An Army of Normal Folks - The One Thing You Need Before Grit, Resilience, or Confidence (Pt 2)

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Contrary to popular belief, hope isn't a feeling. It's a formula that Dr. Ashley Cross is about to teach you about. And according to research, it's the single best predictor of wellbeing. More than grit, resilience, confidence, and it’s needed to unlock all of them.  Dr. Cross is one of the nation's leading practitioners of the "Science of Hope” through the incredible work of her Rochester nonprofit Hope 585 and now through her work advising the hope-centered movement in Memphis.  Her hope lessons in this episode might just change your life…  and definitely can help many of the lives you’re serving. Learn more about her work at Hope585.orgSupport the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks, and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Dr. Ashley Cross right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Radio experience, weekend gold tickets to Ilsoni. One, two, three, with Dom Dalla, Chris Lakin friends, wooly, dead mouse, above and beyond, sub-focus, and more, with flights from Porter Airlines, three nights at Residence Inn downtown Montreal

and $1,000 cash. Enter for your chance to win at iHeartRadio.ca. Ilsonique in Montreal, every day you enter is another chance to win. I love the sounds, the buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans,

the announcers calling the place soccer, football, at home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad.

It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my...

It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though. Are they the only ones that don't like that? Nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura podcast network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby.

Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer. And that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Gianmanca seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad. But secretly, he became someone else. master of disguise who went on a crime spree.

At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea? It seemed very crazy. But I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong on what that might look like? No. I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man.

This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mainstream media is full of cruel depiction. of the unhoused, stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We The InHouse is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator and host, and for years I've created a space

where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. Whedian Houses a two-time Webby and Signal Award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Gio Wichoran, a street doctor turned influencer

whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to Weythian Housed on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. All right. So that's the crisis intervention part. Yeah. What else?

We have the care portal, so, which is one of my favorite. We do ours too. I love the care portal. You got to explain it, though, for listeners who haven't heard it, just to read it for it. You know, the care portal is a platform that DHS workers, as well as in our community now, we've rolled it out to some of the higher CPS reporting schools and a charter school. And so it allows for child welfare workers. workers and other helping professionals to communicate needs in real time to the community.

We have 24 churches that are collectively made up about 600 responders that at any given day they're receiving emails. So if a kid's in crisis and needs something, and there's no resources for it, you can go to the care portal. And all you have to do is have the care portal on your phone. and when you see a need that you can fill, you fill it. And it's normal folks doing it. That's right.

Normal folks just seeing it. It's the easiest way to know that legitimately whatever you can give is actually going directly to the service of somebody needs health. Yep, yep. And they're all vetted needs, right? So these are not people who can put their own needs into the care portal. It's vetted by a professional who's working with the families. And we've been running that initiative. For eight years, we've served about 2,500 children and had more than $1 million economic impact in Monroe County.

But recently what we've done is we realized that the care portal has been used to reduce the number of removals to children in foster care. Which is amazing. It's amazing. But what it got me thinking about was we've started this initiative that's really focusing on narrowing the front door to child protective services, which is very different than where I started my career. My career really started with foster care. We need more foster families. These kids need families. One day at Donald Dumb, many of these kids have families who really love them and lost them because they could not afford them, right?

Lost them because they were navigating poverty. And to me, it's a huge injustice for a family to be separated because their basic needs haven't been met. Because, again, we're talking about generational poverty. And so I said, well, if the care portal can reduce a number of removals, then the care portal can also reduce the number of calls made to the state central registry by mandated reporters for issues that are not abuse, but more neglect due to poverty. So that's why we're now, we're using the care portal to help narrow the front door to child protective services. Care portal says that 76% of child welfare cases stem from neglect linked to poverty, not abuse.

Yep. And our 70 would have thought. I know. It was not poverty. It was abuse. and fighting in the home and all of the stuff that we expect. But Care Portal says 76% of child welfare cases stem from, not from neglect, from abuse, but just simple poverty. It's three quarters. So what you're saying is, let's keep kids out of foster care in the first place by supporting them where they are with their families, which I think when I read that, I was like,

God. Yeah. And there's a few things that have led me to that. Another obvious light bulb. It was a light bulb moment for me, too. 7,000 calls to go to the SER and our community each year, 75% unsubstantiated. Is that right? Yep.

And the highest. 75% unsubstantiated. That's so interesting. So when I look at, okay, well, what are the highest reports by allegation? Why are these kids coming to the attention of child welfare? Inadequate guardianship. Lack of food, clothing, and shelter. What is lack of food, clothing, and shelter?

That is poverty. Educational neglect. Kids aren't going to school. Why aren't they going to school? Right. Why aren't they going to school? It depends. That's a good question.

We're learning. We're in the middle of a pilot right now. And younger kids who don't go to school is almost always tied to poverty, right? Parents, transportation, kid missed the bus. It's hard to get them to school. Older kids staying back to watch younger siblings because mom can't afford child care because child is expensive. We've also found illness, right?

A sick parent that a kid feels responsible to stay home to watch and to help. But then we're also finding with our older kids, it's actually like they're refusing to go to school. Because they don't see the point of it. I see. There's a lack. You talk about a lack of hope. Yep. We have a kid that won't get out of bed because they're like, I'm so far behind.

I'll never catch up. I'm hopeless. I'm never going to catch up. Which is hopeless. Or we have young people who have unmet mental health issues and school feels chaotic to them. They're like, the thought of walking through that door makes me want to have a panic. Like, I just, I can't do it. So we're seeing increased mental health challenges in our young people since COVID.

Nobody's addressed that. Right? So these kids were isolated for years and now we're like, go back to school. and our school district just cut, I think, almost half of the social workers in schools. So again, earlier when I said you get that 26-year-old and you have to say, okay, there's some systems that have failed. When I look at our young people and I see their behaviors and I see the media and social media and all of us pointing fingers at young people, I get it. Accountability is needed. But I'm also looking back and I'm saying, but you guys just cut all the social workers.

You just cut social workers, right? We're not investing in mental health at all. Well, and the other thing is, if you're dealing with all of that as a kid, back to the original overarching picture that I hope our listeners get, no amount of grit can help an eight-year-old overcome that. No. None. No. And I can see it. I can see a sick parent.

I also wonder, and you said you started a pilot, I'd be very interested to find out if young teenagers avoid school that are locked in poverty because they're embarrassed about their food, what they're wearing, their hair, and just their general appearance and an ability to show up and feel less than. We had a young lady who wasn't going to school because she couldn't, her parents couldn't afford hygiene stuff. Yeah, that's a real thing.

Yeah. And can you blame her? I go back to when I was 13. I wouldn't want to go to school stinky. Some kids are just not nice. And social media, so I come to school not looking my best, and that be the day that somebody takes a picture and it goes viral. Like you have all these pressure, all of this pressure.

Man, if you're a ragged and stinky, you don't need anybody to tell you, you know. You know. You know, yeah. And you already have a, have a, self-conscious of it. Yeah. Yeah, I can see all of that. And again, that's all linked back to poverty.

And so what you're saying is let's stop it in the home with the family before it becomes a foster care situation. Yeah. Yeah. I think one challenge is, you know, there's this thought that if you're living in poverty, it's because there's a lack of trying or a lack of effort, right? Because you should. On behalf of the people who are supposed to be the wage. Right. So it's if you're poor, it's because you're not, you're not working hard enough.

