An Army of Normal Folks - This State Is Solving The Foster Care Crisis (Here's How)

Episode Date: July 28, 2026

Coach Bill Courtney sits down with Chris Campbell, Executive Director of Oklahoma's 111 Project, to unpack how Oklahoma has cut the number of children in foster care nearly in half—from 11,500 to 6,000—and what communities across America can learn from their success. Rather than pointing fingers at government, Chris shares how churches, nonprofits, everyday citizens, and public agencies began working together to build practical pathways for people to help. From recruiting foster families to preventing children from entering foster care in the first place, this conversation is full of ideas that any community can adopt. Chris also shares the deeply personal moment that changed the course of his life: holding a two-day-old baby with nowhere to go. In this episode: Why America has a foster parent shortage—and the consequences for children. How Oklahoma dramatically reduced the number of kids in foster care. Why prevention is just as important as recruiting foster families. The story behind CarePortal and how a simple app is helping keep families together. Why supporting struggling families often matters more than removing children. The surprising role churches can play in solving one of America's biggest challenges. If An Army of Normal Folks each did what we can, this is one problem we really can solve. Check out the resources below! RESOURCES Learn more about 111 Project at 111Project.org | One Church, One Family, One Purpose Follow 111 Project on socials @111projectok Interested in fostering? Search for foster parent classes in your community and join them. No commitment required. Exploration is the first step.  Want to help prevent kids from unnecessarily entering foster care? Sign up for CarePortal at https://www.careportal.org/ ARMY ACTIONS Subscribe to the podcast and rate & review us! Signup to join the Army, visit NormalFolks.org Follow us on social media @ArmyofNormalFolks Join or start an ANF local service club at https://normalfolks.org/service-clubs/ Take The 10 Level Challenge, "the hero's journey for service" at 10LevelChallenge.orgSupport the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You literally have one church for every child. So why do we still have kids without a foster or adoptive family? How the heck is that a reality in my state where we have more churches than gas stations? America has a foster parent deficit. We need around 140,000 more foster homes than we have today. And because we don't have enough home for these innocent kids, there's devastating consequences. and I get handed a two-day-old baby with no place to go. And I didn't know we had a place that we stuck kids with no place to go.

It's places that we take 18-year-olds and we move from the kid's shelter to the adult shelter because we don't have a better plan for them. And that reality, to me, was like, this is unacceptable. Today's guest is Chris Campbell, executive director of the one-one-one project in Oklahoma, which partners with churches to recruit one new foster family a year. and help strengthen one vulnerable family a month so that they can avoid foster care. Care Portal now operates in all 77 counties and has served over 54,000 children, 20,000 just last year. Holy smokes, dude.

And every day grows, right? Like, even since that, 61,000 kids as of today. You've reduced the foster system from 11,500 to 6,000 children in foster care. We created pathways for people to engage and partner, and what do you know? That makes a difference. Their success in cutting foster care in half is incredible. I mean, it's wild. I've never heard of a state achieving such a reduction until now.

And you're about to learn how so that you can do this in your state too. You can do small things from meeting a need on care portal, which is the largest care sharing technology in the country, or significant things like actually becoming a foster parent. And if there's an army of us doing these things together, we can solve this problem. But I see four million people in the state of Oklahoma that if we can't figure it out, I don't know who can, but I believe we can. This is the Army of Normal Folks podcast, where our mission is to make service easier for all of us, and together change this country. We are the host of the podcast, Encore. Check out our brand new episodes featuring music from the show that everyone is reheating as we speak. Heated rivalry. Join me as I go behind the songs that brought Shane and Elia together. I'll tell you the stories of Fice, My Moon, My Man, Wolf Parades, I'll believe in anything, and tattoos all the things she said,

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Chris Campbell from Myrtle. Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, which is basically Tulsa. Basically Tulsa. Yeah, we would probably be offended, you know, but Broken Arrow is part of Tulsa. Well, welcome to Memphis. They would love it. Chris is the executive director of the 111 project, which very briefly that you're

about to get into is the idea of one church for one family, for one purpose, and that that can change everything. So, explaining that and getting into it, you guys have helped cut foster care and has in your state in Oklahoma. From 11,500 kids to 6,000. How? Yeah, so there's 6,200 churches in the state of Oklahoma. So the big idea was, man, what if we got more people involved?

