An Army of Normal Folks - 70% of Foster Families Quit—And You Can Help Change That (Pt 1)

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

Within 3 years, 70% of foster families stop fostering—not because they don’t care, but often because they’re overwhelmed and unsupported. In this powerful conversation, Joshua Conley shares how Foster Village Memphis is helping keep foster families going through practical support, community, and relationships that change everything. Joshua will show you how your smalls act of support can make all the difference in the world!Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

foster care is for normal people who just have a heart to say, I have a bed, I have love to give, you can come here. And when it hit me the hardest, was right after the pandemic, because I was a teacher in North Memphis. I had a little girl die at the hands of her parents. And she was my student, and I just said, like, where was the system? And they had come several times, but they didn't remove her. And my fear is that they're not going to remove because there's not enough families. This really is life and death for kids. Welcome to an army of normal folks.

I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur. And I'm a football coach in inner city Memphis. And that last part, it somehow led to an Oscar for the film about one of my teams. That movie's called Undefeated.

I believe our country's problems are never going to be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us. Just you and me deciding, hey, maybe I can help. That's what Joshua Conley, the voice you just heard, has done. Joshua has fostered 11 kids, adopted one of them, runs a night. nonprofit that supports foster and adoptive families called Foster Village Memphis. He's the regional director of Care Portal, intentionally lives in inner city, and so many other things. Joshua shows what normal folks like us can do if we treat each day as an opportunity to just do what we can.

I cannot wait for you to meet him right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds.

I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us. The United States will not stand by and allow any power, however great, take over another country. From My Heart Podcasts, Saigon. Please allow me to introduce Joseph Sherman. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam?

I should stop talking so much. I like hearing you talk. One city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart. This is for Vietnam. I've taken a hit from Japanese ground fire. They're pouring petrol all over him. He's holding matches. I'm on a landmine.

Saigon, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Rob Benedict. Sting here's madness. The world should hear about this. There's a fire coming to this country and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to Saigon on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month, we're dedicating a series to understanding the mind when it struggles.

I'm joined by doctors, researchers, and those with lived experience. We'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen. I was shoplifting. I was having panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. And making it through hardship. To be present is a learned skill, and it's hard to be present. We'll talk with John Nelson about clinical depression and the brain implant that saved his life.

What I learned is that procedure made me happy because I'm disease-free. And we'll talk with leading experts like Judd Brewer about anxiety, and John Hirschfield about obsessive-compulsive disorder, and the science of how the brain can change. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course and what we can do about it. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Real talent is defined by what people can do, not where they learn to do it. So by stopping at the education section of a resume, you might throw away the perfect hire. Skills first hiring helps you see talent others miss, like more than 70 million stars. skill through alternative roots.

Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage because hiring managers who start with skills are 60% more likely to find a successful hire. Higher skills first. Learn why at tear the paper ceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Joshua Conley, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me.

Usually I say welcome to Memphis, but you got welcome to Memphis five years ago or so, right? Or 10. A little bit longer, yeah. Going on a decade right now. So 2016 is when we moved to Memphis. Yeah. So we'll get to that.

But thanks for sending time with me today. Everybody, we've done stories about foster care and amazing people that do work in the foster world. Joshua has an interesting piece of work he does in that space that adds another layer of the work that needs to be done, but just as vital. And then this normal dude has done all kinds of things to serve this community and not just in Memphis. And so I can't wait to let this story unfold for our listeners. But I want to start with this. If helping a child in foster care didn't mean that you had to foster or adopt, what would that look like? Because I think there's a lot of people that have a heart for the children who end up in the foster system.

or even have a heart for children that need to be adopted, but just, I'll be honest with you, Joshua, I don't think I could foster. I don't think I have that in me, but I do absolutely have a heart for the kids and the families that get caught up in that system. And it's so interesting that you have answers for people like me, which I think actually are probably the vast majority of people that think about foster care. So if helping a child in foster care didn't mean that you had to actually foster adopt, tell me what the other work could look like. Absolutely. Yeah. I would say that what we try to do is make it as easy as possible to get involved in the foster care system with the work that we're doing.