Yeah, you're not trying. And I'm like, do you know poor? The people that I know living in poverty are some of the hardest workers I know. They're working 60 hours, 70 hours a week, two, three jobs, catching one bus to this bus, to this bus, dragging three-year-old to daycare. They're very hard workers. And so it's not that there's a lack of trying, right? We're talking about generations of poverty. And I always say, you know, it's so easy to look at a parent and say, why did they make that that, that choice, that bad decision that landed their kid in foster care? And I could say, well, they actually did not have a good choice to choose. Like, there wasn't, like, out of all of the choices that they had, there wasn't. It was just the least worst. It was just the least worst, right? Leave my child with my boyfriend that I, you know, barely know. Leave him with the neighbor that I barely know, miss work and risk losing my job. like none of those are good options, but I got to choose one of those three. So this diverse from your level of expertise, I think, but it does speak to, I mean, it's part of the picture, I think, is that I hear what you're saying. And I know many of these people. I have people that work for me that in Memphis, $15 an hour is, I, Let me set this up for you. Our listeners are listening, but we are now straight up in a chat, you and me, okay?

I remember when President Obama, it was years ago, probably 10, but he was in a speech, and I was half-ass paying attention to him, to be honest with you. I was in my den doing something, working at night, but listening to the TV. And in a speech, he said something about the poverty level is this. And if you don't make, I think at that time, it was $11.25 an hour, you are officially going to be in poverty. And nobody should work 40 hours a week and live in poverty. That is not the social construct of America.

And at that time, this is, again, years ago, at that time, I did. I was starting people at 9.50 an hour in the most laborious positions I had. And if they made it 30 days, I got them up to 10. But then I thought, I'm an employer with a business. And I have people, they're holding up their end of the bargain of the American construct. They're working 40 hours. They're doing their job. They're not out robbing people doing anything.

They're working. And I'm not paying them enough to stay out of poverty. And it never dawned on me as a business owner. And I went to work the next day and literally raised every single body up to a quarter over whatever that number was, President Obama said. I could not look myself in the mirror and know I had hardworking people working for me 40 hours. And I, as an employer, was not giving them a wage to keep them out of poverty. I did that. That's a real thing.

Fast forward today. I have people that work for me making $15 an hour, which by that whole metric, is $2 an hour over in Memphis what poverty level is. So as an employer, I'm trying to do my part. Profits are necessary measure of any business that says. And as much as I'd like to pay everybody a whole bunch of money, I still got to put money on the bottom line. I answer to a bank that I owe money to.

And Bill, I don't know if you could say this or not, but it's a low-margin business. I don't know if you're open to say in the percentage, but it's not some businesses, there's a lot of margin. Yeah, my business is a low-margin business. It's a high-volume, low-margin business. It's manufacturing, it's commodities. There's all kinds of variables.

We'll make real good money one month, and 30 days later, we'll lose that money again because of the commoditized nature of my business. But all I'm trying to say to you is, before I say what I'm saying, I get what hourly wage looks like, because I employ a lot of them, and I have tried to do the right thing, all right? However, I know that I know that. I know that somebody making $15 an hour is still struggling. And I have people that work for me that do that all day at my place,

go take a couple hours off, and then they go work in a kitchen at a restaurant for another four or five hours. And they're doing that to pay their rent and make ends meet. And I do wonder what their children are doing. You know, I do. I wonder. And I know that I have people that work for me that have. the least worst decision to make when things get tough. And I know there's no way they have in savings 90 days worth of an emergency fund.

And so they are always living, even if they're not in poverty, they're always living just on the cusp of it. But as a business owner, I also have to make money for my company so I can't just automatically raise everybody up so those issues don't. So that to me is where the conflux of, you know, here's the question, what do we do? Because I can't do it all as a business owner, although my heart wants me to. There is a reality of owning a business, right? And I tried to pay fair wages.

And I did listen to my president. And I did do the things that I needed to do to at least make sure at the very minimum, no one worked for me was earning below the poverty level, but the same respect, I know it's really not enough for a lot of folks. Yeah. So as a society, and again, I know this is kind of off, but I do think because of your experience, you see the people affected by these issues.

As a society, have you thought about or got your arms around? The true fact is there's just always going to be people trying to get up and that don't. And it seems like such a difficult issue. It is, it is. But you know what? I think that that is the beauty of what Agape is doing, right? With trying to get an entire community to focus on hope.

Because I think that what happens is it's so easy to just say, okay, we need every business owner to increase minimum wage. I mean, go past the threshold for minimum wage. that that's a start. But people who are living in deep poverty, they need communities of people all doing a little bit of something that helps change their condition. Now, that's interesting. It starts off with their employer doing the right thing, right? But it also moves into so many other pieces of, from, you know, obviously policy and all kind of other things that would impact their conditions. It doesn't just start with one. It starts. It starts. It starts,

with us looking at schools and rec centers that can have safe spaces for kids so that when parents are working, they have good options of where to send their children, right? It starts off with us having conversations around how expensive child care is, right? It starts with us ensuring that even employers are investing in their people, like trying to create ways for people to increase their skills so that they can move up and not always have to be at the same position that they're in. I think that there are so many ways to think about it, and it's not just an easy thing to solve. I think if it was that easy, you would have had somebody do it a decade ago. Probably so. Many decades ago, right? But I think that if you have a bunch of

people who at least care the way that you care to say, okay, what can I do? Like, if everybody just says, what can I do, then we'll be fine. That's a whole idea about how to Arby and over the point. It really is. And so I think that it goes right back to, you know. But I guess what I'm saying is that person who, this all started with some of the hardest working people you know were 40, 60 hours, and despite it, are still right on that poverty level. And as a result, their kids end up being in this at-risk group, right? Oftentimes, not always, but sometimes.

How do they have hope? If you're working your ass off at two jobs, 60 hours a week, and you're still barely keeping your head above water and you know that your children are getting everything they need, you know, that feels pretty hopeless to me. And I just, you know, how do we help them have hope? Yeah. I think, one, as a mom myself, right, I think every parent finds some level of hope and inspiration in the achievement of our children. No, that's a good point. It's so true.

Like, there's nothing more than I want than for my children to achieve. I don't mind working like this if my kid can have better. While at the same time, I do want someone to acknowledge that outside of being a mom, I'm Ashley. And before Ashley became a mom, Ashley had goals and aspirations and dreams. And so they need to be seen in her. They need community too. Yeah.

Right? Like, mom needs someone. to say, I remember five years ago you were saying you wanted to go back and get your associates. When are we going to do that? What's it going to take to get you there? I know you're working 60 hours. I know you know the goals to help the pathway. What is it that you want? Like can you start taking a class this summer? All right, how much debt do you have? How can we pay this off? Can you talk to like it's and I mean it's not easy, but it's at least acknowledging that I see you. I know that this is not everything.

that you want for your life to be, how can we start working for you to get there? One thing that I love about the hope theory, and in hope rising, you have the hope scale, but you also have family hope, right? Like you can, how do you increase hope in a collective, in a unit, right, a team of people? And so I really do believe that when young people have the support that they need and their hope starts to rise, that it frees families up and parents up to say, okay, now I know my child has the support that they need, that it's not just, Just me. Like one of the things that helps my hope is to know that my kids are loved by so many other people than just me. So I can be here Memphis with you today because my kids are taken care of.

