very, a very feeling and emotional person.
Speaker 2:So sometimes I think I find myself getting torn between numbers and data and the rawness that is required to do advocacy Well. Both are really critical, um, and so sometimes I feel really torn between which way to go when I'm doing the advocacy work or in a space. But what I have found is that the more I can acknowledge the complexity, the better I'm going to be at advocating, because when you're, oftentimes when I'm in a space where I'm advocating for something whether that be an IEP meeting or whether that be a medical office, where I need to push for more answers, we all really, for the most part, most people in that space you have the same goal. Your goal is to find what's best. You want to find what's best for the person whose livelihood or well-being or academic future is on the table. You have the same goal. So, if I can ground myself in, okay, we all want what's best here and we all have very different experiences and perspectives on how to get to that goal. How do we achieve that?
Speaker 2:The more I can ground myself in that the less pressure there is on me to provide all the things to get to the goal, because everyone in that room thinks they're the expert, so no one's actually expecting me to be the expert that I feel like I have to be in order to do a good job. So it reduces the pressure that comes with it and allows you to really just push, but also shut up and listen when you need to, because that's part of advocating too. Okay Is being able to listen, being able to hear whoever the person is on the other side of the table, often someone who is actually probably a decision maker. You have to be able to listen to that person. There's a little bit of give and take and it doesn't mean conceding. It doesn't mean giving up or letting go of like.
Speaker 2:Whatever your goal is, it means respecting that this person has. So, let's say, a therapist who's in an IEP meeting, or a school psychologist. That person has sat through hundreds of more IEP meetings than I will ever sit through in my life. That's not my livelihood, that's not what I wish. I am not academically trained in it. They have insight to offer, and it's okay if they have a different idea than me. What's not okay is if they try to make their idea more important than mine, and it's not okay for me to try to make mine more important than theirs. So when you have this reciprocal respect, forward progress is much easier to attain.
Speaker 1:I like that. I think that might be something that people do without knowing that they're doing it. Yeah, or they don't know where they're going wrong at the table. Like some of us come to a table and we're like why do I feel like I am like pushing, pushing, pushing and I'm never making actual progress and I feel like everybody at this table hates me and, if I'm hearing you correctly, it's like well maybe you have elevated your goal above everybody else's goal at the table and the goal is actually the best interest of the person that you're talking about.
Speaker 1:And if you sit there and let that full circle, understanding that everybody has a different slice of the pie, everybody can see something different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think advocacy work is often done because there are circumstances that feel unjust. And when you're in a circumstance that feels unjust, that there is someone who has been wronged or someone who there seems like there is going, there is an impending wrong being done, there's a threat that you feel. So your adrenaline, your hormones are naturally going to push you into fight or flight, and advocacy is both and it is a. It is a long haul fight, but it is also sometimes a momentary, urgent, asap. We need a conclusion right now. Fight and those conversations, those immediate needs, those are where I think, when emotions are the highest that we do I don't want to say we do our worst advocacy work, because I don't think that's fair to say.
Speaker 1:No, because sometimes we refrain from using emotion because we just want to be seen as professional or logical or whatever.
Speaker 1:Like you think, like, oh, emotion is going to take me out of the game, and then a button gets pushed and I have a saying in life that is be as kind as you can for as long as you can and then be as direct as you need to be to get the job done.
Speaker 1:And I will tell myself this saying all of the time, and I will actually I teach my kids this, like I will show them, like, look, do you see what? How kindness helped us in this situation. Do you see what? Do you see what happens when you assume that the person here wants to help you, right, like that they're not out to get you. And I also will say, like, when I'm in my direct mode, which is not fun for the other person, yeah, I will. And if my kids see it, I will say listen, here's this, this, this, like here's the list of all of the times that I chose kindness first. And it didn't help it. Not that it didn't help, it did help, it supported who I am as a person, but it didn't push the needle.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And now I'm going to be direct. Direct is going to push the needle.
Speaker 2:Clear is kind also, yes, clear is kindness. Sometimes directness and being very direct is the kindest thing we can do.
Speaker 1:In those moments where it's like this has moments where it's like this has to be advocated. This has to be advocated right now, like I have to go in. Um, I tell myself as a warrior and a healer which are two identifiers that I have have for myself and I steady myself and go like you are walking in as both a warrior and a healer. That's your job. Know what part needs to come out in any given moment. How do you steady yourself before that? Do you steady yourself or do you steady yourself afterwards? What does that look like internally for you?