How does that look? That's a good question. going back, I would say, I would have a conversation with you on why you don't feel like you could foster, why you don't feel like you could adopt? Because I would want to make sure that your no is a no because of reality and maybe not narrative. But I think narrative is one of the ways so many people can get involved. Foster children are isolated. Foster families are isolated. We're not allowed to even put pictures on social media, right? So we have to hide children's faces as we go through our everyday lives. So we're hindered from doing normal activities that other people can do. And so ways to get

involved very simple as you go to clean out and do spring cleaning at your house and you have clothes that you're not using anymore, donate those to Foster Village Memphis. And our team of volunteers will sort, launder, pack those for our welcome packs. We had a team up there this morning

doing that. If you like organization and laundry, you can come volunteer and be a part of that. We just had a

church by Easter outfits for 11 children that we serve. And they were just as they were going shopping, they just

wanted to include a foster family in their shopping. It could be as simple as making an extra cassero

at meal time, baking an extra batch of East. Hosting a lemonade stand for us is a big way in the summertime that we try to raise awareness for children and families experiencing foster care. You can come volunteer. You can come spend time with our kiddos. But what we want is we want to just normalize those experiences. And the best way for people to get involved is just to raise awareness. What, um, you, you said Foster Village. What's that?

So Foster Village, which, by the way, you're the executive director of, so you might as well tell us what it is. Yeah. Did you run the street match? Here in Memphis. Yep. Foster Village was started in Austin, Texas. It sites all over the country. 15 or so.

15, 16, I think. Small cities, big cities. And it started here in Memphis in 2019. The goal of that is we believe that if we can wrap around families who are opening their homes, then we can, and we can provide them with resources, with training, with relationships, and connection, and then we can raise awareness for them that they're going to stay in the foster care game longer. That means children are going to have more stability. And if children have more stability, their outcomes are exponentially better.

Alex has a really good job prepping me for most of our guests. sometimes he does a really poor job and I just have to fake it. Yeah. Right. Let's do it. Yeah. But 90% of the time. So I feel as a foster parent, I just fake it most of the time. Fake it to you make it.

That's right. But in your case, he sent me 26 pages of information, which is really too good of a job. Because, you know, it's like reading a novel. So I know far too much about it. Apparently he does. I think he gets paid by the word. Yeah, by the word. Yeah, that's it.

Just shut up over there. You keep your curtain closed. We'll let you out when we want you, Alex. One of the things he provided in your prep, which I think speaks to why Foster Village even matters is tagging on what you just said. And so you probably know this, but I'm going to repeat it and then let you put some color on it. each year, 30 to 50% of foster parents will have stopped fostering, a third to half. End of year two, 50 to 60% will have stopped more than half. End of year three, 60 to 70%, upwards to two thirds, will have stopped fostering.

And if you think about it, if you started fostering in the first place, you have the heart and you have the bearings, but then by year three, we've lost two-thirds of the pool of people to foster children. That's what the demographics and the stats say. 40 to 60% of foster parent exits involve burnout-related factors. At the same time, 85% of people who are not foster parents say they care about vulnerable children and want to help.

So on the one hand, almost nine of ten people like me say, I care about vulnerable kids and I want to help. On the other hand, the people who actually do have the bearings and willingness to step up, by year three, two-thirds of them have burned out or out of foster care. That screams that foster families need more support. Yeah. From that lens, talk about foster village. Yeah. Our bread and butter is to help foster families and the children they're serving feel seen. Like, that's what we try to do.

And it's through, and we all know this, it's not what you know, it's who you know. And the relational capital that we try to build is kind of the heart of our mission. So knowing that all of our staff, all the people who serve on our board have been foster parents. So we have that experiential knowledge. To know that when a child leaves, it's heartbreaking. To know that when a child enters your home, it's a mystery. And that you're not only are you trying to love this kid with 100% responsibility, but you're trying to do things on their behalf with zero authority because they're not yours.

And so we just want to make it to where no foster family ever feels like they have to go at this alone. What happens to the child if there's more foster children than they're all foster parents to help them? What does that systematic life look like for those kids? Well, then what it does is it allows for the state who runs the Department of Children's Services to then get creative on what has been. for children as they cannot find homes. And I appreciate what the state does, but the system was not built for relational development. The system was not built for long-term thriving of children and families.