And this is something that I'm passionate about that I love. So I don't feel like I'm having to sacrifice my dreams for my children because we have a village. We'll be right back. Video experience. Weekend gold tickets to Ilson Inc. One, two, three. With Dom Dalla, Chris Lakin, Friends, Woolly, Dead Mouse, a above and beyond, sub-focus, and more. With flights from Porter Airlines, three nights at Residence Inn downtown Montreal,

and $1,000 cash. Enter for your chance to win at iHeartRadio.ca. Ilsonique in Montreal, every day you enter is another chance to win. I love the sounds, the buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place soccer, football, at home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed?

I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game.

It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though. Are they the only ones that don't like that? Actually, nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura Podcast Network,

available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations. with the world's most fascinating people. Like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer. And that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression.

I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Gianmanca seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad. But secretly, he became someone else, a master of disguise who went on a crime spree. At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea? It seemed very crazy. But I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out.

Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong and what that might look like? No, I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever, because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue.

Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the unhoused, stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We The InHouse is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator and host. And for years, I've created a space where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed Unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence.

Whedian Houses a two-time Webby and Signal Award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Gio Wichler, a street doctor turned influencer whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to Weillen House on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever. wherever you get your podcast. One thing you're doing actually directly on this in terms of a village and hope is, I love the mentoring model of multiple people around a kid, if you want to talk about that.

Yeah, yeah. There's a model that actually came out of Oklahoma, Stand in the Gap Ministries, has a life launch program. And I actually worked a life launch program when I lived in Oklahoma, came to Rochester and wanted to continue that. And it's a group mentorship program for System Impacted Youth. And the reason we do that is because some young people, are, can handle the one-on-one. Many young people, because there's such a deficit of relationships

in their life, they need more than one person. So we do group mentorship. So I'll give me an example. Me, my husband, and my mom, we've been mentoring a 20-year-old young man who is preparing an age out of foster care for the past two years. And it's great because he gets three people who are all very different that he can talk to about different things. He talks to my husband about things that he won't talk to me about. Talks to me. He should do. Right. He talks. He talks to to me about things that he's like, oh, I haven't talked to Melvin about this yet, or, you know, and then my mom brings like the grandma, like she's the grandmother. But he graduated two weeks ago. No one was there, but our family. He wanted my three-year-old there, the five-year-old,

he wanted the whole family to be there to watch him graduate. And we tripled his social capital. Yeah. Just by one connection, right? You know, I love mentorship. I love one-on-one mentorship, but many young people. And if the world hits him in the mouth, he at least knows he can call you. And it has. It has hit him, right? And we've showed up.

And I mean, and we've also learned a lot from him. Like, I think that that's also a thing. Sometimes we go in just thinking that we're saving these kids and we do not realize, like, we can actually learn a lot from them. If people listening to this,

we're watching this, it was funny, your affect and your face changed when you talked about him. Yeah. You brightened up. Yeah. Yeah.

You got a whole lot less serious and put a small on your face when you were talking about him. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he's him as well as, I mean, my oldest daughter, I think when I think of stories, like these are people who mean a lot to me. So it's not just a case study. It's not just like he's family. You know, my daughter Jordan, that's, she's as much as my daughter is the babies that I've birth, right?

And I'm just, I think I smile thinking about. about him because when we met him two years ago, he was an incredibly guarded kid, lived in a group home, had a very negative experience in that group home. And I've watched us, to me, I feel like we've provided him the bare minimum. I don't think we've done anything substantial for the kid but show up.

And just watching just us showing up has significant, I mean, it's changed his life. It's giving him hope. It's giving them hope. It's that simple. I don't think we've done anything groundbreaking. What was your grandmother? What did you call your?

Oh my gosh. I call her nanny. It's actually her birthday today. Is she still around? Yes. How old is she? 85. And it's nanny? Nanny. That's my grandma. Yep, nanny. Oh, I love that one. I can't help but think that, I mean, we got more to go over, but maybe a weird place to even ask it. I should have asked it earlier, but all this started with her. It did. It did. I actually. Dr. Nanny. Yeah, Dr. Nanny. Listen, I preached on Sunday at this church, and it was about the- You preach. Yeah. You're also, of course.

My husband and I pastor a church in. Are you kidding? I'm not up everything else. Yeah, yeah. All right, go ahead. So I taught a sermon called Close Enough to Touch. And I was talking about how Jesus healed the man with leprosy, and he chose to touch him. And I was talking about the ministry.

Transformation really happens in proximity. When we can get close enough to touch someone's pain, we can really challenge our perceptions. And typically, a lot of times, our biases. around who these people are. But I talked about my grandmother, how she started foster kids. My grandmother has fostered 50 boys. What? 50 boys.

And it wasn't just any type of boys. My grandmother, I got to interview her probably 15 years ago now, and I learned a lot about my grandmother's fostering journey. And she took boys that no one else would take, boys coming straight out of the detention center. She was like, there was times like, I closed my door after the police job. the boy off and I put a chair under my door. I'm like, oh, I just hope. Were there any looms left on the tree in her back yard from all the switches she had to grab? But I used to watch those boys protect my grandma. Like they love, and they still come around.

Like many of these boys, I mean, they're in their 40s and some in their 50s now. They still come around for Thanksgiving. They're going to call her today on her birthday. So she fostered over 50 boys. Then she started a child placement agency, recruited 56 foster families. What years are we talking? I was in elementary school. school. They sent me pictures of our picnic. So, I mean, we're talking 1990, probably two, 1993. Wow. And my grandmother would recruit, train, and support foster families.

Was your grandmother highly educated? Nope. She was in life. Nope. Nope. So she was just... Our grandmother probably has a high school diploma, maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe. Maybe. What a phenomenal woman. 17 years she ran that child placement agency. She started a child. That's where I got. So again, going back to Hope, the reason that I know the power that I have is because I watched a woman build. Like Hope 585, everything I've put my hands to that I know that God has called me to do, I watch someone else do it before me.

Now, here's the woman who had grit. You talk about grit. Yeah. Grittiest woman I know. And I used to spend my summers. She is. I used to spend my summers at that child placement agency. I was her secretary.

I used to pick up the phone and answer the calls and leave the sticky node and tell there's who to call back. This stuff's been baked in you. I mean, I spend my summers at the food bank loading up the van so she could take food to the foster families who are taking kids in. I've watched my girl. I've watched it. I don't want to know your grandma.

And not only did my grandmother do it, all of my aunts and uncles have been foster parents. Her children. All of her children have done foster care. As well as your mom. As well as my mom. Yep. Yep. As well as my mom.

My mom moved to Rochester. My dad still does foster care. My parents are divorced now, but they both still, well, my mom doesn't do it anymore. My father still does foster care. But everybody in my family, I mean, you, I think our Thanksgiving's and Christmases for diverse, group of people. I loved it. I loved it. I bet there aren't enough t-shirts for your family reunion. Not at all. My grandmother, she's touched so many people, including me. I mean, but I always

just say that I'm just living out her legacy. She gave me something to see, and she gave me something to, she gave me vision, right? If you don't believe in the power of an army and normal folks, just understand that's what your grandmother was. She was a normal. She was a normal person, not overly educated, but she had a passion and a desire and saw an area of need and filled it. And now three generations later, all of what we're talking about comes basically from her. Yeah. Yep.

That is beautiful, man. I mean, it really kind of chokes me up thinking about it. I mean, what a legacy from just a normal person that said, I see need, now I'm going to fill it. Yeah. And a normal person that made it, I mean, it was just a contagious environment to be in. If you were around my grandmother, you were going to leave ready to do something. I mean, all my aunts and uncles, they quit their jobs and came and worked for her. You talk about it.