There's enough churches, there's enough families, and there's enough people that want to help. They just don't know how to help. So how do we create those pathways for more people to help because the government can't do it on their own? So we created pathways for people to engage and part. partner and what do you know that that makes a difference in the lives of kids and families that can keep kids out of foster care can help kids reunify faster it can support those professionals that

work day in and day out to take care of those families so that play what we've gotten to see over the last 10 years has actually led with a whole bunch of collaboration of work on our government side as well to changing our system to making a difference in it so I love that you're not one of these guys are just saying government sucks. Yeah. Yeah. You worked with government. You got to work with government. You know, like in our state, you know, our state agencies is some of the largest. I mean, if you look at capital and investment and staff count, you know, they're doing good work because they care. But sometimes they have obstacles in red tape that prevents them from doing it as well as we would all like to see it done. And so we can either throw rocks at them and say, just get better or we can

lean in and and try to help learn what needs to be changed and fill those holes, those gaps in the system where they can't, they can't function. And just put a number on it. It's a lot of people from you told me. It's like 3,000 child and family service. So just in the child welfare division, there's about 3,000 staff employees. Employees. So if you look at it from a corporation, right, it would be one of the largest employers in the state of Oklahoma. You know, so if you look at these different government entities. They're investing a lot in people. And we talk about all the time, you know, a lot of churches will know about their fire chief and their police chief, but they don't know nothing about child welfare or some of these other government agencies. But these are the people

that are responsible when it's the ceiling fan. It's the government child welfare folks that are in the middle of the hardest of the muck with families. And so I have deep respect for my government counterparts and the work that they do. I actually love to hear that. I don't hear that all the time, and I love to hear that. So I think it was 2001, this idea of one-one-one that started to become a thing. Kind of take me through what you were doing and why and what happened and just give us a little bit of a foundation before we go forward so we understand that. Yeah. So even in the state of Oklahoma, which is traditionally more of a red state, more of a faith community, I think what the child welfare people recognized is when we're having these government roundtables and problem solving, there's not

church people sitting at this table. And that's a problem, right? Because they, they bring so much connection and favor and relationship and resource, both tangible financial resource, but people resource. And they're not here. And they don't care or seemingly cares their perspective. So Oklahoma had a lawsuit related to some child deaths that happened. And that lawsuit, required the government to partner in the community better. That was one of the required outcomes from the settlement. But it also was the felt reality that, hey, we're alone in this work. We're doing these visits with these families that somebody called in on, and it's the worst of the worst situations. And we don't have anybody to support us, let alone to support these

families, because we've not invited them or there's not pathways for that. So that was kind of the environment that it was like enough is enough. Let's figure out how to partner. And some of the leaders at the agency were like, hey, this can't be government, right? Because government smells like government. It looks like government. It's going to be received as government. There needs to be some entity or something out here that's separate. And so one-one one-one project was created through some government people, some church people, some community advocates that said, hey, what would it look like to create a nonprofit that's its sole focus was community. mobilization in the state. And the idea of one church for one family, for one purpose, the purpose

supporting foster kids. Yeah, foster kids. And so at the time, we had 8,200 kids in care. Actually, the first event that happened was the 8046 conference, because there was 8,046 kids in care on January 1st of 2011. Well, we did this conference, and then the numbers continue to rise. And they rose to a level that they begin to get out of control almost 12,000 kids in care. So it's kind of one of those things where you have a great idea. Things are going to work. And it seems like actually the opposite happened, right? And it really wasn't until 2015 where we implemented.