It was built to keep kids safe, to remove them from unsafe situations of possible, and then to help reunify biological families. So what I would say is right now there was a legislative, thrown out that the best thing for children when there's not enough foster families is that they should go to juvenile detention. They have not committed any crimes. Their behavior has 90% of kids don't go to foster care because of behavior. It's poverty. Because of their own behavior. Because of their own behavior. Poverty, severe abuse and neglect are the main causes of the child entering care. And so we take these these kids who fundamentally experienced

likely experienced, at least at some level, dysfunction and trauma. And then we institutionalize them, right? We have institutional foster care networks. So like for kiddos who need some more support, some more services, and that works. But at the end of the day, what you're losing when you enter foster care is a loving parent, some kind of loving caregiver. So if we can't replace that with the system, that should, child's always going to walk around with a void and with a question mark.

My four-year-old daughter, we were sitting at the dinner table, and we were talking about her experience through foster care. She's four years old at the time. And she looked at me and she said, did my mom not want me? And that's a four-year-old. She should never have to ask that question. And she has a loving mom and dad. But that void is still there and it's going to be brushed up on. just recently her birthday's coming up and so we were talking about her birthday and her biological mom came to her birthday. It was not a good situation. The same kind of question. She said, did she leave my birthday because it wasn't special enough? These are four to six year old kids asking this. And then you get teenagers who have not had parental guidance who have experienced complex trauma,

longer times in poverty, longer times and maybe some neglect. And that road of hope just seems to be much further away than what they can have. So that hopelessness, I think, contributes to behavior. And then the behavior makes the news to kind of paint a negative narrative that foster children are dangerous, foster children, that they're in foster care because they chose to be, that they're too hard to handle. And so, yeah, we have a lot, we have a broken system that leads to a broken narrative for the larger community. Because it doesn't make sense that if 85% of people want to get involved in foster care, and then, but we have such severe burnout of families, well, the numbers aren't just, there's some gap in between.

And so Foster Village Memphis wants to stand in that gap. And now, a few messages from our generous sponsors, but first, our six local service class. are rolling and we'd love to invite you to either join one or be a part of a team to help start another one in your own area. At a time when only 33% of Americans are contributing in their community at the level that they want to, the mission of these clubs is to make service easier for everyone. The first six clubs are in Memphis, Oxford, Wichita, Atlanta, Azuki County, which is Ozaki. The first six are in Memphis, Oxford, Wichita, Atlanta. Where is it?

Ozaki. Ozaki County, which I think is New York, right? Nope. Where's Ozaki? John Norman's outside of Milwaukee. Oh, that's Milwaukee. And then Northern Duchess County, that's New York. That's in New York.

That's where they are. If you live in one of these areas, visit the service club section of our site, normalfokes. and get plugged in. It's easy. And there's Army members exploring launching service clubs in their communities later this year. Those cities include Knoxville, San Antonio, Huntsville, Auburn, Washington, D.C., Lincoln, Nebraska, Licking County, Ohio, Lorraine County, Ohio. If you happen to live in one of these areas that are interested in helping, just email Alex at army of normalfolks. Us and he'll get you connected to them.

Or if you want to begin the process of rolling one of these things up in your community, you can also email Alex. Let's do this, Army members. We'll be right back. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us. The United States will not stand by and allow any power, however great, take over another. country. From My Heart Podcasts, Saigon. Please allow me to introduce Joseph Sherman. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? I should stop talking so much. I like hearing you talk.

One city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart. This is for Vietnam. I've taken a hit from Japanese ground fire. Do you rate me? They're pouring petrol all over him. He's holding matches. Four free. Saigon.

Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Rob Benedict. Sting, here's madness. The world should hear about this. There's a fire coming to this country, and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to Saigon, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month, we're dedicating a series to understanding the mind when it struggles.

I'm joined by doctors, researchers, and those with lived experience. We'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen. I was shoplifting. I was having panic attacks. I was agoraphobic. And making it through hardship. To be present is a learned skill, and it's hard to be present.