I used to love it. I loved being there in the summertime. We were all just doing stuff. I watched my mom sitting at a table printing binders to train foster face. and going in to do home visits. And it was beautiful. Please tell me on top of everything else she can cook good. Oh, you know she can.

Oh, man. You know she can. I got a mental picture and I know that woman can cook too. She can cook and she is just the sweetest. I mean, she's amazing. My hero for sure. All right. There's a powerful saying that relationships move at the speed of trust,

which sounds exactly like your relationship, with Child Protective Services, kind of tell us about that. Yeah. Because child protective services, let's just be fair, I think the vast majority of people that work in Child Protective Services

are really well-intentioned good people. But they are the government, and typically they are overworked. And typically they can never do 100% of what they need to do. And because they're overwhelmed, and typically it's one person, way overwhelmed with case studies.

Things get fall through the cracks. As a result, when you hear Child Protective Services, one, they get a bad rap, and two, it's almost like the police. Mm-hmm. When Child Protective Services is called, somebody's losing their family. And as a result, nobody even wants to have a relationship with them. They're like Darth Vader. But you have a relationship with Child Protective Services and have fostered a relationship that doesn't look like what I just described this.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I, the past two years have been really, I've had to sit with myself a lot because the work that we do at Whole 585 and the work that I really believe that God has caught me to do is what I would say leading from the middle, right? How do I connect with system leaders in a way that holds them accountable questions how and why they do the things that they do, but stay connected to them. And it's really important, right? Because the leaders of many of these systems, to your point, well-intentioned

people who really do care about children and families. But they're also, they're held by a standard that the systems created. Right? And I always tell them like, guys, when I say systems have failed people, I'm not talking about the people in the system. I'm actually talking about the system itself. the way that you are forced to function. Many of which were designed by well-intentioned people, sometimes four and five and six decades ago, and the systems hadn't changed when culture has, and they no longer fit,

but we're still shoving those systems down our culture's throat. Absolutely. And there's, I mean, we could go back to decades of policies that started off well that nobody's analyzed in three decades, and things have changed. It's like, well, actually, that policy's creating more harm than good for people now. But the other piece of leading in the middle, is the group that I have to prioritize trusting our organization is the community.

So how do you maintain trust with the community who don't necessarily trust the system? Correct. And that's what I mean. Community, when they hear that, they lock the doors. They lock the doors. And the way that I can only do that is by leading from the middle and being a truth teller. and being a truth teller in a way that is true to lived experience. The people who are saying this is what I experience,

this is how child protective services has harmed me and my family, while also working with the leaders there to say, how can we work together to address these? Not pointing any fingers, but this is the experience. And I've learned some heart lessons. that have challenged me and how I do that. But I do work very closely with our county.

But I'm also prioritizing the voice of the community. Do you find that if you approach it the right way that even inside the construct of all of these big top-down systematic government services that you can make change? My hope-centered approach would be yes. I think over the years I have come to realize that systems are really hard to change. And so do I want to put more energy into preventing children and families from coming in contact with the system in the first place? Because once you're in the system, you're entangled.

It's one of my favorite sayings we can keep pulling kids all the river all we want to, but eventually we need to go upstream and find out why they're in the first place. You've got to go upstream, right? because once they're in the river, it's like, God, they're drowning. They're going to take so many resources and people. And then once you even pull them out, they're still traumatized from the experience of drowning. You got to remember, they were still in that river. Yeah. And they were drowning and they're traumatized.

So why not just stop them from falling in in the first place? And so I just, I don't know that I want to spend the bulk of my career trying to change a system. But at least you keep a reasonable relationship. with it. Correct. Yeah, that's interesting. It makes a lot of so. It doesn't do any good to jump up and down and raise about the system and call them crazy and terrible and everything else.

There's still people in it. Yeah. And there are people who care. Yeah. So we started an initiative two years ago called Reimagined. And Reimagined was a, we did eight design sessions. with 20 to 30 different stakeholders. And, I mean, we're talking nonprofits.

We're talking the University of Rochester's Chief of Psychiatry. DHS was there. And we came together for eight months to co-design a solution to narrowing the front door to child protective services. We used data. To narrow the door. Narrow the front door. Keep kids out of it in the first place.

Keep them out. And DHS was a part of that initiative. I'm sure they'd love to reduce their caseload. So they're part of that. Yeah. I mean, they would be all about that, right? Yeah, I mean, and this is where the system piece comes in, though, because as much as they say yes, we want to narrow the front door,

there's also fear and compliance concerns, right? So what I have found is that, and this is not just for CPS, many systems, are driven by compliance. And compliance doesn't always, one, keep children safe. it doesn't always do what's best. And so that's why I think that good people kind of get swallowed up in the system. And then that's where you start hearing, well, I had to. Well, this is what the statute says.

Well, these are the limitations that I have. And I'm like, okay. And in our over litigious society, liability is everything. Correct. So again. So it's I rather actually call. Why fight that? Let's just keep them out of it in the first place.

And then there's this perception in the community for some, depending on what community, that child protective services is actually like a resource. And so some of the work that we're doing is really around narrative, right? And it's not to paint CPS as a bad, but it's like, guys, you're using the wrong tool. CPS is not the tool for poverty, the tool for child abuse. That in and of itself is the very definition of when human beings become systemized. If they see child protection services as a resource to just whatever, boy, have we got it wrong.

Yeah. Societal. Yeah. And because you use the example of, like, law enforcement, it's almost the same thing, right? Tell people, like, you don't want to call the police on someone who's having a mental health challenge. You want to call a therapist. Right.

Right? Because we don't want to abuse the system, overuse the system, because that's also where the lack of trust between that system and the community comes. That's exactly right. This Tulsa and Rochester girls somehow finding herself. in my hometown doing hope work too. Lord do I know, many in my community lack hope. Yeah.

What are you doing around here to start a hope revolution? What's you doing in Memphis? What are you doing? Yeah, working with Agape. Tell us about Agape. Yeah, so Agape is a family and child-serving organization here in Memphis that works with, you know, children and family. families who are in need.

You know, they have everything from therapy to adoption to outreach. They do amazing work here in the community. And Agape has sought out to do something incredibly ambitious, and that is to make Memphis a hope-centered city. And so they have these ambassadors that are within Agape and also within other youth and child-serving organizations that are working on really embedding this, not not just as an activity, right, not just as a one-off movement, but as really the fabric of Memphis, right? Where what would it look like if every system, every sector, every organization and business in Memphis was, has to have this unified hope language.

We were talking about people as if they had dreams and they had goals that were worth us investing in. And so that's a piece of the movement. It's to get people not just talking about hope, also measuring it, also being intentional about increasing it, being intentional about sustaining it. We'll be right back. Five months, Toronto, pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence. Iheart Radio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival, and we won't stop. Celebrate Pride. Turn up the love and listen to IHeart Pride Canada, your 24-7 radio.

stream and the only playlist you need for your Toronto Pride celebrations. Pride is so great because it gives a whole bunch of people this visibility that they've never had before. We have a ton to celebrate Toronto. Happy Pride! Iheart Radio. I love the sounds. The buzzing from the stadium, the chanting from the fans, the announcers calling the place

soccer, football at home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the stories that make it great.

A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like it. hearing that though. Are they the only ones that don't like that? Nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the

My Coutura podcast network, available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Mons shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety.

Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Gianmanca seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad, but secretly, he became someone else, a master of disguise who went on a crime spree. At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea? It seemed very crazy. But I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out. Did you allow yourself to think about how it could go wrong

and what that might look like? No, I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue.

Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mainstream media is full of cruel depiction of the unhoused, stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We The In-House is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator and host, and for years I've created a space where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed Unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid

organizers, veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact the unhoused existence. Whedian Houses a two-time Webby and Signal Award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Jill Wichor, a street doctor turned influencer whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community.

Listen to Weillen House on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Well, how do Gapé find you? end up going. I still can't answer that question. I don't know how they found me. How had the relationship even started? So David Jordan reached out to me. He's the probably about a year ago. Yeah, he's the CEO. Yeah, and he reached out to me via email almost a year ago to talk about the summit and to see if after the summit we can, you know, enter into this kind of long-term relationship to turn Memphis into a home center city. David found a, you know,

a YouTube video that I posted like three years ago. I had a couple hundred dollars, got this guy to shoot this video in my husband's office, just talking about my dreams and my aspirations of Rochester becoming a hope-centered city. And I talked about what that would look like. And I always start the video off by saying, I'm Ashley and I have an ACE score of seven, right? And just talk about how ACEs really impact us, but how hope actually heals with what trauma steals. Hope heals what trauma steals. Yeah.

I love that. Yeah. So that's like, that was the video that I, that I shot. I mean, again, I was like, you know, just, just talking about the power of hope. And surprisingly, a lot of people have learned about Hope 585 in our work through that video that I, I just decided to shoot one day and put it on on YouTube. And now you mess around Memphis. And now I'm, now Memphis is like my second home. I love that.

I love that. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. We talked about your grandmother a little bit, but something you said that's pretty funny is you said you were raised in foster care, but not the way people think. Yeah. Touch on that. Yeah. I mean, my mother had me when she was 18 years old, and I think as early as I can remember, I've been in and out of my grandmother's home with her having foster boys.

Like, I just, I've only ever knew. and sisters, would you say you had? So my parents started fostering when I was in the seventh grade. I remember our first foster boy was a four-year-old named Isaiah. And, I mean, we fell in love with him. He went off to be adopted. But my parents started fostering when I was in the seventh or eighth grade. Prior to that, my grandmother was a foster parent and all of my aunts and uncles.

So I think my parents were the last of the siblings to open their home to foster care. So I always say, I mean, I've only ever known having foster uncles. My grandmother, so I was the only person in our family who started fostering only girls. Everybody did foster boys. So my grandmother told me when I was really young, she had foster daughter. Her home, she would take boys or girls. And she said that obviously just didn't work out well. So she had to choose if she was going to do boys or girls, definitely doing teenagers.

So she kept teen boys. So, yeah, that, you know, I grew up, obviously, with my biological parents, but I always say that. Like, I just have always had foster aunts, uncles, siblings. I can't help but that ask this, but I don't, I'm curious. Denver, right? Yeah. It's kind of a white place. It's pretty white.

Yeah. And I'm just curious, did you have white and Hispanic? and African-American foster? Oh, yeah. So this is like the United Nations. Yeah, that's why I said our Thanksgiving's were very diverse. I mean, that had that, that's, but that, what an education. Yeah, oh, yeah.

To learn so much about so much that way. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, it was one come, one all. We don't care. Come on. Yep. Yeah, black boys, white boys, Hispanic boys. Yep.

Absolutely. Even with, yeah, even with my mom. I remember her and, yeah, our first foster boy was a white boy, named Isaiah. I said it was a white kid. No kidding. And he may have been mixed. I think he had a little hint of brown in him somewhere. It's really not meant to be a racial commentary question. It's just that's interesting. And to be. candid. So many people when they think about foster care, think about white families fostering black children. And your whole family throws that entire narrative right on its head, which is also telling. You won't talk about that at all?

Yeah. I mean, I know. You know what? You should talk about that because that's such an important, inaccurate societal paradigm that we need to destroy? Well, it's inaccurate for a few reasons. You know, there is this thing called hidden foster care. Called hidden foster care? Yep. And there are children who are removed and never put into a formal foster home. So where are that group homes?

Ken or kin, right? You have some black, and I, because I posted about this probably 10 years ago, as a foster parent. Again, it was one of those very, I meant well, right? But now that I'm looking at it, I was like, what was I taught? Why did I ask that? But I was like, why do black people not foster our kids? And the comments and also now my lived experience were so eye-opening. Black people are constantly opening our homes.

We're just not doing it through a formalized system. Now isn't that interesting. And many of it is because of the lack of trust in the system. So I get black, I know black people. People are like, I'm not, they're not going to be in my house. These are the hidden foster kids. They're actually being fostered, but it's not through a system. Yeah, there are kids being raised by sisters and aunts and brothers.

And they really are foster kids. Yeah, and sometimes CPS actually will facilitate the removal. And then the family will refuse to actually become foster family because they don't want the relationship with the government. Refuse to take money in that case. I don't want the money. Yeah, and so it does. It eliminates the support that comes with it. But some people are like, I will figure this out.

Because I don't trust none of y'all. I know a woman who is raising her son was murdered. She's raising his children. And she's like, no, these are not foster kids. These are my kids. These are my grandkids. I don't need the system. I will not take their money.

And I don't need them coming into my home and monitoring me and asking questions and telling me what I can and cannot do with my family. I honestly want to give that chick a high five. Yeah. And there's a lot of though. Right? So there are just black people and black and brown people who have a little bit of a less of an affinity for like that type of formalized structure and don't want to be what they would call surveilled or monitored by the system. They're like, I will take care of my own key. I will take care of our family. Like we're not, we don't need to go that route. So it's not that we're, we need to ask. I don't, I don't guess we need to ask why that population may not particularly trust the systems and the government. Yeah. You want to go two hours on that?

There's a book that I'm going to say you should read. It's actually written by a good friend of my now named Dr. McCall-Rawes. It's called Abusive Policies, How the American Child Welfare System Lost His Way. And it talks about all of these different things that we've done well, or we thought we were doing well, and how it really impact black and brown communities. Negatively. Negatively. Yeah. Yeah.

that we were doing right and then just due to a lack of funding. I've told this story a hundred times, but I'm going to say it to you again because it is metaphorically this very thing. A guy that worked for me that I cared very, very, very much about kicked his substance abuse problem, which was a work for him. Spent three years cleaning his life up because when you have a substance abuse problem and you're in and out of, you know, homelessness and all, you end up having all kinds of small misdemeanors that end up bigger problems because you don't take care of them. And I mean, that cycle happens, right?

Anyway, he got it together. And he was, quote, his wife's husband and father of her three children. But that looked like he moved in and started acting like his father, but they never got, to this point, had never actually gotten a marriage license and gotten married. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yep.

And I'm like, dude, you're doing all of the things. right, please give your children an illustration of what a legally married family looks like. Make that commitment. And the fourth three, he kept shaking said, I know you're right, I know you're right, I know you're right. And finally, like after the third time I was saying, he said, man, you just don't know what you're talking about. And I'm like, what?

And he said, we're barely getting by. And if I marry her, she loses the government assistance for her children. children and we can't make it. So he said, so you folks and the very government that tells me the only thing that's good is a nuclear family, which is exactly what we want, are the exact people incenting me not to marry her. And he said, you don't know what you're talking about. And so it was an eye-opening experience for me to say, well-intentioned systems to stop

abuse that started in the 60s just no longer applied and were actually doing the antithesis of what they were in time, it's designed to do. But that is a beautiful example of how this systemization has become very untrusted in the black and brown community. Therefore, why? There are plenty of black and brown foster parents and families, but we just don't know them because they ain't getting involved in the system. Yep.

