Why 50% of Foster Families Quit Within a Year - Susan Silverman's Second Nurture Solution

[0:16]  Welcome back. Our next guest says, "I grew up in a home with foster siblings. One of them to came to me at 16 and we're still family today. That's how I learned that care can last beyond placement." So, I appreciate you joining us. Susan, how are you?

[0:31]  Hi. How are you? Thank you so much for inviting me.

[0:34]  Same. I'm so excited for this conversation. So, let's talk about it. You grew up in a family that fostered children. What's one memory from your childhood that you believe quietly shaped how you actually lead today? Oh. Um, probably the biggest impact was when uh the younger of the two foster sisters that I had each, you know, like one after the other, a couple years each, was leaving and the look on her face as they were driving off and she was kind of sitting in the back seat like surrounded by bags of stuff. My parents had bought her luggage they had bought her and she was like nine or 10 years old and just sort of staring straight ahead like being taken to she didn't know where. And

[1:16]  that kind of moment of oh my god this is crazy. How is this kid moving it to yet another whoever whatever home or group home or something and just the look on her face and I was a couple years younger than that and just kind of really like was like branded in me. Yeah. Yeah. There's a there's a I actually had a friend that um ended up in six different foster homes. I can't even imagine, you know, having to go from family to family to family and um feeling that alone, you know, and you mentioned just the the suitcase part of things. My friend um you know, may he rest in peace, actually not with us anymore, but he always mentioned that he would have to travel in trash bags.

[1:59]  Yeah. you know, and it's like, wow. Like, how as a young child having to experience that, where's the mental, right? And and you've obviously become such an advocate in this space, um, you now adopt, you know, your own. So, how cool is it to come back full circle to know that I'm actually giving back because I was, as you mentioned, I was really struck by that moment in my life, not wanting someone to feel that. Is that why you end up wanting to adopt as well, is just to kind of give back in that sense? I I I think so on some level, but I think it was more selfish than that, right? Like it was just felt like like what I needed to do, what was like out there for me to do. It wasn't sort of like, oh well, I want to give back to the world. It wasn't so magnanimous. It was more just like my instinct. And I think that instinct got formed

[2:46]  by, you know, uh what I saw as a kid.

[2:50]  I um And you have your own, but you also adopted kids. What does that look like? Balancing the biological and adoptive identities. Like, how has parenting in that way influenced your view of what family support actually should look like? It's funny because someone just reminded me of this and I I I remembered it when they told me but that they had said that when I had two biological daughters and then adopted one my son older son then had another biological daughter then adopted our second son who was actually older than our daughter but they said that I had said remember that I was glad I had two biological kids before I adopted because I could see how you love each of them so differently so I wouldn't think oh this is how like adoptive love and biological love is is what's different. That wasn't what's different. It's just every kid is different. So, who knows which part of it is what, you know, in terms of the love.

[3:44]  Um,

[3:45]  I love that you experienced it that way, though, because I'm not going to lie to you. Um, my mom was really my aunt. She um she had four of my own kids and she adopted three of us. I think I mentioned that last time I spoke to you.

[3:55]  And I I did feel the difference. I felt the difference on how she would take care of her own kids and the way that she would take care of us. And I think my sister to this day still holds that resentment because she felt different, right? And um you know, no shade to her, she did the best she could with what she knew. But it's

[4:13]  it's what you're saying, right, is that there is no different identity.

[4:16]  They're just all my kids.

[4:18]  I love them all the same.

[4:21]  They just may be different characters, right? Different personalities that you got to kind of shape in that sense.

[4:26]  But I love it. So you said you had two, right? Uh two boys or two girls? biologically, then adopted our older son, then had another daughter biologically, and then as and then our second son

[4:39]  who's fourth age- wise, but fifth to join our family. Uh then he came home. So, I say like we produce girls and import boys.