I think you guys have a care portal on the show. One of the things we talk about often because it is such an effective idea. And its implementation has now been incredibly effective across a broad array. of uses. But you guys got involved with careful. We were the very first implementer of Care Portal. Were you really? Yeah, we were. Yeah, we were. Oklahoma, surprise, you know. So Care Portal had done a couple of pilots in a couple different locations. And one of those locations was Oklahoma. For those who haven't listened to the Care Portal episode or even though Care Portal lives that maybe listened to us for the first time briefly, what is that? Yeah, you have workers over here that

are working with families that need help and you got people over here that want to help. Care Portal is the web-based platform that connects the two. And really simple to give opportunity without the red tape to directly serve families through that worker. And so that platform's now been around 10 years over 500. Yeah, on cell phones. Yeah, on cell phones. It's a web app and a phone app now. Over 500,000 kids serve through this. Hey, somebody who knows the family advocates for the family. somebody in the community that cares responds and says, hey, I can help with that, whether it's a dishwasher to a car seat, to a bed, to utility bill. Yeah, one of the best stories I've ever heard is this lady gets a job, but she has to get her kids to daycare. The job helps pay for daycare, but she doesn't have a car seat. Some family knows about it, puts it on Care Portal, and somebody on a phone is just sitting there and they say, hey, this woman needs a new car seat so she can go to work.

work and you just have your care portal app and you see the needs and anything you like, you click done and you buy a car seat. And that's, it takes 10 minutes and you change somebody's life. Absolutely. Yep, 100%. And to advocate for the needs of the family to know what the reality is that they, that they have, but also recognizing that there's that worker, there's that government worker who's saying, hey, here's a family that we think could make it, right? I mean, they could put on a request for any family, but most likely the families that they're putting on Care Porter are the ones that they think have a chance because they're cheering for him too, right? They're cheering for that dad that's waking up at five o'clock in the morning and walking 12 miles to get to work,

but then trying to figure out how he's going to do his, you know, addictive recovery case plan and his child welfare plans and his kids visitation, right? But he didn't have a car, but the worker sees the hard work that dad's doing to try to change his life. And she's like, yeah, I want dad to have a bus pass. I want dad to be able to have transportation. I want dad to have people cheering for him because he's an amazing dude, you know, but when he's on drugs or when he's under the influence of alcohol, he's struggled, but he's making this progress and we all need to be celebrating that and we want his kids out of foster care, you know? So sometimes the best family for kids is not a new one. It's the one that they've always had that just needs that

extra support and extra advocacy for that. And so she puts that on Care Portal, somebody buys a bus pass, and it's great. And that way, it's not somebody that wants something asking is somebody advocating for someone who needs it. So great. So in 2015, there's this thing called Care Portal. Yeah, we launched it first time, and it was horrible. I mean, it was not a good. It was not good. I mean, I could pick on Adrian in the room. But I mean, it was pragmatically a newsletter, an email list, right? It was like, hey, we have somebody over here, put and on, okay, email that out to everybody that's on our contact list, right? And, and then over time, I mean, I joke, I've seen Caraportal have like five or six brain surgeries. And again,

normal folk, I mean, these are some guys in Kansas City that have never built any kind of technology platform, just, you know, like, hey, what can we do for the kids in our backyard? And an idea came from that. And now this really cool platform and tool and partnership among thousands of churches and thousands of nonprofits and government entities all across the country. All right, everybody. We have super exciting news coming at you. I mean, Alice is excited about it,

but I'm not sure how excited I am. The podcast is now live on YouTube, which means now you get to see me in case you prefer watching it there. And we're switching up the audio format of the podcast. you can now either listen to the full version of the podcast on the same episode, meaning you no longer have to go to part one and part two to hear a whole episode we got going, or you can listen to a 30-minute version of the podcast that will be labeled as highlights.

And we get it. Many listeners who aren't as into long-form podcast or struggle to find the time to listen. listen to the whole thing each week have requested something like this. And so Alex got off his butt and we finally created it. We're really not perfect. Nobody is, but we really do try to take in all of your feedback and advice. We hope to create a product that makes service easier for you and all of us. So check it out.