Speaker 2:It's a both and before and after, um, and the before is pretty consistent, but the after definitely looks like what it depends. What it looks like in the after time depends on how the moment went, um, but the before. So I learned. I've heard someone and I can't remember where it may may have been like Dr Becky parenting.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Good inside.
Speaker 2:Yes, she says in that book what is the kindest interpretation that I can have of this situation before reacting and she's talking about it in parenting, like the way you parent your kids. I have found that a very similar approach is how I approach these situations. What is the kindest interpretation I can have? And sometimes it's very kind and sometimes it's much less kind, depending on.
Speaker 2:But for instance, with my son there was a situation where a kid he had been hurt at school and he reacted and my son should not have been in trouble and I had a very specific ask of the assistant principal. I said do not put him in a room with that kid. The kid had stabbed my son in the hand with a pencil and I found out because my son was too afraid to tell his teacher, so he went to lunch and then he had a stomachache and went to the nurse and the nurse called me and was like he seems fine and he got on the phone and I was like what's wrong? And because I know how to talk to my kid and what kind of questions to ask to get him to be honest and feel safe to tell me.
Speaker 2:He was like so-and-so, stabbed me in the hand with a pencil and I said said excuse, excuse me, what, I'm sorry? Did you say someone stabbed you with the pencil? And he said yeah, and I said okay. I said, said I had to take a, take a breath, right, because like, I'm not trying to like escalate my kid also, who's already escalated and fearful, so take a moment. And I said, okay, who'd you tell nobody because I was scared. Okay, can you put the nurse back on the phone, talk to the nurse. The nurse is like okay, and I said do not send him back to class and do not put him in a room with that child. Until I said I am on my way. I luckily had a job and have a job where I have the flexibility to be on my way when I need to be on my way.
Speaker 1:Um, so I was on my way, like walking to my car, literally out of the office I'm on my way means something so different in the foster and adoption world than, like I feel, like standard, right, like our alarm bells are going off, it's like is this a two alarm, three alarm, a four alarm, a ten alarm?
Speaker 2:yeah, and like I'm there, like yeah, never, ever will you find someone who can somehow drive as fast and as legal definitely legal definitely legal a mom especially who feels like their kids are in danger?
Speaker 2:yes, so I get to the school and the assistant principal has him in the office, closed door with the other kid, the kid who stabbed him, and I am losing my mind because I had that was my one ask yeah, it was my one ask don't put him with this kid. And then the kid didn't get in trouble because he was like Ryan was like, oh no, he didn't stab me Because he was scared he was afraid to be in the same space and then like tattletale and what this kid would do as a retaliation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So for me, I'm at a 10.
Speaker 1:I'm at a 10.
Speaker 2:My kindness interpretation of this is that you didn't care what I asked you to do with or not do with my child. You didn't. You didn't respect that right, that's a fact. Do I fly off the handle in front of my child? Do I ask for him to be sent back to class so that I can have a moment alone with the assistant principal, where he's not going to be hearing what I have to say? And or do I just, like, refuse to engage with this woman and escalate it to the next level? Right, these are my options right now. These are the things that are presented to me or that I'm presenting to myself, and the way that I have to center myself in order to not yell at her is to say, okay, the consequences for escalating and yelling is that the school resource officer outside is going to escort me off property. To be honest, like that's, that's a step right, like that's their reaction to my reaction. So how do I, instead of react, how do I respond to my reaction? So how do I, instead of react, how do I respond? And that I think you could honestly just take out everything I just said about this whole story and just put how do you like.
Speaker 2:My question is what is my kindness interpretation and how do I react? Or how do I respond instead of react? Responding and reacting are very different. Responding and reacting are very different. So I have the word Selah tattooed on my arm, which in Hebrew and in the Psalms is often used to indicate a pause before something bigger is coming. So for me, selah, having it tattooed on my arm, is a physical reminder of my need for a pause, always, always. I because, like you were saying, that justice oriented aspect is, I mean I will burn everything down and, um, I very much understand how, in superhero movies and the making of a superhero, there's a temptation to become a villain also.
Speaker 2:And there's capacity for both. You can use that power for good or for bad 100%.