We'll talk with John Nelson about clinical depression and the brain implant that saved his life. What I learned is that perceived. procedure made me happy because I'm disease-free. And we'll talk with leading experts like Judd Brewer about anxiety and John Hirschfield about obsessive-compulsive disorder and the science of how the brain can change. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course and what we can do about it. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. Real talent is defined by what people can do, not where they learn to do it. So by stopping at the education section of a resume, you might throw away the perfect hire. Skills first hiring helps you see talent others miss, like more than 70 million stars, skilled through alternative roots. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage because hiring managers who start with skills are 60% more likely to find a successful hire. Hire Skills First. Learn why at tear the paper ceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. I know there's three main programs and we'll get to that.

But as I heard you talking, I'm getting off script now because there's a couple of things I'd like to hear your thoughts on. First and more personally, I'm 57. My dad left on when I was four. My mom was married and fours five times. I never was even close to getting into the foster care system. Despite all the marriages and dads in and out of my life, my mom always held a job. She always made sure I was... Later, we're going to discuss a very interesting thing you said about parents,

but my mom is the poster job for that. No one is either perfectly heroic or perfectly broken. There's a mix. That was the quintessential of my mom. But I absolutely, after divorce four, as a 16-year-old guy who lettered in six sports, who had good grades and was doing, I mean, I wasn't a perfect child by any means. I gotten some skirmishes and did some stuff I shouldn't do, but I was a pretty decent kid.

But I certainly was, you know, successful by the metrics of academics and athletics and things. But I specifically remembering what is so broken about me that no man wants to continue to hang around and invest in me. And that manifested itself in thoughts of, well, if I'm not worthy of being invested in, then I'm not, you know, why do I care about the rules? If the rules don't apply to the adults that are supposed to care for me, why do they apply to me? Yep. And I fortunately ran into some good men in the forms of coaches later that filled a rule void for me. But at 57 years old, and as a father of four children, I was in my 40s before I

fully reconciled that nothing was broken about me. It was about that adult that abdicated his responsibility as my father. But it took me that long. So when your four-year-old daughter says what she said to you, and then at the birthday, she says, the truth is, that's likely a burden she'll carry into motherhood and as a spouse. Yeah. And then you multiply that at times the entire population of all the kids that are in foster care. 400,000 across the United States. And then we wonder why the demographics about kids coming out of the foster system are so dire.

Yeah. Yeah. Especially if they were institutionalized and move around house-to-house every three months. And if they move around, it says that it will, stunt their development by six months. Every move. Every move. So if you think about that, like if my, let's say, on average a kiddo moves to three homes, right?

That's an 18-month developmental delay. Academically, it's probably two years behind. Right, right. In an academic setting that is struggling with children who have stability in the home, right? And so you're behind there as well. But socially, you fall behind. I think, you know. but your your age of experience is 40 because foster care is now an adverse childhood experience.

So it is considered traumatic, right? You're navigating all these emotions. You're probably the one could be a main parent in your household, taking care of brothers and sisters at a young age. But then you've had everything taken away from you, all your safety nets, Yeah. So for my daughter to be four and to ask those questions, shows that her emotional age is a lot higher. And she's not a foster kid. She's an adopted child.

Yeah. Yep. So what would a foster kid think? And, you know, kids, if anything, need consistency. Yeah. Yeah. And when you're fostered and moving around, that's got to feel, it's got to feel perpetually temporary. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you said it too, like, kids need attachment. And I think for the most, the majority of the first part of our lives, it's all about just finding that healthy attachment. So you'll see, you know, kiddos try to do

things to not manipulate attachment, but because that's the, that's how they live. And so I have this wonderful perspective because of all the kiddos I've had in my house. Their parents are hurt. too. They're hurt people. They're sick people. They're not bad people. They came from foster care. They came from foster care or they have attachment issues. They're doing what they saw. Right. And as parenting has changed from generation to generation, they just replicating the cycle of hurt. And I really don't think that they know better. Now, there is a level of personal responsibility and things like that. But when you are looking for attachment, you're going to do anything to find. find it and to feel secure so that the voices of what's so wrong with me subside.

Now, some people can do that through, you know, good coaches, mentors, programs, church, social settings that allow. At least one present parent. One present parent. Which was my case. Yeah. But others will find that through inappropriate relationships. Gangs.