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Way too much to talk about these days So Kelsey Finler She became the first female Solo Rower to go from California to Hawaii My first thought is What's up with the snacks? Like what do we? What are we?

We eating. The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat. Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi.

You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse.

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get your podcast. I'm Nick Totoro. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the longest yard, or Spike Lease Black Klansman. But I'm also from Queens, which means I know pizza. And on my new podcast delivering happiness with Nick Totoro, I deliver pizza from Prince Street pizza to a new guest. Are you delivering pizza now? Then we sit down for a real conversation. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins. What are you doing my belt? To Alex Rodriguez. Just to let you people know, we're talking to one of the goats here. To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am. And now we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Tituro.

It's called Happiness, Delivering Happiness. Mariano Rivera. Oh, my God. And many, many more. Open your free High Heart Radio app. Search Delivering Happiness with Nick Titoo. And listen now. Okay, so in 2025, the 1-1-1 project, I guess it's called, celebrated a landmark milestone.

Care Portal now operates in all 77 counties and has served over 54,000 children, 20,000 just last year. Holy smokes, dude. Yep. And every day it grows, right? Like even since that, 61,000 kids as of today. And what's been really cool is, of course, strategically, I think we all look at and say, hey, where's the greatest amount of need? Go there. And so, you know, surprisingly, Oklahoma City is 20th-ish and top largest metros in the country. A lot of people don't know that about Oklahoma. Oh, there's people there. Yeah, there's a lot of people. Oklahoma is a great town. I mean, but it's a big city and has all the big city challenges and Tulsa's very similar. But we're also very rural. I mean, Oklahoma has the same landmass as Florida does, right? Like, it's just as big of a state. More coast.

line actually than Florida because of all of our lakes, right? But very rural, very rural. And so you can drive three, four hours and still be in Oklahoma. And a lot of tribal lands too. A lot of tribal lands, a lot of rural poverty because of that, a lot of isolation. And we joke in some of our communities, there's more cows and people, you know, but there's kids there, there, there's families there, and those families are just as important to us as the ones in the urban core. But they're just as disconnected because of the isolation in those communities sometimes. It's just the distance and the lack of knowledge or the stereotypes or, you know, just the challenges that our rural communities face. And so it was really important for us that we just didn't show up for the metros, you know,

especially day and age, post-COVID, and even with Amazon delivery and all these other services, a family can be in their isolated community and never go into town, right? And sometimes even with some of the rules on schooling never go to school, right? They're doing everything in their little isolated spot. And so when things boil up and there's a crisis, they have no one to call, have no one that knows about their situation. And yet oftentimes that's child welfare is interacting there for the first time. And oftentimes it's some sweet, you know, young caseworker, you know, 23, 24, stepping into this really difficult situation. And there's no nonprofit. that are in this community. There's no food bank or services. And so it's really isolating when you

when you don't know what to do, how to help, where, where are you going to call? But yet there's churches and every one of those communities. There's more churches and gas stations in the state of Oklahoma, right? There's a church that somebody planted way back in the 1900s and every little county seat in town not far away. And so it would make rational sense that that would be the network, if you could figure out how to engage, it could really change a lot of things in those communities acting as a hub for service and connection and resource flow. Which is the whole idea behind Project 111. And then you have this cool tool called Care Portal that you implement in... Supports that network.

2015, the supports the network. Yep. And the connectivity starts. That's right. So you've reduced the foster system from 11,500 to 6,000 children in foster care. And Alex says there's 6,200 churches in your state. That's right. You literally have one church for every child. So why do we still have kids without a foster or adoptive family? Yeah, it's a great question. And I think part of that is understanding. By the way, that question can be misconstrued. That is by no means. a criticism. Yeah, that's right. Because you've cut it in half. Yeah. But it still is a inconvenient fact that there's that many. So what, I guess, I guess what next? Why do we still have this going on? I think we all recognize that sometimes we have simple goals for the sake of