Speaker 1:I wish that this was talked about more in circles of like leaders and advocates and people who are passionate about doing good work in the world, but whose personalities are tend to be more active rather than passive. You can do a lot of passive good work in the world Like you have a very passive personality. You can do a lot of passive good work in the world Like you can have a very passive personality and, honestly, people like you and I are like God. How do you do it? Like that's so wonderful, you're so nice. Like what I'll never be is like a sweet old grandma. Like I'm going to be like the spiciest of them all.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And know that about myself. Yeah, but if we could talk some like, if the conversation could exist in the world where it's like hey, those of us who have this high justice spend high drive personalities, high leadership capacity, high high, high, high high. You got villain written all over you if you're not careful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just so easy. The line is very thin and when you have the capacity for like and the desire and drive for change and results. And results are often looked at as numbers, but for me, results look like change happening. People's lives being improved is what change looks like, and when lives are at stake, which in advocacy work they are.
Speaker 1:Lives are at stake.
Speaker 2:The literal well-being of kids, of teenagers, of any population. When you're doing the work you're doing, lives are at stake and well-being is on the table, and so the drive is fierce, and I think, in advocacy, because advocacy is often so intertwined with policy and politics and what we see as Americans, especially in our government systems, is that the most powerful often get. What they want is what happens. Their goals are the goals that end up being adopted or pushed toward. So it's very hard to toe the line between being persistent and active and remaining on fire, while also holding tight to the values that make you approachable and collaborative and people focused.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love this conversation. Okay, so for the moms that are listening, I think we have a 99% woman audience, female audience. We have kids that need advocacy. We have kids who cannot. They have voices, but they need somebody who's holding a megaphone for their voice to be, heard and accepted or whatever you know.
Speaker 1:They need special accommodations in classrooms. The need is so much that we are advocating for all of the time what I hear you saying if, like, just kind of trying to pull it all together is coming to a table, sitting down at that IEP meeting, knowing that everybody there wants the same goal, assuming that, making that assumption, and then, right behind that assumption, saying what's the kindness interpretation that I can give of everybody like, of what everybody's here for? It's a kindness interpretation of how my, how this teacher is engaging with my child. That is. I'm going to tell you what that is. We're, we're designed to like have a very kind interpretation of ourselves and not a kind interpretation of somebody else's job. If we're late for work, it's because we had to stop to help, blah, blah, blah. If somebody else is late to work, it's because they're a jerk Right or like, whatever. Like it's just like our brain does it. There's a term in psychology that I can't like. I can't think of right now, but there's like an actual term for this.
Speaker 2:Think about it with driving. Oh, think about it with driving. I feel like this is when I deal with this the most is if I am speeding. I have to get somewhere and I'm being careful. I'm looking around me. Sure, I'm speeding, but if someone is riding my tail, my bumper, and they're trying to fly by, there's no way they have anywhere important to be. I'm like you're just a jerk, but it's the same thing, it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, assuming that everybody's coming with the same goal and that they each have a piece of this pie, kindness, what's the kindest way that I can interpret the situation and then deeply looking at, am I responding or am I reacting? And reacting will burn a system down. Reacting is always coming from fight, flight or freeze. It is adrenaline fueled, it is cortisol fueled, it is every hormone inside of my body that helps me run away from a lion real quick is helping me react real quick in a situation. And here's the thing, though and I think that, like this is understated we're not often wrong in these moments. I mean, we're designed to know how to run from a lion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean it's evolution, yeah right.
Speaker 1:Literally, like we're designed to know how to make snap judgments. Our brain is holding all of this information right. It's through our brain zone lens, it's through all of these things and that's not. Oh, it would be a great topic of a podcast, but it's not. This topic of like how reacting really can feel very beneficial, but it is not as beneficial as pausing, assessing, slowing down, assessing, slowing down more and responding, and that in responding, we can maintain collaboration, we can maintain a view of the long game, we can maintain all kinds of things like. This might be a rough IEP meeting, but these are the people that you're going to have to have these meetings with for as long as you're at that school, right, and and it might be that that school is not the best school for your child, and you'll find that out along the way but we can do this in the kindest way possible along the way, like you can keep coming back to these meetings knowing that some fits aren't the right fit, but that they probably genuinely love your kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think reacting fuels our need for immediate gratification. Reacting gives us the internal justification of I did what I came here to do. The feeling of gratification that we get from a reactive stance is not conducive to long-term outcomes. It is immediate and in that moment, oh my God, it's like a high oh, you think it can be addictive? Like a high it is, it can be addictive. Oh 100, which is where a lot of people in social justice work go wrong because you get addicted to this need to be right.
