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.
Episodes
58 episodes
What Happens When We Stop Asking How To Survive And Start Asking How To Thrive in Foster Care and Adoption
What if survival isn’t the goal—or even the best question? Rebecca opens the door to a different pursuit: building a sustainable home life in foster care and adoption by asking how to thrive when nothing else changes. Through a raw, unedited mo...
A Conversation about Attachment for Adoptive Parents with Stacey Cales, LCSW
A lot of adoptive and foster parents are handed an impossible goal: your family should look seamless, your child should feel “forever” the moment adoption is finalized, and your bond should eventually feel just like biology. When that does not ...
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The Foster Dad Perspective with Corey McKinney
Fostering can sound like a noble idea until it’s your front door, your kids, your routines, and your fear of what you can’t control. That’s why this conversation matters. We’re joined by Corey McKinney, a foster dad, author, and longtime mentor...
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Supporting Biological Children in Foster and Adoptive Families with Talia-Rae Farrow
Foster care can be beautiful and it can be brutal, and the people who often get overlooked are the biological kids already living in the home. We wanted to change that, so we sat down with Talia Ray Farrow, a bio, foster, and adoptive sister to...
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Trust-Based Parenting For Kids From Hard Places with Angela Coston
Your kid is melting down, you are touched out, and the last thing you feel is “connected” yet the relationship is still the path forward. Rebecca Harvin sits down with Angela Coston, founder of For the Sake of One and a TBRI practitioner, to ta...
The Long Game Of Foster Care with Jason Johnson
The hardest part of foster care is not what most people expect. It’s the moment you realize you can’t control the outcome, you can’t fix what’s broken, and you’re still called to stay. Rebecca Harvin sits down with Jason Johnson from the Christ...
Creating a Soft Place to Land for Foster Children in South Carolina with Jennifer Tice
A child shouldn’t have to fall asleep in a cubicle while adults debate where she’ll go next. That image stuck, and it’s the spark behind this conversation with Jennifer Tice, co-founder and executive director of Lily Pad, a South Carolina faith...
Encourage One Another: Hope for Adoptive Families in Crisis
Some families look fine on Sunday and feel like they’re falling apart by Monday morning. That gap, the public calm and the private chaos, is where a lot of foster and adoptive parents live when trauma hits hard. We sit down with Ashley Mason, f...
What Long-Term Research Reveals About Childhood Abuse and how it may affect children in Foster Care
Trauma leaves clues, and foster and adoptive parents are often the first people to see them clearly. When a child “forgets” what they knew yesterday, melts down at puberty, hoards food under the bed, or shuts down into a blank stare, it can fee...
Fostering Connections: Youth Impacted By Foster Care Deserve Tools For Real Life
The foster care system asks teenagers to carry adult-sized problems, then expects them to be “ready” on a birthday. That disconnect is where today’s conversation lives, and it’s why I’m so grateful to share the mic with Aubrie Simpson-Gotham, f...
From Foster Care to Adoption: The Space between TPR and Finalization
TPR is supposed to bring clarity, but for a lot of foster and adoptive families it brings a new kind of fog. We’re talking about the space nobody captions on social media: mourning and celebrating at the same time, sitting in a courtroom while ...
Cayela Moody: Embracing Special Needs Foster Parenting
What if the life you built at the “resort”—easy routines, familiar friends, and tidy plans—suddenly moved you to a private island? That’s how Cayela Moody describes the shift foster care and special needs adoption brought to her family of ten. ...
Jordan Whitmarsh: Learning to Live with Grief as a Part of Life
Grief doesn’t wait for tidy timelines or perfect words. With our friend and adoptive mom Jordan Whitmarsh, we step straight into the deep end: living losses in foster care and adoption, the sudden shock of death, and the quieter goodbyes that l...
Tips for Sustainability in Foster Care and Adoption
We reflect on the move from drowning in caregiver burnout to building a sustainable life in foster care and adoption. We share three pillars—community, recognizing the load you're carrying, and setting the right pace for your family (prioritize...
Rebecca Unedited: When Love Doesn’t Feel Like Love
What happens when one child feels like home at the door and another, from the same sibling set, feels impossible to love? We open our front door and our hearts to a brutally honest journey through foster care: the instant bond that made love fe...
Simon Benn: We Are Not Our Trauma
A single keepsake cracked open a lifetime of hidden feeling. When Simon Ben learned that his childhood teddy bear came from his birth mother, a wave of grief and anger surfaced—and so did a clear path to freedom. We sit down with Simon to explo...
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Melody Marshall: Faith, Community, And The Hard Work Of Family Preservation
Some crises should never cost a child their family. When a single mom in a new city was admitted for kidney stones with no one to call, the default answer was removal. Instead, a host family took her daughters for one night—and that brief stay ...
Rebecca Unedited: From Tenacity to Trust, a Lesson in Letting Go
What happens when grit becomes a trap and control masquerades as love? I open the curtain on nine years of foster care and adoption, from my early "This is a sprint" mindset to the slower "marathon" pace of adoption. The story moves through the...
Turning Shame Into Care: A Guide To Trauma, Incontinence, and Advocacy with Peter Mutabazi and Mica Phillips
We open the door on incontinence in foster and adoptive homes and talk plainly about shame, trauma, and the mental load. Peter Mutabazi, founder of Now I am Known, shares the daily realities of children with incontinence issues and advocacy win...
Rebecca Unedited: How A 1% Shift Can Rebuild Peace And Connection
If you're a foster parent or adoptive parent who wants to build a life that you recognize at 80. Or, if resolutions leave you burned out by February, you’re not broken—you’re using the wrong tool. Rebecca opens the door to a gentler, smarter ap...
Parenting For The Long Game
In part two of two, we explore authoritative parenting as a blend of warmth and structure that forms character for the long game. Faith and research meet in practical steps that build trust, align kids with reality, and make the teen years a jo...
Warmth And Discipline: Raising Resilient Kids In Foster And Adoptive Homes
In part one of two, we explore kind, authoritative parenting for foster and adoptive families, weaving research, faith, and real-life practice into a clear path that balances warmth with firm guidance. Rachel Medefind shares how discipline mean...
Adoption Stories: From Neighbor to Mom, When Adoption Intersects Your Life
In this episode, we explore foster parenting advice and adoption resources through the story of a neighbor's crisis that led to adopting two teens. Mary shares her transition from a career police officer's mindset to trauma-informed parenting, ...
Soul Care for Weary Foster and Adoptive Caregivers: Support and Restoration
In this episode of 'Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption,' we explore essential soul care for foster and adoptive caregivers experiencing burnout. We share honest stories of exhaustion, striving, and the simpl...
Foster Care Stories: The Role of the Guardian Ad Litem and How it Impacts Children in Foster Care
Two friends pull back the curtain on what a Guardian ad Litem does, why the role matters, and how one steady volunteer can change a child’s case. Andrea shares training, time commitment, school advocacy wins, and the power of speaking for the c...