Substance abuse. Gangs. in ways that like show this is not the best thing for me, but it makes me feel the best about myself. And so I'm going to keep doing it. Alex, I may be putting you on the spot. Would you open us curtain? Okay, good.

Hey, Alex. We've, in past shows, we've done this. And I bet Alex is like encyclopedia brown of stats and numbers, especially on anybody we've talked to. But if you don't care, idealistically about the concern for a child. There's a pragmatic side to this, which is kids that don't end up permanently housed out of foster care,

especially the ones that are institutionalized, the numbers are dramatic about where those kids end up later in life. There's a high percentage incarcerated. Well, Josh, I mean, I generally know what they are, but Joshua will know it better. Do you know these numbers? Yeah, I heard somebody say that 50% of the homeless population right now came through the child welfare system.

Okay. So think about that. Yeah. Sex trafficking. We are cautious. I'm going to go one by one. We are constantly talking about how do we fix a homeless situation in our cities. Here's one way.

Yeah. Foster. Foster. And they won't end up homeless because the demographics and the data says that half or more, I've heard of size 60%, I think, end up on the streets because once they age you out at 18 if they haven't attached to family that gives them access and love and support, where else are they going to go? Yeah.

So that's one. Trafficking is another. Yeah. Attachment. Yeah. So a higher rate of sex trafficking because of that homeless nature and because of the idea of losing, I'm aging out of a system, I'm losing the caregivers I love. Where am I going to find that attachment now?

Well, someone comes along and says, you're pretty, you have something to offer me, right? And love bombs them. And then they go and, and again, attach to someone who doesn't have the best interest for them. Additionally, I think drug use is a big one. Drug use, substance abuse, underage pregnancies are high. Suicide is high. Incarceration is high. Highest chance of living in poverty for the rest of their lives. So pragmatically, when we think about all these societal ills that we're always talking about trying to fix and solve and work, literally the data says that about half of those we fix

if children don't age out of foster care without a family. We're too far down river when we're making, and there's always going to be a need for homeless ministries, homeless outreach, specific. specifically sticking with that. But we're too far down river. And so, like, if we can go up the river and say, like, where is this, it's really bad down here, can we identify some things up here? Foster Care is going to be one of them.

Your metaphor is awesome. One of our guests once said, we can continue to pluck people out of the river and save them from drowning, but eventually we need to go upriver and find out why they're falling in in the first place. Yeah, that's fantastic. And I think there's an African proverb we use in some of our literature that says, if a child doesn't feel embraced by their village, they will burn it down to feel its warmth. And so I look at the city of Memphis. Whoa, that's awesome.

Say it again. If a child doesn't feel embraced by their village, they will burn it down to feel its warmth. That will be used. I will repeat that to other people. That is fantastic. Well, I look at our city now, and especially the needs. negative nature that we describe our youth with. But I also look at, you know, you can go through news articles and headings, and I don't see kids who are inherently bad. My daughter and I were

talking about Pokemon this morning, and she said, is that a bad Pokemon? So none of them are inherently bad. It's the environment they came from, and it's the trainer. And so for our kids here in Memphis, I think more so, what village have they been embraced by? Is it a village that encourages them to skip school and to bring weapons to the event? Or is it a village that says, you have so much potential. And I'm excited to see what you do with your life. And when you're two years old, let me read you a bedtime story. Let me read you good night, Memphis and talk about all these cool places and be present. We'll be right back.

Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth.

Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Saigon, the story of my family and of the country that shaped us. The United States will not stand by and allow any power, however great, take over another country. From My Heart Podcasts, Saigon. Please allow me to introduce Joseph Sherman. You don't think I'm serious about a free Vietnam? I should stop talking so much.

I like hearing you talk. One city, a divided country, and the war that tore America apart. This is for Vietnam. I've taken a hit from Japanese ground fire. They're pouring petrol all over him. He's holding matches. I'm on a landmine. Or freedom!