Yep. The book Abuse of Policies has a whole chapter on that. On that very thing? Yeah. On how we have pulled black fathers out of the home because of policies that make it really hard for poor families to get the help that they need, even though, and I won't get too far into it, that these welfare programs were actually not designed for black families, right? And a lot of the requirements and eligibility requirements change once black women started to use them. And then we started to coin black women who were using them as welfare queens when we weren't the first. It's all of it, right? And that's why. And that was a political thing in the 80s. It would know the truth. Yeah.

You know. That whole welfare queen term came from early 80s politics. Yeah. But when Moiningham started that, I mean, he did a, I think it was a report called the state of the black family. Right. And again, probably maybe well intended. Maybe not. not sure the intent behind it, but it painted black families in a very negative light in America.

And I don't think that we've ever bounced back from that. And so that's why I think we have to be very careful with the stories that we tell, how we tell them, how we understand data. Because I think one of the data sets that always just kind of rubs me the, is just the number of black children growing up without a father. Because I don't know what exactly that means. Does it mean that they don't have a father or they don't have a father that lives in the home, right? Does it mean that the father is not present or that the father doesn't live in the home? Does it also mean that there's a man out there who birthed a child who himself doesn't have hope and therefore doesn't even feel worthy of being a father? There's so many. And opts to stay out because they actually think they're

doing more damage than good. And that is a very, very real thing. Yeah. Yeah. So, but again, we tell the story, right? We want to tell the story, but we don't want to tell in a story that paints this picture to America that you have a bunch of black men who just don't want kids. They don't want, they're just out here just having kids and then just I have not met many of them.

And so we actually partner with a fatherhood initiative. There's no more of those and there are white guys doing the same thing. Right. I mean, it's just true. Yeah. So interesting. I could talk about that forever.

But the point is you were raised in foster care although you weren't a foster child, you're part of very loving family, but because your entire family were foster people, you were basically raised in foster care, and it looked like a rainbow. Well, I don't know about a rainbow. I think when my family started to do foster care,

my high school years, I actually started to really resent it. You start what? Resenting them doing foster care. Tell me about that. Now, there's something that was... You missed that in a prop, Alex. Did you? Yeah.

Why? I actually... told myself, I would never do foster care. Why did you resent? You felt like you were losing your time with your family for all these other kids? No, I, I, I, the behaviors. Well, explain. I mean, you bring in a traumatized 15 year old boy, right, who you feel like is underappreciating your mom, disrespecting her, coming home when he wants. I'm like, why are we doing this? Right. Mom, I mean, I have an incredible mother. And when her and my father divorced, I think when they were married, I was okay with it.

When they divorced and she decided she wanted to continue to do it, I said I actually didn't agree with it. I thought she needed to focus on herself and she needed to focus on us. And she had had some boys that she really cared about. She was like, I don't, you know, I don't want for. And so you resented it. Yeah, I was like, I don't. There's three things I told God I would never do. Marry a pastor, which I've done.

Go to Orrubbridge University, which I've done three times, and do foster care. So I stopped telling them what I'm not going to do because it just sets me up. But I actually wasn't interested. Seriously. I was not interested. Isn't it interesting, the seeds that grandparents and parents plant that start getting water on them and grow and they're like weeds and you can't stop it? Yeah. Yeah. I was like, I mean, I think it's great.

great that my family does it. I'm not going to do it. This is not how I'm going to spend my life. But I loved it early on. The older I got, the more I started to see certain things. And I was like this. What changed for you then when you got to O' Roberts? I went on a mission trip to Brazil. And while we were there, I really believed that I had an encounter that changed my life. Which was? We visited an orphanage. And prior to us visiting. that orphanage, I actually had a dream. And in that dream, I was at Orr Roberts in my dorm room, I had a dream. And in that dream, I had a group home. It was a really nice group home. And I remember waking up and I was like, that is not, that's not something I want to do. So when I went to Brazil,

we were walking into this orphanage. And I'll tell you, we were there for four hours, and I cried the entire four hours because I really felt like my heart was shifting. back towards probably where it was when I worked at my grandmother's child placement agents. Because you just saw all these own house children. But the orphanage that I went to, it had cottages for parents. It was like I walked in and I seen something I hadn't seen before. I'd only seen the other piece where it was you take the kids in.

I hadn't seen someone do it in a way that was trying to keep families together. We're also recognizing that in Brazil there were like real orphanages. I mean, they're real orphans. So they had rooms for orphans, but they had cottages for families. and hearing the stories and hearing those young kids talk and hearing the parents talk, it just lit something in me. It restored for me, you know, I think a dream that maybe I once had that died. I was really trying to find myself.

So it just washed all the resentment away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's... I see. Yeah. But during my parents' divorce, I was just like, I just, I, oh.

Hey, before we get to those final two questions, I think it could be cool to talk about your experience in Tulsa and then some of it now, too, with having a home for kids aging out of foster care. Yeah. Yeah, what that experience was like and how it changed you. Yeah. So when I was in Oklahoma, I worked in a shelter for kids aging out of the foster system, and I spent majority of my time there working in, a big girl and big boy cottage, so cottage for the teenagers. And I loved it. I absolutely loved it, but it was so heartbreaking for me

because there were so many times that I was watching kids put their clothes in trash bags and prepare to age out of foster care. And I remember there was a young man. He was aging out in like three months, and his behavior, he started punching walls. And I mean, just he was really acting out. And I remember sitting with him one day after he was in trouble. And I'm like, Drake, what's going on, dude?

What's what's going on? And this kid just, I mean, bawled up at a fetal position, started crying. He was like, I'm just scared. Scared. I don't know what I'm going to do when I turn 18. And after a few of those situations, I was like, I want to do something about this. So I started working with people who had properties that would rent. And a gentleman purchased a home, rented it to me for a very modest amount.

And I got licensed and became a foster parent to teenagers, aging. got a foster care. Fosters about 20 girls over a three or four year span. And then my husband and I ended up reconnecting after college. And after we got married, I knew I was moving to Rochester. So I merged the foster home or the man of house is what it was called at the time with another organization in Tulsa. And then when I moved to Rochester, I knew I wanted to continue that work. So that's when I started Hope 585 at the time it was called the Hub 585. The first initiative we started was the care portal because the care portal is so easy to roll out. It doesn't really cost a lot of money. You just get people right. Yeah. But two years ago,

we actually opened the first professional foster home in Monroe County using the same model as the model that I started in Oklahoma. So right now we have four young ladies, one is pregnant, prepare and have a little boy any day now. So we'll have five, well, four women and a baby in that home. And we're actually about to purchase another home now to be faced two to that. So when girls age out, they will be able to rent a room from Hope 585 to give them a little bit more time to prepare for adulthood. We'll be right back.

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I love the sounds The buzzing from the stadium The chanting from the fans the announcers calling the place soccer, football, it's home. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed? I inherited that fandom from my mom. I like watching it with my dad.

It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernanda Chavari, and this is American Football, a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. We go beyond the game to the people and the people. the stories that make it great. A soccer game is a festival. It's not just a game. It's your culture.