[4:46]  I love it. Yeah. You know, I I'm in the space. I remember being young. I was like, you know, if I have two girls, I'm adopted two boys. If I have two boys, I'm adopting two girls. Vice versa. And um I have a little girl and a little boy now. Me and my wife actually talk about it. It's fostering, right? What does that look like? Right now, we're still with a one and four year old. So, we're still trying to navigate that part of my life. Um, but yeah, I have the sense of giving back and I I would do the same as you. It's if I had a boy and a girl, I'm adopting a boy and a girl. If I had So, I love that you actually did that. That was just always one of my things. Just even I don't know about you, but I have a thing of even numbers. Do you have a

[5:19]  Oh, that's so interesting because I actually like the odd numbers. We have five.

[5:23]  Really? Oh, man. I love even numbers. I used to when I was younger, I used to do some weird things. I would buy things in twos, realized I was spending more money doing that. Yeah. I mean, I was young

[5:34]  like you're bringing balance to your life or something like you.

[5:37]  Yeah. I don't know. I I have no idea. Even like when I share like it has to be even or you take two, I take two. I try to always make it, you know, even said. So, it's funny.

[5:46]  Um

[5:47]  I love this though. You relocated your whole family as well to to Israel 20 years ago after adopting. What was that shift like? And how did that even sharpen your your sense of of mission?

[5:58]  What do Wait, I I don't think I understand the question. What was I missed the middle part of?

[6:02]  What's the shift like? How did that sharpen your sense of mission taking your whole family to to Israel?

[6:07]  Sharpen my sense of mission. That's so interesting. It's such an interesting question. Um there wasn't that sense like that's not like what pulled us here. We initially came to Israel. We were living um outside of Boston, Massachusetts. And we initially came here because we're adopting our second son, right? And he was our fifth kid. And we thought, gh, like we're just all working all the time and trying to just stay afloat. Let's move to a kibbutz, right? A communal uh community in and Israel and just kind of chill for a couple of years and then we'll go back to America so that we can integrate Zamir and our younger son and just kind of be more relaxed

[6:46]  and and that worked really well. like and he you know he came to us deaf and not speaking any English or Hebrew, right? Just Amharic. And so it was really good that we had a lot more flexibility to really focus on him and to you know eventually get him kar implants and to be able to do all that here where there's socialized medicine which is very nice

[7:06]  and and where we had a lot more flexibility in our lives to kind of tend to him, be with him, you know, integrate him. And so that's what we did. But then we just kind of ended up staying a third year on the kibbuts and then I got a fellowship in Jerusalem. So we moved to Jerusalem and that's where I developed second nurture. Um and then we just kind of found our home here. It's like I think it's nice as a multi-racial family also to be uh in Israel because like nobody looks at my Ethiopian kids and thinks like how are you Jewish? Like it's just totally normal here, right?

[7:39]  Yeah. Yeah. Um, so second nature was really born through all of this. Tell us how it got started. Tell her where you are today. Yeah, I think I was like uh inspired by the kibbutz in a lot of ways like this this communal the power of community and uh and so then when I came to Jerusalem and I had this fellowship to develop what became second nurture I was able to kind of take that learning and that experience of of community and apply it to fostering and adoption from foster care that you know realizing that a lot of foster families you know 30 to 50% of foster families quit within a year. They stop fostering.

[8:20]  And a lot of that is and and you had mentioned this and and um and uh sort of the intro you sent me that you know people are overwhelmed by the burdens of fostering, not just the kids who need a lot of support and help.

[8:35]  You know, and we were so blessed that we're on this kibbutz when our son really needed some intensive uh focus from us. Um,

[8:43]  yeah,

[8:44]  but the the bureaucracy of it all is is a a full-time job for for foster parents sometimes who already have a fost full-time job plus kids,

[8:54]  you know, plus kids who've got trauma, like, you know, it's too much. And so, we just so Second Nurture became this idea that we partner with an existing community. They're mostly synagogues, um, but also, uh, churches. And we're hoping to expand to like LGBTQ centers, like any kind of like community that's really like um has a center kind of has like something that pulls everybody in uh can become a second nurture host community and then uh foster families or people who have adopted from foster care from that area who may not have anything to do with that community. It doesn't matter, right? but come to that community once a month where they there's like support circles and the kids have activities and it's all free to the families and then members of that synagogue that host community volunteer not just on that day doing child care and helping the parents and and and the support group piece of it but also throughout the months right so if someone's like I need a tutor for my kid we can just put it out to the community hey somebody can tutor math here there's a kid who's been in four schools in 5 years could really use some support this year. So, we just get volunteers from the community so that we're able to leverage a whole community in support of these foster families.