Speaker 1:So for moms like me who are not out there reading all of the policies, all of the things that are coming up right, Like I have friends like you who send me things, and then of the articles and policies and all of that that you send, I will look through and I'll go like, okay, what catches my eye, what do I have time for. I am, as a person, very cautionary about what I allow in as in terms of like news media, like all of that stuff. But at the same time, like I've also been in conversations with friends, I have another friend who's brilliant at advocacy and I was talking about how the school had sent my kid home numerous times. And she's like Rebecca, they can't do that. And I said what are you talking about? Literally last year I picked this kid up from school solidly 20 times, solidly 20 times, and she was like at 10, the school goes before the school board and they have to describe to the school board Now, this is in Duval County or the state of Florida, but they have to justify not giving this child an IEP if they're sending them home that many times.
Speaker 1:And also that's a suspension, Like if the school calls you and asks you to pick up your kid. That's a suspension. Olivia, I'm telling you that my brain could have exploded on site, Like. I was like how do you know this? She was like well, it's just, that's what it is. So for those of us that don't operate in the world where we know all of the policies, all of the rules, all of the things that go in, how do you, without being overwhelmed, find out what the actual resources are, what the actual rules?
Speaker 2:are how to know if we're all playing by the same rules of the game, right? Yeah, that's a great question, and we live in a world where we have access to tons of information all the time, which is an incredible opportunity and it is an overwhelming burden at the same time. Yes it is the I just don't. I don't think that as human beings, we were designed to process the amount of information that we're given every day 100.
Speaker 2:Not yeah, and so first, like before we, before I dive into saying like here are the ways you can inform yourself, I I just want to like hold, hold a minute of space for the fact that, like there are resources that exist for you to go to when you need them, you don't need to know everything all the time. There's never in the history of humanity has anyone known everything all at one time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as someone who is well informed in policy and house bills and my rights and my children's rights, and whether that be in the school system, the justice system, I go to school board. I mean I don't go in person that often anymore because I don't have to. I also listen to city council meetings, like on the back end. I will go back and listen to them. Yeah, you're passionate about it. I am, and I know that.
Speaker 2:I didn't grow up seeing people in my life sit at tables where decisions were made. My mom wasn't from here. She was a single mom. She worked two jobs, three jobs, most of the time full time and two part time jobs, trying to raise two kids by herself with no family, didn't know all these things existed in spaces that her voice, legally she has. She is entitled to have a say in these situations. We didn't know that. So then when I grew up, I was like where, why are all these people, the same people who have been sitting at this table for generations of our city? Like, why are these decisions being made by the just generational family names, like at this point? Like I was like no, that's not cool, we need different perspectives. So I educated myself on where those decisions were being made and who was having the conversations. And I reached out and scheduled meetings with city council members and with school board members and was like are you?
Speaker 2:kidding me? No, I have, yeah, I, I. I have sat down with multiple school board members and city council members. You, legally, as citizens, we have a legal right to access our representatives and we should be doing it substantially more than we do, substantially more.
Speaker 1:I am speechless right now. I mean, I knew that we have a legal right to it. Sure, to like contact them and whatever, but to like email and be like, hey, let's get, I want to meet you, let's have coffee.
Speaker 2:Email call text. I've checked some of them. I mean, I have good relationships with some of them now Like, yeah, these are the people who are making decisions for our county and our city. Yeah, I want to know them. Okay, but for the mom? So for the mom, who needs to know their rights their children's rights and how they can successfully advocate. I would say A. I think other moms are almost always the greatest resource. They are the hidden gems of everything.
Speaker 1:Absolutely they are. I have found that I didn't know the questions to ask, like when I didn't know in Jacksonville you have to go on a tour of a school that you want your kid to go to, because that's not how I make decisions. I am going to send my kid to school there because my friend sent their kid to school there and they like the school. If you don't live in the neighborhood, if you don't have a sibling there and if you're not military, the only way that you can skip ahead on the wait list is to go on a tour. Well, I have no idea about that and moms don't know to tell you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. So other moms being a resource, that's really. I agree with you. I'm not arguing with you at all, because that is how I get 90% of my information, but I have found that, without knowing the question, they don't know that. I don't know that because something could be completely common to them. Sometimes you need to know what questions you have to ask. I always like to ask the question. Well, first of all, I'm listening. In any time that there's a room full of moms that are just talking, I am listening. I'm listening to all kinds for all kinds of information. But like a question that I like to ask is is there a question I don't know to ask? Yeah, but like a question that I like to ask is is there a question I?
Speaker 2:don't know to ask yeah.