Let's get out! Freedom's all me! Run! Run! SIGON, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Rob Benedict. Sting, here's madness. The world should hear about this. There's a fire coming to this country, and it's going to burn out everything. Listen to Saigon on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever.

you get your podcasts. There are times when the mind becomes a difficult place to live. This is David Eagleman with the Inner Cosmos podcast, and for Mental Health Awareness Month, we're dedicating a series to understanding the mind when it struggles. I'm joined by doctors, researchers,

and those with lived experience. We'll talk with singer-songwriter Jewel about anxiety. I started living in my car, and then my car got stolen. I was shoplifting. I was having panic attacks. It was agoraphobic. And making it through hardship. To be present is a learned skill, and it's hard to be present.

We'll talk with John Nelson about clinical depression and the brain implant that saved his life. What I learned is that procedure made me happy because I'm disease-free. And we'll talk with leading experts like Judd Brewer about anxiety, and John Hirschfield about obsessive-compulsive disorder, and the science of how the brain can change. This is a month of deeply personal and honest conversations about what happens when the brain goes off course and what we can do about it. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Real talent is defined by what people can do, not where they learn to do it. So by stopping at the education section of a resume, you might throw away the perfect hire.

Skills first hiring helps you see talent others miss, like more than 70 million stars, skilled through all, alternative roots. Let their story unfold and gain a competitive advantage because hiring managers who start with skills are 60% more likely to find a successful hire. Higher skills first. Learn why at tear the paper ceiling.org brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Some of the stats I looked up, Bill, so 50 to 85% of people who are sex trafficked were in child welfare, including foster care, and then 20 to 30% of prisoners were in foster care. Just think about those numbers. Forget the percentages. Put, if you think, how many people incarcerated in the U.S., you know this?

Oh, it's like three million. Yeah, it's, okay. I was going to say millions of people. If 30% were in foster care, you could literally reduce your prison population by a million human beings annually. And then you think about who's paying for prison. That's the pragmatic side. Right.

Exactly. We talk about the drag on our tax base. Yep. What could that money be used for if not for, if not for, having to house people in prisons because they fell on the river at four years old in the first place. So I say all of this before we go forward because I want our listeners to really deep think about why supporting foster families matter. Because if by year three, two-thirds of them are falling out because they're burned out. And we know all of the data we just talked about and how

how fundamentally, systematically we could change so much of what's wrong in society today if we just had more foster families and less burnout, well, then Foster Village Memphis is actually addressing more than just the family that needs help. It's addressing a myriad of issues downstream that are societal ills that we're constantly looking for answers for, and the answer very well may be, support of foster family. Yep.

Support of thought. There's so many ways to support. And it could be cutting someone's grass. You know, it doesn't have to be, I think, these grandiose gestures. And I think about the idea, especially in like biblical language, you see a lot of times where they use the word visit, like the Lord visited them. And one time they used that is when, you know, God provided manna from the sky to feed them. So feeding is a part of visit.

someone. But I would say that if you could visit a foster family, if you could put eyes on a foster child, it's going to normalize that that kid is normal. And when Journey gives you a hug and says, thank you, when little Zion gives you a hug and says, thank you, or when an older child shares their story with you because you said, hey, do you want to play Uno with me? And they do. And they end up telling you a story that they don't deserve, it's going to connect with you and it's going to change the lens on how you see things. I can't go anywhere now and not see foster care. From the shows I watch to the music I listen to, I mean, even the Grinch is a foster care story because it's captured my heart so much. And I think we all want to be that one person,

teacher, coach, mentor, parent that gave a child a reason to keep going. I did not have that as a kid. Like when I got asked those questions, what teacher had your back, what coach had your back, I was just like, I can make something up. But I felt very lonely and very isolated. We're going to get to that. Yeah. And so it's just stepping in in ways that you feel comfortable with and providing, you know,

tangible relief for families that we hope would lead to general connections. And from a high altitude view, that investment in that one family is actually an investment in the future of our culture. Yeah. So you do three main programs. One is equipping caregivers with support. Two is connecting families to each other. And three is advocating for change in the system.

I'm going to let you talk about those three. Shut up. Listen until you say something that really interests me and then I'll interrupt you. accidentally our equipping yeah I can't help it yeah I love being interrupted it's great it's your show um our equipping platform is really just kind of our foot in the door so when a child comes into care families a caseworker or friends can reach out to us and our volunteers will pack a 350 dollar welcome pack that has everything that child needs for the first couple of weeks clothes shoes underwear, hygiene kits that are ethnically appropriate,

depending on a child's hair care style. And I assume age appropriate. Age appropriate as well, yep. There was a foster kid I coached him football, and he got made fun of because he stunk because he did not have deodorant. Yep. One of them bought deodorant. How hard is that?