[10:10]  So, when you planted a seed in 2016 2017, right? The um the model accelerated even past COVID, right? What a tough time to to really have something so so new. What changed during that time like practically and in the mindset? So, uh, we had been probably for about a year at that point in person, just starting at a few communities and then of course everything switched to Zoom and, um, the hard pieces of that was mostly the kids because the kids really love seeing other kids who are in the foster system also who they don't have to explain themselves to who they just kind of can hang out and be themselves. And so that was a really hard piece. and on Zoom and like we'd have Zooms for the parents, but the kids would come and say hi to each other and they were like, "Hi, hi." Like just longing for each other. So, it was so good. We'd get back in person and those families could hop on and the kids could be together again. And um but one of the kind of I guess things that we learned from that time also was that there was we could do a lot by Zoom that you can't necessarily do when you need a a location and, you know, and all of the physical things. So we experimented with different things and one of those things was a big success that we're now going that we continue doing on Zoom and now we're expanding to more communities to do on Zoom which is which is um a support group essentially for foster grandparents. So if I'm if my kid is fostering and I might be like why are they bringing this you know tough stuff into their lives? You know I'm worried about my kid. I don't think they should be doing this, but I want to be a supportive parent or grandparent, you know, and so that they are able to get together with a facilitator and talk about how they what their own pain and worry is and also how they can kind of step up to be supportive because that can make such a big difference for the foster parents, right? To be able to

[12:07]  I didn't think of that.

[12:08]  Yeah. Yeah. For the grandparent space, right? It's not just you as a parent that takes on a child. It's really the family, right? And what does it look like from the family dynamic of it? And I love that you do this this uh monthly gathering, right? Adults meet, the kids meet, there's food, there's fellowship. Why is that structure so in intentional?

[12:27]  Uh well, first of all, there's really something. I mean, I think we all learned this during co like it's so important to be together and in person. Um, I don't often get to go to these what we call the cohort gatherings, but I was just in the states visiting all of our locations and I was able to plan to overlap with the kind of the summer event in Chicago and that's where all of the groups everybody comes together for this big kind of picnic and hangout and I was just, you know, I sit here and I like write grants and I like, you know, do I'm like at my computer. It's kind of like in my living room like um to be able to be there and see it and there were probably like

[13:05]  I don't know in this one hour I asked the parents can I join and listen in and they said of course so I saw probably like eight or 10 really hard things get like fixed or get on a path to being fixed in that one hour parents crying you know my daughter is in so much mouth pain and I cannot find a pediatric dental anesthesiologist who takes Medicare and this mom can't afford thousands of dollars for a private, right? And someone else right then and there goes, "Oh, I got the perfect guy. He's amazing. Click, click, click. Here's his number." Right. And mom's like, "Oh my god, thank you. I'll call him tomorrow." You know, like just things like that that can just that can like do a parent in.

[13:49]  Yeah.

[13:50]  That just get

[13:50]  not that's actually really good. I there was I was talking to another leader funny that you say that. I was talking to another leader in the autism space and what she does is once a month she has these um events with moms, you know, and then they have all their clinicians actually take the kids, right, while the moms are just hanging out like you mentioned, having the conversation, maybe a cup of wine and really getting to to learn from one another, like being their own resources because sometimes people feel like they're alone and then when we can actually build this community, realize like no, we're actually all in this together and and that we can help and if we ever need something, we're just a call away. So Susan, yeah, building community is always, especially in this space, is always going to work out. It feels it allows people to feel like they have that the sense of of someone to li rely on, you know, if if something happens.