Speaker 1:I ask that question anytime I'm in a new situation or meeting somebody, like if I had to go to the school choice office, which I did. I will sit at the end. They'll say, do you have any questions? And I'll say do you have any questions that I don't know to ask?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like in a job interview when they're like, you should always say like is there anything else that I should know? Or blah Like it's the same thing.
Speaker 1:Like I won't have questions till I'm digesting. But in the meantime, I don't know the system the way that you know the system. Can you help me, okay? So moms are the first place to go. What's another place to go?
Speaker 2:Look at resources that exist in your locus of control so obviously a lot of resources. If we're talking about school, there's a lot of information that's passed at the county level, at the state level, at the federal level that impacts your rights and things that you should know. You can get very easily lost in that. What is your immediate sphere of control? Your child's school? What resources exist at the school? Who are your players that you need to be asking questions to or talking to? Who is your child's champion? Sometimes that's their teacher, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's a resource teacher, sometimes it's the lady at the front desk, sometimes it's the assistant principal identifying your chair kids champion yeah knowing who knows what.
Speaker 2:So, knowing what the jobs of the people in that situation are it is your principal's job, it is your assistant principal's job to do very specific things. It is your teacher's job to do something in line with what the principal is doing, but different, very different. The school therapist or psychologist what is their job? What do they need to know? And then, building relationships, I think, is like knowing who the players are. Building relationships with those people and staying in relationship with those people is a huge, huge, huge component of advocating for your child, because you're not going to be the decision maker all the time, but sometimes you can persuade the decision maker that your idea was their idea and then you get what's best for your kid.
Speaker 2:Like but when you have relationships in just like any other, any other situation, when you have a relationship that's trusted, that is, there's a mutual respect, there's a trust and there are roles for each of you You're gonna be able to get more done yeah, you just um verbalized one of my other rules in life, which is to make the most important person to me in a room really like me yeah and I say that weird, but, for example, I worked at summer camps in my 20s and the most important person to me is the person who controls my food, Because at a summer camp you don't have control over food and this is such an out there story.
Speaker 1:But this applies to everything. This applies to everything. The cook at those camps loved me because they controlled my food and in my early 20s I had a very limited palate and I had very strong like food aversions and liked to think of myself as a very minimalist, like very low maintenance eater. I was not. I just took care of it my own self. I took care of it with peanut butter, Like I would add peanut butter to anything that I needed help with right.
Speaker 1:I would add peanut butter to anything that I needed help with Right. So at these camps, the cooks at both of these camps that I worked at for many summers, cooks came and went. They they each had a jar of peanut butter behind the counter for me that they would like slip me in the line as I was going through. And but it's, it's a mutually beneficial relationship because I also gave to the relationship right. So when you're talking about building these relationships and like knowing who the most important person is it, I brought joy to their day, right, like that's that was my job in the relationship was I brought joy to their, to their day, to their lunch. They loved it. I would work after in the meals, I would clean whenever I would like, crank the music and dance in the kitchen, all of that stuff, and they gave me what I needed.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, and that applies here. This is true. Like when I rented, maintenance guys loved me when I rented because I need somebody. If there's an emergency at two o'clock in the morning, like I need not even that, like the maintenance guy will come. If there's a small inconvenience that I need fixed in my house, you're going to come to me first. Right, Like it's very, it's I mean kind of manipulative, but not because I'm bringing joy also to that relationship. Like there's, I'm bringing something to this friendship. I'm a very I was a very easy tenant.
Speaker 2:Yes. Right Like yeah, I think it it does. There is like this tinge of like Ooh, like when I say it and like when you, you just said the same thing, like sometimes I'm like oh my gosh, am I being manipulative, like I questioned my but.
Speaker 1:I'm not. Well, there's a therapist who was like we're all being manipulative all of the time. But here's the thing it's important that you are liked, yeah.
