Rachel and Natasha Pepperl are the co-founders of Just As Special, a podcast that shares insights and learnings about foster care from a diverse perspective. In their own words, here’s how Natasha and Rachel describe it:

When it comes to foster care, many stories aren’t being told. It’s not very often that we get to hear from foster youth, the biological parents of kids in foster care, same-sex foster parents, biracial foster families — the list goes on!

It’s time these stories get told so we can all learn how we can play a role (large or small!) in giving foster kids a better tomorrow.

Most foster families burnout within just 2 years.

Each year in the U.S., 30,000 kids age out of foster care without any family to call home. Most of these kids end up surviving on less than $8,000 a year. Many end up homeless or in jail.

We believe there’s a lot of room for these statistics to change if more people get involved in supporting foster kids and families — even if it’s for just an hour or two a month. Join our foster care community and podcast to learn how you can make a difference.

https://www.justasspecial.com/

Thanks to a referral from Kevin and Arthur at Discussion Combusion, Rachel and Natasha join me to discuss all things foster care from the invasiveness of becoming a foster parent to the pros and cons of public and private solutions to savior complexes and tons of stuff in-between. We also touch on Rachel’s volunteer work at a women’s prison, discuss why they chose this as their way of giving back, and even share a few laughs. This episode is as entertaining as it is illuminating.

Be sure to check out Just As Special on podcatchers everywhere, at their website, and give them a follow on Facebook and Instagram.

This episode is available on iTunes, on Spotify, at the Jon of All Trades homepage or on podcatchers everywhere.

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