[14:35]  That's right. 100%.

[14:37]  Yeah. And what I love is that Go ahead.

[14:40]  No, no, please.

[14:41]  No, I was going to say another thing that you do that it's amazing is that you begin to hire staff in each city. Like um then you pivoted to 100% volunteer-based expansion, which is kind of what you talk about. Why the shift? What made you believe that it could succeed with that model? People would have done it completely different, but you realize that this is this works and it is working right here. We are years later. So, wh why that?

[15:04]  Yeah. So, well, really it was like we first did it for financial reasons. Like, we can't we was like, we we're not going to raise $200,000 every time we want to open in a new city to hire a director there and to hire.

[15:16]  So, we thought, okay, listen, like what do we really want? We want the community to take ownership of this. And that happens to be free, right, for a new community to do. I mean, it's not entirely free because we have a whole executive staff that up that on boards everybody and that teaches everybody. We provide all of the materials like it's really quite um what's the word? Turnkey, right? That and we're really really there for them any time of day or night, right? If they have stuff that they need to work through or uh address in their communities. Um but we immediately got three communities signed on and we just we just finished the materials to do this you know onboarding of a communitydriven model um in the late spring early summer and we already have three and a fourth community signed up to join us actually four yeah and we haven't even like really reached out yet and so we're super excited about that and we're just trying to figure out how to like keep our core um like funded and going and then we can multiply I I think it's endless honestly. You know, almost every community we ask says, "Oh, we want to do that. We've been looking for something exactly like that that really engages our families." Plus, we create lots of Jewish materials for not for the foster families because they're not Jewish, but for the communities so they can learn about fostering and Jewish tradition and history and kind of see how it's really a part of who we are.

[16:39]  What was your background before you got into this space? Was it an educator?

[16:43]  Uh, I'm a rabbi. Uh,

[16:46]  got it. So, because you keep you you bring so much education. I'm like, was she an educator? Is this where this all comes?

[16:52]  I do have a degree in education. Um,

[16:54]  okay. Okay. Fun. And and and I love it.

[16:57]  Um, I love doing that piece of it someday. Um,

[17:00]  I could tell I love it.

[17:01]  Yeah, it's really fun.

[17:03]  How do you train a volunteer-driven community so the quality and the heart and the consistency actually remain intact? I know you talked about just building all this onboarding. I could imagine that has to do with it. But how do you get everyone on the same page in different cities? I think right now you're in seven plus cities nationally.

[17:20]  Right. Right. We just Right. Because of our the new ones that we're just opening. Yeah. Seven, eight.

[17:25]  Uh so we have um our onboarding is um we have like the high level and then we have the more detailed for the different roles, right? So the high level is basically here are all the roles involved. Here are the goals. here's where we want to get. And we really emphasize you can start small. You just start with having a group. Have a group, a space for a group of foster families to come once a month. Someone from your community who becomes the family support specialist who kind of facilitates that group. And then we have training for the family support specialists. And we have training for the child care volunteers. And we have training for the um for general volunteers. That's really it's high level, but it just gives people a tool to be able to do this. So if you do volunteer say to tutor a kid, right, that we'll give you education, you know, just a highlevel 45minute thing so that you have some tools because this is not a kid who's just struggling in math. This is a kid who's had a lot of trauma and math seems like who the hell cares, right? But we do want the kid to have successes, right? And move forward. And so how do you kind of like uh give somebody the tools they really need to help a kid um who's in that position, you know, be able to move forward? So we have training on these really specific things, but also overview and then we have um uh every two weeks uh meeting with our national uh national coordinator who meets with all of the family support specialists and they just come together and say, "Here's where I'm stuck. here's where we're moving forward. Oh, let me help you with that. I' I've figured out the perfect form for that. Whatever it is, you know, just to really help each other. So, it's sort of second nurture for second nurture, right?

[19:09]  You you you're in a different time zone. How does this all work? Like, are you working at nighttime? Are you working throughout the whole day? Like, right now it's at my time is 10 o'clock. You said it was 5:00 on your time.