Speaker 2:And and liked in, not in a way that concedes your values, liked in a way that there is a mutual respect. Yes, respect of expertise, respect of perspective and respect of value.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like you each have something so valuable in that relationship. And so once you have those relationships, you know we talk about convening a lot in like an organizational way, like organizations convening or cities, you know, like different task force and all these people coming together to convene over the massive topic. And that is advocacy at a very top level, right, Like it happens amongst groups of decision makers on a macro scale. Micro scale. Advocacy and convening is just having relationships with the people who are making decisions for the things that matter in your life, and that is true for everybody. And when you have that, you have a shared, establishing a shared goal is easier and communicating and saying hey, it's easier to assess when something feels off or address an issue when there's a relationship already.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when there's a relationship, and so I'm going to say, like man, it's actually important, even though and I know I know what I am saying and I know how hard it is what I am saying and I know how I feel about what I am about to say it's important for them to know your face. So we have other moms, we have knowing who the key players are. Is there one more thing that you can leave us with before?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, get really good at filtering out noise. Um, in your pursuit of like actual information and I say that in, not in like a media warfare type of like actual information, like not in that context, but in the context of when you are doing advocacy work and you need to know your rights, who are the people who are going to know, who are legally bound to tell you what your rights are? If someone is employed by a school district or a school, they take mandatory training on legal rights, education rights they are not allowed to gatekeep that information from you. Ask education rights. They are not allowed to gatekeep that information from you. Ask. Be very forthright in your pursuit of what you need and ask the questions.
Speaker 1:Um and this goes against everything that we've talked about but would it also maybe be important to know who's trying to keep the knowledge away?
Speaker 1:yeah, I don't think that goes against what we're talking about yeah, no, I think it's absolutely knowing who is trying to keep information away from you 10 buttons and you scroll down to the bottom of the page on the left hand side and then you click five more buttons. You'll end up on a page that will send you to an email address that will talk to. This person will talk to right where the long chain to find out that in fact, your son qualifies for $15,000 of funds instead of the five that are given. This is a prime example.
Speaker 1:As foster parents in the state of Florida, you can submit this is a freebie, if you're listening to this. In the state of Florida, you can submit a request for increased funding to your agency every single year, every year For your stipend, for your stipend Every single year. It's like an increased cost of living, like it's just supposed to track. It is keeping you in line with where you are on, your like when your child came to your house, wherever that stipend was. It's just like adjusting for inflation is really all that it's doing.
Speaker 2:Okay, well.
Speaker 1:Right, okay, okay, in order. Right, okay, okay. In order to do this, you have to email, like, if you've adopted, you have to email the adoption specialist at the agency that you adopted from. They are then going to send you a paper that you have to print out, that you have to fill out, that you have to then scan back to them. They're going to send that to another section in the thing. Then they're going to send that to another. Like it's not easy to get this.
Speaker 2:No, of course not.
Speaker 1:Right, but it's there, it's available.
Speaker 2:So are we submitting this to a case management organization that had our case, or, like the super, like in Duval County? For me it would be FSS.
Speaker 1:You would send it to FSS, the adoption specialist at FSS. I'm going to tell you I've known about this for like a year and I still haven't done it because it just falls off my radar. But it is important and it's not like getting money for fostering or getting more money for adoption, it's literally just what is the stipend at the current rate, adjusted for inflation.
Speaker 2:Right. Going back to like, wrapping back to like what I said at the very beginning of the podcast with regard to bio families who have kids in care, is systems are not designed to set you up for success and knowledge. So you have to really, really take initiative and look for knowledge and invite yourself. Like you know who says a Shirley Chisholm maybe, if they don't have a seat for you at the table, bring your folding chair. People are not going to automatically give you a seat at every table. You're going to have to fight for your spot and that's sucks and it's hard, but it's reality and you have to know that if you want to do it well. So, filtering out noise and remembering that your frustration, that you feel in the when you're trying to just find something that should be straightforward knowledge, you're going to feel frustrated, but that frustration isn't that isn't because you are incapable. It's because systems are designed to to make people stop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. And when you hear the voice that says, like, when you're bringing your folding chair to the table, you're not an imposter, don't have to play it safe here. You can bring your folding chair to that table. You can build a table and build your own chair. It's harder, it's harder. It's easier to find a table with the chair that already exists. I'm going to say that as somebody who has built a table. It is easier to find a table with a chair that already exists. But sometimes we have to bring our folding chair, sometimes we have to build the table and imposter syndrome would say you don't belong, you're just a mom. And I think Olivia and I would both emphatically say because you are a mom, your voice matters and it needs to be heard in these spaces.
Speaker 1:Because you are a dad, your voice matters and it needs to be heard inside every space that your kid belongs.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So on that note, Olivia, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:We learned so much today about kindness and reactivity and responding and yeah, it's all relationships.
Speaker 2:Advocacy is is fueling your, your passion and for justice through relationships and an endless pursuit of knowledge, knowing that there's never going to be a time where we know everything there is to know and curiosity.
Speaker 1:Let's add curiosity. Oh, I like curiosity yeah so much of advocacy is like asking a question and just going like interesting and how does this? And like tugging on a string and and just seeing what happens when you tug on this one little strand.