communication. But then when we get underneath, we realize the problem's a lot more complicated it than any of us want to make it out. Boy, is that not universal? That's in business, families, anything. Yeah. So we want to make it the reality of it simple, but we would be ignorant to say it's that simple. And so on the church side, the reality is a lot of our churches are small, little family churches, a lot that, you know, are aging, right, that are of an age that they're like, hey, we can't raise kids anymore, but they have a lot to offer, but it may not be in opening up their home. We'd also recognize the challenges with a lot of our kids in the system. Not every family is out of the gate equipped, you know, even if you've had kids. You probably need some additional equipping and training and development to make you ready to parent kids that come from our places, kids that come from trauma, or kids that come from

a different cultural context that you do. And so what we recognize is that kids are coming out of places of need, sometimes of rural poverty and even sometimes of urban poverty. But kids in the foster care system come from all sorts of different scenarios. So even a blanket foster care is ignorant because it's as complicated as people are, right? As different as people are. But I think the simple idea is we've got more than enough people, you know, But it's a lack of development and it's a lack of connection that keeps people from saying yes,

which ultimately, Bill, I think is fear. I think I agree. We have talked foster care a fair amount on here. I mean, it's not something that we just, it's not a focus. It's just we've talked about. It's just come up, right? From all of those interviews and all of the different faces and all of the different work being done, I do think fear plays a huge role in it.

And I don't think it's fear of opening your home. I think it's the fear of, you know, how much work is this going to be? How far is this child going to be? Is this child going to interrupt my already organic nuclear family and what's that going to be on my own children? I mean, and I think those are legitimate fears. Those are all legitimate fears. And I think for all of us, experience and relationships and relationships and really, relationship over time is what gives us the context or the wisdom to say, okay, I'm ready for that,

right? Or there's other ways that I can be involved. And that is just as good, right? That's just as helpful. And so all of us that are in the foster care space would say our heart is not to grow foster care. Our heart is to keep kids out of foster care. And so you'd like to work yourself out of the job. Yeah, absolutely. Right. And so I think every state, if they're doing the things that they should be doing. They're thinking more about going upstream and prevention and community work. And then secondarily, they're thinking about kinship care because, like, kids should belong in, if not their immediate family in this broader family, if possible. And so that work is all work that we're trying to do. So to say, hey, more families is the easy

answer. Yeah, but it's the right kind of families that really can provide those kids a thriving environment, whether it be their complex behavioral needs, whether it be the disability that they have, or whether it be just the room, you know, hey, I've got siblings. And we want those kids to all be placed in a home together. Well, for anybody to take on one extra child in their home, but to take on three, four, five, that's a, that's a significant jump, right? But we would believe there's more than enough families. It's finding them. It's equipping them. It's giving them pathways to have those experiences to get them to a yes versus just trying to cherry pick them off and thrown them in because they saw a picture of a kid and we're like, oh, you know, I feel

empathy, but they're not ready. And so I think the big work that even what you're talking about on this podcast to do is how do we develop a community and a culture that gets the experiences so that they are ready for those yeses instead of coming in for the wrong. reasons and the wrong, wrong ideas. I got a question about you. I didn't know this, but Alex told me. You've got a music degree and you got an MBA. You've worked in manufacturing.

You've worked in consulting. You were pastors. Now you're running a statewide nonprofit. I mean, that's confused. That's a lot. I guess with all of those different experiences, when was it and what was it? And I can't believe it was just that two-day-old baby.

But when was it, what was it that pivoted you and said, okay, this, with all of this background, this education and all these opportunities. And you've got five children, I think. Yeah, five children. And Ashley, your wife, he'll be married. Yeah. 30 years, I think you told me. 25 years coming this year. What pivoted to this is it?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a million-dollar question for all of us that I think we all should take some time to explore. But one of my favorite quotes is every, and I don't even know, somebody please help me figure out who said this quote. But every man seems lazy pursuing another man's dream. Yeah, I've heard that too. I don't know. I don't know who is that.

Confucius or somebody else. Whatever. Somebody smart, right? Somebody wise. Somebody old. I don't know. But from an early age, I've loved mobilizing people. I'm a galvanizer.