[19:24]  How are you even making this happen?

[19:26]  So, yeah. It's a weird sleep schedule, you know, like I'll usually

[19:31]  start I won't start working till 9:30 or 10 in the morning and then I'll work until about 2:30 or 3. Then usually I'll like take a break for 45 minutes for an hour. Then I've got meetings until like 9 or 10 at night.

[19:42]  That is crazy. Yeah, I totally forgot that.

[19:45]  Yeah. Yeah. You're working toward all day all night. Um what's what's really unique I think that you mentioned kind of ahead of the game is you're also in the space of AI. You you're really realizing how it can help in some spaces. I think you may have mentioned um like administrative things, maybe grant writing. I know some people use it on grant writing. How do these techni technological uh tools really amplify that your human-ledd approach?

[20:08]  Oh, that's such a good question. And it's funny because we do struggle with it. I saw that one of your I think interviews. First of all, I saw that woman that you you interviewed with uh was it foster adopt foster adopt connection? Is that what was called?

[20:22]  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[20:23]  Wonderful. makes me want to open up in in Kansas or Missouri because she's looks that looks phenomenal. So, I better reach out to them because they look super cool and I'd love to talk to them.

[20:33]  Um, but also I saw that you um talked about AI and not to fear AI and I think we go between being like, "Oh my god, this is amazing." to, "Oh my god, this is terrifying." Like, we're not sure because we're such like it's such a good question that you asked because we're such a humanbased organization. like it's really what are like connecting human beings. So then for us to kind of like go to AI and say hey here's all our information here's the grant application can and then we do it like can you organize this for us and then of course it's a lot of editing and making sure things are accurate and making sure that it's got our heart in it. But it does really help to like organize all the thinking and to just sort of see the steps and even uh formatting, right? It'll say like, "Oh, here's a good format for that." And it's, you know, we're between being totally freaked out and totally in awe.

[21:28]  Hey, real quick. Have you enjoying the podcast? We first want to say thank you. And we also just want to give you a little insight of what we're up to at Francis. Some don't even realize that we're working with organizations to help them use AI to create that real human communication experiences where that's actually supporting your your families, those patients or the entire community. We're actually creating tech that connects. Check it out. Francis.ai. I listen I I I love Chad GPT. I would literally sit here and I would talk to it. I don't know if you're typing to it or talk to it, but I would like, hey, I'm talking to Susan. She's in the foster. And I would just have a whole conversation the way that I would do. And like you mentioned, it would just give it to me all nice and formatted. I love that you said I go back and I make sure that I edit all this or or spruce it up, put in my tone, my brand. I mean, in reality, if you were to build like for me, Chacht, I was able to build a brain and my tone and my brand that allowed it to really um always be on on brand. So, when I have my assistant actually do a lot of my content, I actually don't even post content anymore. Like, she's post all my content. Of course, I I do the videos, but now she's actually creating everything in my brain and my tone in the back end. And I'm like, how lovely is that? That I could really do the things that I love, which is show up on camera, have conversations like this, and on the back end, someone else is is doing all this. It will never feel like it's not on brand. Um, so I I AI is one of those tricky things as as well. But I don't know that it would ever replace human connection, right? I for me like I love having the conversation with human and I don't know that I have the same conversation with AI that gave me the same feelings right um seeing here seeing your face seeing the smiles AI just doesn't give us that so no I definitely think it's great for some things and it's some of those things that you you definitely can't use it in spaces of taking away the human to human because there's just something special about that you know what I mean

[23:18]  oh yeah

[23:19]  I love that um because you're not government funded you've been you've insulated from some funding cuts. But what do you see when others are under pressure?

[23:28]  Oh, it's a nightmare to watch like organizations like wonderful foster organizations around us being cut and changing their websites to like to take away inclusion and like it just

[23:43]  yeah,

[23:44]  heart-wrenching. and you know they are still who they are and they're kind of doing what they need to do externally. But wow is that really tough to see. But it does impact us because now like the competition right for the private dollars is much more intense because people who are getting government funds are now looking and so that's been a really that's been really hard for us. Uh you know and they're all worthy organizations right? You want them you want everybody to succeed, you know, and we very much see ourselves as like the water between the rocks, right? That we are we're not trying to replicate other things that other people are doing really well. We want to kind of like lift all the the spaces where that don't get the light.