I took an elbow to my head, which cracked my skull. It is an American game. The Brazilians don't like hearing that, though. Are they the only ones that don't like that? Nobody likes that. As we get ready for the Men's World Cup this summer, listen to American Football as part of the My Coutura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Hoda Kotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby. Together, we're going to have meaningful conversations with the world's most fascinating people, like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges. I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer, and that was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand postpartner depression. I was not prepared for postpartum anxiety.

Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Keith Giamonka seemed like a mild-mannered suburban dad, but secretly, he became someone else, a master of disguise who went on a crime spree. At the time, did it seem like a crazy idea? It seemed very crazy, but I felt so desperate that I felt it was the quickest, easiest way out.

Did you allow yourself to think about how it can, you'd go wrong on what that might look like. No, I didn't want to manifest that. I was trying to manifest success. Every family has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. This is going to change my life and my family dynamic forever,

because everything that had existed prior in my reality is now untrue. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mainstream media is full of cruel depictions of the unhoused, stories that shame and blame and paint the unhoused as a monolith. We The UnHouse is the podcast that's changing that. I'm Theo Henderson, creator and host, and for years I've created a space where the unhouse and their advocates can tell the endhouse. creator and host, and for years I've created a space where the unhoused and their advocates can tell their own stories. In the last few months alone, I've interviewed unhoused parents, immigrants, mutual aid organizers, veterans, the LGBTQTIA plus community, and the policymakers who make the laws that impact

the unhoused existence. William Howes is a two-time webby and signal award-winning show with many exciting guests on the horizon. Tune in this week for my interview with Dr. Jill Whittler. A street doctor turned influencer whose work with the unhoused community has made a huge impact online and in her community. Listen to Weylandhoused

on the IHard Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I, prior to doing this, had never, ever, ever, ever not even considered the thought of what happens when children aren't adopted and they

age out of foster care. And they become 18. They put their stuff in literally a black garbage bag. And I think they're given a couple hundred bucks. Yep. And they're set out. Yeah. I watch kids put their stuff in a trash bag, get in a taxi, and go to Salvation Army.

That was their 18th birthday. From a children's shelter to an adult shelter. Happy birthday. And then we ask ourselves why these folks end up in jail on Skid Row or, or, on drugs. I mean, I don't care who you are. Get that start in life. Have that lack of hope and see how you do and ask yourself why you don't have enough grip. Come on, man. And this is why we, this is why I started to get into the narrowing the front door to shot protective services. Because I said the outcomes are not, the outcomes are poor.

So you remove a kid because their parents can't take care of them. You put them in a system. the system bounces them around eight to 20 times. They don't get adopted. They age out. The outcomes are poor. Why not keep them at home, support their families, and at least they know where they belong. At least, I tell people all the time,

I'd rather be poor with my mom. Right. Then for you to remove me and put me with a well-off family that doesn't understand my culture. And that could any given day call and say, this isn't working out. It's not, keep me with my poor mom. Right. At least I know where I belong and I know I'm loved.

So I think that that's, and that's really the work that we're doing is really saying, you know, if we look at this system, how do we create this culture of systems change? We know we have this front door, we have this system. And when children are entangled in the system, they deserve dignity. And that's why we create our homes. And we have something like, how are we going to ensure that when young people are aging out, they're not aging out just to come back to the attention of child welfare. But now as the parent, I have. I had a CPS worker look me on my face and say, this kid that we're talking about, I was his grandmother's child welfare worker. I mean, I'm like, well. There's three generations. Here's the thing. And if you don't care about it from an idealistic standpoint, which if you don't, you need to check

yourself. But even if you don't, pragmatically, you should care about it. Because these are the very people that if we don't. do something about it, end up not hanging to our tax base, but taking, I mean, there's a pragmatic side of this, too. Yeah. And they don't go away. That's what I'm saying.

Our taxes are paying for them when they're in care. Then they age out. Incarceration, homelessness is. It sounds cold, but these are the people that are filling our jails, too, if we don't figure this out. So if you don't even have the empathy for them of humans, have empathy for yourself and your tax base and your children's tax base. because this is the biggest thing we could fix.

One of the things that we did back in November was we released a report called the cost of a false alarm, and it shows the socioeconomic impact of overreporting four families. We put a dollar to it because some people don't hear it unless you put a dollar to it. I can tell people all the time, like, we're removing children, we're doing this, we're wasting taxpaying dollars. Do you remember what the dollar figure was? And our county was $2,200.

You multiply that by the 75% that are unsubstantiated. You're talking $12 million economic impact. There you go. $12 million. What could we have done with $12 million to address the conditions that brought them to the attention of child welfare? That's the whole pragmatic side to it, is what I'm saying. But what have we started doing these type of studies for other issues? Kids aging out.

How much is it cost for them to be homeless? The kids aging out thing, if you did that nationally, that number is, I don't know what it is. Staggering. Yep. Multiple, multiple, multiple millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. Easy. Yep. Because we're paying for them, incarcerated, homeless, substance use.

I mean, all of these different things that become real issues. And because we didn't address it. I think kids who age out of foster care are like three times more likely to have their own children end up in foster care. Isn't that right? Three times or something? Okay. So whatever that number is today, triple it 20 years from now. Yep.

It's staggering. It is. So there's all kinds of reasons the work you're doing is absolutely phenomenal. What does the average person not really understand, if you could sum it up, what is the average thing a person really doesn't understand about a kid's life in foster care? I think the perception is that kids in foster care being given a better life or better outcomes, a new family, a better family. Annie, daddy war bugs. That's it, right? Kids in foster care, now they have a home. We message it like that. Every kid deserves a home. Every kid deserves a

family. And it's true. What we're not realizing is they have a family. Many of them have a family, right? One thing that really, it loyels my bud, when we call children and foster care orphans, because they're not orphans. They have families. There are some, if they've lost their parents, are orphans. But we have... The very name in orphanage for a building that houses children who aren't with their families is actually misnomer because the vast majority of them have living families.

They do. They do. That's interesting. I've never thought about that. What message is that sense of their living families when you start to call them orphans? So I'm dead now. I don't matter. I'm not here.

I'm invisible. You're trying to erase me from their lives. These kids, they have families that they love. And I think the average person would think, because I used to think it, kids in foster care, something horrible has happened to them. And it's typically because their parents have made bad choices or have done something bad. It's just not the truth. So I don't even know. what the politically correct term is for your children that are not fostered children.

I guess they're natural. What do you call those? My children are not foster children? My biological children. There's the number. All right. So you have how many biological children? Three.

All right. And what are their names and ages? Riley is three. Madison is five. Harper is eight. And Riley is also a girl? Yep, all three. So three girls?

All girls. Yeah. Oh, poor Melbourne. Man, he ain't ever going to have a hot shower. And then Jordan is also female? Yes. All right, and now Jordan is your foster daughter. She was, yep.

She was? Yep. Well, what is she now? Well, now she's my daughter. Oh, she's adopted. Yeah. I got it. Okay, and how does she?

Jordan is 29. Wow. Yeah. I met Jordan when she was 17. I met Jordan when she was 17. I had my home for young ladies preparing an age out of foster care. I had a full-time job working at a shelter. And Jordan was one of the residents in the shelter.

She was preparing an age out of foster care. And some of the workers who were working on her case, they knew that I did foster care and that I would take young ladies who were over 18. And so they connected Jordan and I. She came and stayed for a weekend to see if she felt like it would be a good fit. And so she signed herself back into foster care when she turned 18. It became my foster daughter when she turned 18.