Yeah. Well, I think about in watching Undefeated, there was a kid there who, like, brushed his teeth with baking soda. And I remember that. That was not just one. Yeah. And I was just like, no, like we, so we provide those. Toothpaste. How hard is that?

You can go, if you're a great Amazon shopper, you can go to our wish list and buy diapers. You can go buy toothpaste or deodorant or things like that. And it's so simple, but it really does make the biggest differences for these families struggling to do this work. And it really is just taking the time to take a deep breath and to pause and to just become aware. stop and smell the foster care roses, right? And we're just so busy. Foster children don't impact us at all. If a foster child never visited a Chick-fil-A in our city, it would not matter to that Chick-fil-A because they're not their ideal customer. So we have to slow down. And that's what equipping does. So we equip with welcome packs. We have a meal train. So we provide a week's worth of meals for families. What's the goal in that?

we got a call for two twin boys one time will you take two twin boys yes go out we buy a bunch of stuff for two twin boys matching hats matching all the stuff right oh you're gonna be like the weird twin parents everybody's gonna match it's my wife's dream and uh so y'all are deep in twins we're well and so we we get there and i open the door because the car pulls up and i had two thoughts run through my mind. I said, that's not a two-year-old, and that's not a boy. And it wasn't. It was a four-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy. Hardly twins. Hardly twins. Unless it was a 24-month labor, which would be a good-us book of warbarkers. We'll get them in there. Yeah, yeah. But it was one of those things where communication had fallen somewhere,

but now we're anxious. Now, now her first interaction with me is going to be a hug that I know how fake, but inside, I'm like, she doesn't have a single thing here. She's going to feel left out because that two-year-old's got everything, now double, right? She doesn't have a single thing. So now, due to a lack of communication, there's a broken connection. If we could have had a welcome pack at our door to say, hey, we need this. This is what happened, right? Changes everything. It's like Christmas. She's opening up all this new stuff. We're celebrating this new stuff with her. We have a meal that's provided for so that we don't have to worry about what are we going to cook tonight?

So what you're doing through tangible resources is providing for the physical, but on an emotional level. You're getting the water to stop boiling. You're allowing for connection to happen. And I guess that first week is paramount. Oh, yeah. Well, because you're at doctor's visits. Those same kiddos had to go to the health department. each one of them got eight shots in one day.

I mean, I don't want to get eight shots in one day. No kidding. But you're now this strange white man who is a stranger who someone they don't know said, oh yeah, you can stay with them. And now it's just taking you to the doctor and you get poked. Like, I wouldn't trust that guy. And so we're trying to build trust. We're trying to build connection.

We do that through training as well. So we want our caregivers to be trained. with connecting principles. We want them to know foster kids are coming in with more baggage, not physical baggage. They usually come in with nothing, but with more emotional baggage, psychological baggage, behavioral baggage than just a biological children might have.

So we do that in the equipping side. Then pipeline, we have a caregiver support coordinator, Wendy Clark. She's fantastic. She will reach out to all of those caregivers to get them connected to our monthly support groups. We do two of those. We have one in Cordova that meets on a Thursday night. We have one in White Haven that meets that following Saturday. Not too far from here, actually, and where we're doing this.

What that allows there is we have somebody provide a meal. They can come and volunteer and serve that meal. And then we have our trained volunteers, along with other volunteers, take the children. for child care, the families get to sit and share their experience, strength, and hope with each other. Because being able to connect with a family who looks like yours, who is made from the same fabric as yours is, and who's going through similar situations is life-giving to our families. Have you seen that reduce that 60% burnout number? 97% of the families we serve have said that that service.

has given them the ability to say, I can keep going. Wow. And so- 97%? 97%? 3% didn't answer. Because it 100% would say. Doesn't get any better. Yeah.

And it really comes down to relationships. And that concludes part one of our conversation with Joshua Conley, and you don't want to miss part two. It's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can change this country. But it starts with you. I'll see in port tea. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged.

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