[24:31]  Yeah. Where did I go?

[24:32]  I don't know.

[24:34]  One moment. Oh, wait. Here we go.

[24:37]  Still hear you. Well, that's what happens when we're live virtually. We just have technical difficulties, but it it'll be up here in just a bit. Um, I guess just warming up. There we go. Look at it. There we go.

[24:52]  Appreciate it, Susan, for being with me during these times. Um,

[24:56]  Susan. Okay, so I guess my camera just wants to act up

[25:00]  and we're back and then we're gone.

[25:04]  What is going on with this camera? I know. What is going on here? One moment.

[25:08]  I had I'm just glad it's not this time.

[25:10]  What's going on here? Let's see. And definitely have my editor work on this. Hopefully, we can stay here.

[25:28]  All right, here we go. We're back. Um, you know, one of the things that that I would love to talk about, it's what's happening in our country, right, in the US, where biological parents have been deported, families caught in immigration policy crossfire. The tension between mandate and humanity. How do you kind of lead through those moments?

[25:46]  Oh god, it's so awful. So, one of our communities was especially concerned about this. So, we brought in uh a lawyer from a nonprofit organization that um works with immigration and all of it. And so, she came in and she spoke to the foster parents about how to protect themselves and how to protect their kids because foster kids are also getting deported. Special place in hell truly. And um and so we're trying to educate people and you know at one point it was another time I happened to be in the states and happened to be at this this meeting which was in I think in the spring and uh they said and and there like one of the parents stood up and she said hey everybody we're on a WhatsApp with each other about fostering but if you need help on anything we should reach out to each other. It was so beautiful to see there just like call us. We were here for each other no matter what. And I'm not sure, you know, we're not a policy organization.

[26:54]  Um but we're doing our best to not cooperate. Um you know,

[27:01]  yeah,

[27:02]  at least uh and to try to protect our families and our kids. And we've had we've had kids whose biological parents were deported. I think I think we've got um two families where that's the case. And can you imagine being a foster kid, separated from your bio parents for whatever hard reasons, and then knowing that they were deported?

[27:20]  Like it it just

[27:24]  hard times.

[27:25]  So the opposite of good values.

[27:29]  I agree. Yeah. No, for sure. Um it's definitely sad to see, you know, some of the videos that you see and just knowing families being separated in that sense. Like I can't even imagine. I know what it felt like for me not having my mom, you know,

[27:43]  and

[27:44]  to know she was deported and and it would even be more harder for me to make that connection, you know, like yeah, that that is some definitely some tough times. Um Kevin can't even imagine what some of these families are are dealing with, you know, at that level. Um when we talk about for individuals, let's talk to these individuals. What's one what's what's one small move that you would ask someone to to make in their own community to continue to support our faster families?

[28:11]  Well, certainly if if anyone lives near Second Nurture, if you have anything specific that you that you can share, you know, whether it's like tutoring, like I said, or say you're like really good at organizing spaces, like that's really needed, right? So, like say a mom gets a call and she's like, "Okay, you're going to get this sibling group tomorrow." out and she's like, "Okay, I have this room I need to clean out." Someone who's like good at that is a godsend. You know, um we're really hoping uh this year to increase the number of uh of people in our host communities who become licensed to do um respit care, right? So if like a foster family say the parents have to go out of state, they can't necessarily bring the kids or they can't bring the kids

[28:58]  and then so the kid has to go to respit and then that kid goes to respit and doesn't know what the hell's going on. It's like new people we don't know why I'm here. Little kids don't understand like are my foster parents coming back, not coming back. And this way it can be like hanging out with people you know, right? So these are the people who are doing child care or hanging out or tutoring a kid or whatever it is. And then you could be like, "Oh, you're going to go to uncle or auntie so and so for the weekend." You know, because they're licensed. And for the kid, it's just a little, you know, a little jaunt to have some fun with this people they know as opposed to just being like rehomed somewhere for a few days or a week. You know,

[29:37]  I love the space. I love that you're so deep into this space and you've made so many huge strides in what we do. Um, and I ask you this before we get to that blind question. What's your vision when your model reaches 100 communities? Cuz I can imagine that's that's just where we want to be at, right? 100 communities. What changes do you hope society actually sees?