And when did you legally make her? Yeah, so I moved to Rochester in 2016. Jordan stayed behind in Tulsa. And we rented her an apartment, and she was doing the transitional living stuff. And one day I had a conversation with my husband, and I said, hey, out of all the girls, you know, Jordan is just, I love all my girls. I really do. But there's just something different and special about Jordan. And I told him, I said, you know, Jordan doesn't really need us.

Like, she's super independent. She works. She's a hard worker. She's always had a job. She got her driver's license. She was independent. I said, but one thing that Jordan doesn't have, she won't have a dad to walk her down the aisle and she gets married.

She won't have a mom to be in the delivery room when she gives birth to her first child. Like, Jordan still just doesn't have family. And she has ties to her birth mom and her siblings, but the connection, just again, because of the removal, which people don't talk about. It's so hard to reunite when you're 18 with a woman you haven't lived with. for 15 years, right? And just to go back to how things were. It's hard. So Jordan came to live with us in Rochester a month after we had Harper, our eight-year-old. So we joke around. We say we brought home

twins. So we brought home the baby. They were just separated by 18 and a half years. Whatever. So Jordan came to live with us and we were going through the process of actually formally adopting her and it was expensive. Even as an adult, like you have to pay. to adopt an adult. So our attorney was like, hey, you know there's other ways around this. Like, what's the goal of the adoption? And I just said, well, if anything ever happens to us, we want for Jordan to be considered in our, like, the same way our daughters are. So it's like, well, you could change her last name for sentimental value and then put her in your will.

And that still accomplishes everything that you would have wanted to accomplish through adoption. So we say it's more of a moral adoption. You know, we didn't go through the four, but she's ours. That's our girl. I love that. Tell me about her. What is she doing? Jordan, oh, man, so she has a boyfriend. Really cool guy, actually. It's just hitting me, though, that she's going to get married probably one day, if not to him, to someone, because she's just incredible. She's a caregiver or caretaker for an older lady, so she takes care of an older lady through an organization in Rochester and then works with people with developmental disabilities.

So she's working on her associate. She'll be graduating soon with an associate's in human services and just a really incredible human. Very cool story. Yeah, yeah. Does Mr. Dr. Ashley Cross, also known as Melvin? Was he a track guy too? No. What's he do up in Rochester?

He's actually a third generation pastor. He's a third generation pastor. His grandmother was the first ordained one. woman minister in Rochester. And Katie Cross, yep, and he talks about her and just lights up. But my husband, who actually just became Reverend Dr. Melvin Cross this week. Oh, so was Dr. and Dr. Cross? He defended his dissertation at Bakke, and he did on transformational leadership and did a really

cool study on gentrification in urban churches. But, yeah, he is the leader of a thriving, beautiful, life-giving church called Glory House International. He actually started the church the same year that I started the girls home in Oklahoma. So he knew what he was marrying. Oh, he knew what he was. So my in-laws were foster parents. His mother and father? And he has adoptive siblings. Yeah. So that was his pickup line when he took me out. What did he say? He said, hey, so, you know, my family has done foster care too. And I, you know, I want to do foster care one day. And I was like, oh, okay, is that your way of telling me that our future's alive? Yeah. So Melvin ain't got game, but he's got stories. He ain't got really good story.

He got really good stories. Yeah, we're checking you, Doc. If he was here, I'd be a lot nicer. Oh, and he would just, Melvin is just, he's an incredible guy. If you see him, he's always got a smile in his face. And just an amazing pastor, amazing father. I want to give you the last word as we close. Tell our army of normal folks with regard to the work you do. Army normal folks, they're not going to get their doctrine this stuff and they're probably not going to start a 501c3 and do all that you've done. But you know what? Our whole construct is you don't have to. You just have to see a need, care about it, and engage in whatever way you can in your community. So I want to give you the last word.

What do you want to tell the Army and normal folks with regard to the work you do? What can they do? It's just a normal person to make a difference. Yeah. You know, I'm reflecting on the message that I taught on close enough to touch. I think what I would challenge normal people to do is to make yourself close enough to someone else's pain. and someone else's story and just start there. Like, I think that the most significant thing that we can do

is just to find ourselves close enough to people who are suffering. And that's why I lit up when I talked about Elias, because I've done nothing really for him. I don't think I've done anything significant, but just be close enough to answer the call when he reaches out for help, to be there to remind him of who he is, and what his goals are to listen to see him. And I think we've overcomplicated it.

I can give you all the other steps. You know, find a nonprofit, connect with a nonprofit, become a mentor, find a young person, like all of those things. But I think the most simple thing to do is just to make yourself available. Be okay with being uncomfortable. Be okay with being inconvenienced. And just find yourself being that one person for just one person. Ashley Cross, there's no better way to close it than there because that is exactly the power of millions and millions of an army and normal folks.

If we had millions of people doing just what your wisdom right there imparted, we'd change culture. We would. And I believe we can. Thanks for being here. Thanks for joining us. It's just been an awesome discussion, and you are a bright, bright light. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And thank you for joining us this week. If Dr. Ashley Cross has inspired you in general or better yet to take action by implementing the science of hope in your own life, your business, your service work, or joining the hope-centered movement in Memphis by visiting Agape's website, please let me know.

I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normalfokes. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it, friends and on social, subscribe to the podcast, rate it and review it. Join the Army at normalfolks. us. Join or start one of our local service club and buy our merch. Any and all of these things

will help us grow an Army of Normal Folks. I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can do. It's that time to put on your jersey and wave your flag, whoever you root for. Why do I watch the World Cup? That's like asking me, why do I breed?

and it's beautiful. The guys are young and cute and fit. It's not just a game. It's your culture. I like watching it with my dad. It's a connecting force. From Futuro Studios, I'm Fernando Chavari, and this is American Football,

a show about soccer culture in the U.S. and its underdog roots. Listen to American Football on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy is essential, and it's also elusive, but now there's a new and exciting way to start your journey toward a more joyful existence. Joy 101. It's a new podcast hosted by me, Hoda Kotby. If you're craving inspiration to maximize your joy, tune into these candid, uplifting, and moving on-air chats. Listen to Joy 101 on the Iheart

radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joy 101 with Hoda Kotby is presented by CVS. Hey, this is Chuck from Stuff You Should Know, and we're submitting our most sciencey episodes for your peer review with our new stuff you should know doing science playlist. Out now. You want to know about Occam's Razor? Simplest explanation is usually the right one? We got you covered. Wondered what chaos theory is ever since the first time you saw Jurassic Park.

Well, come on down. So distill a nice pot of tea, everybody. Turn down the gas on your Bunsen burner and slip into your most comfortable lab coat and listen to the stuff you should know doing science play. playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's something that should not be as complicated as it is, getting a racist statue removed. And here's something that should be a whole lot easier than it is, getting a new one put up in its place. I'm Akela Hughes, and Rebel Spirit, season two, is about both of those things. As I was watching these statues come down, I was thinking about what it meant that I grew up in a majority black city,

in which there were more homages to enslavers than there were to enslave people. Listen to Rebel Spirit Season 2 on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Alec Baldwin. This season on my podcast, here's the thing. I talk to composer Mark Shaman. It's about the hang. It's the pleasure of hanging out with the people that you're with. You know, Rob and I was always a great hang.

And director Morgan Neville. Film school teaches you all the wrong things about making documentary. What do you want to say? Documentary is all by your ear. What do you hear? I feel like my job is listening. really, really hard. Listen to Here's the Thing on the IHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.