I love putting people together for things. And so everywhere that I've ever been, that's part of, if I'm not living, if I'm not doing that, right? And so I love the people component. I feel like God cursed the work of my hands. I can't build a thing for the life of me, you know, with my hands.

And so I had to learn how to do things with people. So I love the people side of things. But personally, we had, you know, we had a typical suburban family from the outside, white family and the burbs. Where? Oklahoma? Oklahoma. I grew up in Broken Arrow. It would look like everything was like working and together. But inside, we had some financial troubles. We had some bumps with mental health and mental

illness that led to chaos in my family in a way that God redeemed and restored and made some beautiful things out of. But there were some moments. If I didn't have the extra supports and resources, we could have been bumping up to some system things, right? So I think that gives me some empathy to recognize that all of us are one family decision away from going a wrong direction. And there needs to be some humility with that. But the other thing, I'd give some credit. My sister, I'm the youngest of four siblings, three older siblings. And one that's closest to me is nine years older. And when she was on a college break, she actually involved. invited me to go with her down to Mexico on a medical trip,

medical mission trip. And I was eight. I was like extra baggage. That's kind of cool. Right. So I had this opportunity with my sister to go. And that was one of the opportunities of, we're all standing on somebody else's shoulders.

But a cultural, it's like my dad, my mom, my mom was one of the most servant heart of people in the world, like set an example for me to serve and to give. It was a culture that was created in my life. And I can't leave that, right? Like I think the scripture points to this idea, if we point a child on the way that they should go, they're not going to depart from it. And I think it's about culture, even team culture. When you create a culture that this is just what we do, and it's healthy, right?

We want that for our family and our kids and our life. And so no matter what I was doing, whether it was working in the ice cream plant at Bluebell, I was thinking. about families and kids. There's really very few creative football coaches. There's a few. There's pioneers. Nobody will know this, but how Mommy was the guy who kind of invented the air raid. And it changed the way offenses work.

And as a result, there are people like Pete Carroll who change in Monty Kiffin, Monty Kiffin in a big way, who changed the way defenses work as an answer to the way the offenses worked, right? But I'm naming two or three coaches in the history of youth, high school, college, professional sport, football over the last 70 years. So I can name two really, Bear Brown was pretty creative with the veer. But that's maybe three names that really created away football work. And millions of people who've coached it, yours truly.

What we do is we copy each of us. Yeah. And in coaching, you've got the X's and O's, but you also have the way you interact with your players, because it's not about Texas and O's, it's about the Chos. So inspiring kids to play well and teamwork and all that is as an equal part of coaching as it is just knowing

the mechanics of the game and I'll coach those, right? So the point is, a guy like Moose coached 33 years, I am not like any. I am not exactly like any one coach I've ever had, but there are parts of me as a coach that are made up of the pieces of all these coaches, right? So my reality as a coach, my aura, my work as a coach is truly a culmination of what I think are the best parts of each coach that I like pulled together to make me to be the best that I can be, right? I wonder, creatively as a musician, having worked in manufacturing, having been a pastor, three very different disciplines all rolled up into one psyche, how if all of those parts have kind of created this odd mix of the guy that runs a nonprofit. And if you use each of those parts and how you do it, because here's the deal. You're the first dude in three years to show up with props to metaphorically make a point.

That's got to be the artist. Right? But I do. I wonder about that. Yeah. And I think that's what I would encourage for kids. That's what I want for kids, right? Because I think we all need data and experiences.

You've got to have the science. To help us discover, right? Like to, and that's, I think, part of the curiosity I would encourage. all your listeners, even in this thing, is ask a bunch of questions. Right. And, like, I had no, like, I think back to my college experience, looking out the window of my dorm room was a government DHS child welfare office. Hmm.

There were kids in that office when I was in college, and it not once crossed my mind. But now every time that I go back, I see that office. And I know there's kids there. And I'm wondering, does the community know that? You are hyper passionate about this. Oh, yeah. I mean, hyper where?