[29:55]  So, one of our goals is to really like break down the wall between foster families and kids and society at large. So, like a lot of people look at the foster care system, especially if they're in cities and like, "Oh my god, it's so big. I don't wouldn't even know where to start." Right? But if we have ways for people to come in and connect, all of a sudden you're like a you're a family, right? Like as one of our our foster family said um who've been with us for a number of years now said we are a family. She said at first it's at a synagogue. She's like listen I'll be blunt. We're African-American. They're Jewish. Like why would we go there? She goes but now two years later and now it's been actually over three years they've been with us. Um said we're a family and we really are a family. And so if society at large starts seeing foster families and kids as just part of their communities, then you do what you do for community, right? Which is you step up. And so it kind of changes the whole perspective. And that's one of our overarching goals. And to that end, we have two films out. um one uh that uh kids from the the uh system who are in transition age youth made about Judge Songhai Armstead who's this amazing woman who grew up in foster care um in LA and is now a judge and now leading like a major uh uh department at uh Department of Family Children Services. And the other was made by this organization called Click um healthcare about the chair of our board. He and his husband found their son on the subway as a newborn infant and that and their story and it's it's called 18 months and it is just beautiful. I recommend anybody I can send you the links to both films.

[31:35]  Well, that's so funny cuz I I was just actually about to ask for the 18 months one because it was an award-winning um film. Um I seen that.

[31:43]  I was just about to ask you. You just took that right out of my mouth.

[31:46]  Yeah. I'll I'll send you both links. So they both won

[31:49]  Yeah.

[31:49]  major prizes. Like I was like how did like we're not you know we're not in the business right we're just we're just this social service organization but somehow these two films sort of fall in our lap and we have a third one coming out now again with the transition age youth who made it about a man named Yaon who is this incredible philanthropist grew up in foster care.

[32:10]  That's so cool. You know I was actually just in Boston um as I looked at some of the locations. I was in the Medford area actually. Yeah.

[32:16]  And uh I uh you know that was home. Boston is home for me. So that's where I was born and then I I left. I was adopted at 7 years old. My mom decided to move us to Orlando just because um for a better life idea. We were we're actually we were living in Lawrence at the time.

[32:33]  So when I went back to Boston, like I've never seen this place ever in my life, but it's so beautiful and I just love it. I I truly do. And I see that you have so many locations in the Andover area. I was seeing that as well. So kind of those areas.

[32:46]  Um that's so cool. That is so cool. Um, I leave you this blind question before we wrap up. You place yourself in the gap for so many families, but what's one moment when you felt like you were the one needing support and who or what showed up for you in that moment? Cuz I believe as sometimes we pour into others and and we can't pour from an empty cup. Sometimes you someone has to be pouring into you. What does that look like?

[33:06]  This is true. And there have been times, especially since October 7th here in Israel, where I just feel like I I don't know how to keep moving. I don't know how to put one foot in front of the other anymore. And uh a neighbor of mine I right shortly after the seventh I I didn't know her that well at the time but I just sort of said how do we go on and she said we put our energy in what we know to be true

[33:30]  and that was really powerful for me like oh I know to be true that kids need stability and they need to feel like they are the whole world to some grown-up somewhere right they need to feel like mirrored in their lives and to master their own story and to just be right, to have a place to stand in the world. And so if I know this to be true, then that kind of gives me a path for me to to move forward. Uh but also like my staff, like everybody on my staff are incredible. And um and in fact, our COO, Jen Morren, she's a healer also like in her in her life, in her world, and her other jobs. and she um she's just really like a force that that keeps me centered,

[34:15]  you know.

[34:16]  I love it. Yeah, we need it. We need it. You know, sometimes we come across as the strong ones,

[34:20]  but uh imposter syndrome sneaks in.

[34:24]  Life starts to life, right? Like

[34:26]  you, you know, I hear you. I hear you. This is not for the week. I always like to say

[34:32]  doing a nonprofit, being in the space of impact and not really chasing paychecks could at times be very, very hard. But as you mentioned, understanding why we doing it for, understanding our purpose and passion um and remembering that and and and like surrounding yourself with good people,

[34:47]  you know, people that that um understand because sometimes it's also hard because I always say as entrepreneurs, as in the nonprofit world,

[34:56]  very small world, you don't come across too many people in the same space.

[35:00]  And when you do, it is that like, oh my god, thank you. This is what I'm going through, right? and you just start going going going, which is why I really love to have these conversations. You know, you mentioned about some of the the foster um organizations. There's so many of them and I always get so excited because I am that young individual. I believe it or not, I actually had a story with one individual where I um I'm a foster kid as I mentioned and I always had this dream as a young kid to one day want to work with wrestlers, right? Like that I'm a wrestling nerd and um two years ago I would say I really came out the wrestling closet and I started to do wrestling content. I said, you know what? I'm going to build a community around wrestling. So many people get bullied for watching wrestling. So many people love wrestling just to talk about it. And wrestling to me was my escape from reality. So two years ago, I decided to go, you know, on this wrestling journey. Now I sit with 65,000 followers on TikTok. I've grown like 1500 on on YouTube. And that's great, right? And then recently happened so fast cuz life happens fast. I get a I get an email saying, "Hey, you got to be back in Boston if you want to interview XYZ." the Hardy Boys actually is what it was. And I'm like, "Wait a minute. I watched these guys when I was growing up, you know, these wrestlers." So, I'm going back to Boston where all started, right? And um I always set myself an expectation and the audio went wrong, Susan. The audio was not good. And I was so broken. I was like I was I was like this knot in my chest. Like the next morning because I I get back in Orlando. I'm trying to upload everything for my editor and realizing it didn't happen. So, the next morning, I'm so heartbroken. and I didn't want to get out of my bed. I'm like, "Oh my god, like I just I can't believe I failed." To me, it was like it was like I failed, right? But it was just a lesson, you know, and I I failed XYZ. I said, you know, you got you got to I prayed um and I just got up and the first person that I spoke to that day was someone from the foster, you know, organization. And it all just hit me. I am this young kid that was adopted and got to see his dream come to life. And there's just not so many people that can do that, right? Because we didn't have the right people in our lives to navigate us to those. And people always ask me like out of all these brothers, it's like 15 16 of you. What makes you the special one? You know, what makes what what what makes you in this put you in this space? And I always say God allowed me to have good people and put people in my life when I needed it the most. So Susan, while we do this work, sometimes we just don't know who we're going to talk to on the other side. That allows us to realize, oh my god, this is why I do it. and look how far I've come because we're always on the go go go. We we tend to to never really see how far we've come. And Susan, you've come such a long long way from your your family doing this years and years ago to you continuing this cycle. And I could imagine your kids will continue the cycle and and and like that's what it looks like when we talk about breaking the cycle,

[37:49]  you know. So Susan, I I truly appreciate this conversation we've had today. I I ask you what is what is the websites? What is the social media so people want to continue to tap into what you're doing? Yeah, just really to nurture.org. Come to nurture.org and you'll really get a sense of who we are and what we do. I think we've laid it out pretty like straightforwardly and um

[38:08]  from the various perspectives of your host community or foster family or just interested.

[38:13]  Well, thank you so much for the conversation, guys. If you guys want to see more of this

[38:17]  Yeah, I know for sure. Make sure you guys do like, subscribe, and comment. Check out Susan. My name is Ephrain. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Lers

[38:23]  so good to meet you. Five.