Why? You know, I think it's a gift that God gives you, right? And I think that's where you have to not apologize for it, just embrace it and just say, hey, like, this is what I'm called to do. It's clear. All this other stuff set it up. No, all of these other things in life set you up to be where you are. but for you to be as passionate about what you're doing, it's inspiring. Well, and we're all volunteers.

At the end of the day, we have choices. And I think that's the thing we have to remember is we have a choice where we put our time and our energy and our effort. We have the choice which boat we're going to get in and go for the ride. And so if it's not the thing that is helping you fulfill your calling and your design, man, wouldn't it be more fun to be on a different boat that fits, you know, who you are? and what you're created to be. And so, you know, I, I, yeah, I do care about the foster care system, but I care just as much about mobilizing people into their calling.

And so that's what probably keeps me motivated. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, earlier this year, something we're really proud of, Army members launched six ANF local service clubs around the country. Their design is to make service easier for your fellow community members by really having zero requirements of the club's members. All you got to do is just sign up and join our service activities whenever you can, when it works for you. And you welcome kids to join us for everything. And they cultivate an in-person, family-like tribe, for lack of a better term, that makes service even more rewarding.

We are now really because of the success of these first six looking at launching more local service clubs. And if you'd be interested in either leading or serving on the leadership team of a new one in your community, email Alex at Alex at normalfolks.org and he'd love to connect with you about this cool opportunity. We'll be right back. You've heard the chaos. Now you can see it. Do we want to jump right? And watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish right inside the free IHard radio app.

Make some noise. Wooee! Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like Bestie Listen, Hey Jonas and Los Culturistas. Now with full video. I'll just leave that there. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen. Open the free IHR. Radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch.

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week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it.

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And listen now. Alex made a point off-air that's an interesting question, which is how many foster families do you still need to recruit? And maybe more importantly, not more importantly, but equally importantly. What's that gap and what happens to kids? inside that ground. Yeah, it's a great question. So in foster care, just like any entity, right,

if you're not recruiting new, you're dying, right? Yeah, because there has to be attrition. There's always attrition. And a lot of it's fair attrition, right? Change of season, life, circumstances, whatever. Moving. But in Oklahoma, in every state, we try to not talk about it too much, but the reality, a lot of children are being adopted.

And so every year in Oklahoma, 1,500 to 2,500 kids are being adopted out of the state of Oklahoma child welfare system. About 50% of kids go home in the state of Oklahoma, but about 50% of the kids will never go home. And so those families, stop those kids, the foster families that love those kids, who knew those kids, who have fought for those kids, tried to get them reunified with their families. When that doesn't work out, 95% of the time, it's the foster family. that adopts that child. And we want to celebrate that. But the reality is that work is still not done at adoption. We want to like say, hey, this moment, check, it's done, right?

And everything's great. And when in reality that we know some of the toughest work actually happens post-adoption, right? When a child goes through those teenage years and they're dealing with the realities of how can my mom and dad do these things, right? Like when that weight begins to hit and the emotions and the feelings, even in the best of homes, that can really rock a young person and create some really tumultuous years. And that family doesn't need to be fostering more kids as they're walking through that with that child. That makes so much sense. So as they adopt and as they move on, the number of foster kids, if we haven't gone upstream far enough and stopped it, they keep coming. So if you're not constantly developing families, you're literally.

losing. You're always losing. Your numbers are ratio-wise are going down. So if you look at the math, you know, I didn't love algebra, but, you know, you got numerator, denominator, that kind of thing, right? You can, you can impact one of the two sides. You get more foster families and your ratio looks better. Or you help prevent less kids going into the system, you know?

And so both, both are worthy causes. Both you don't have a whole lot of control of if you're doing the work right, other than how can we provide more supports for these kids and families from different communities to make sure kids don't go on care. So in Oklahoma, you know, we have 0.5 families for every child in the system. Yeah. So one family for every two kids pragmatically, right? You know, what's interesting also is you said there were 3,000 people working for the government. And there's about 6,000.

That also means you have one. one worker for every two kids. You would think with one worker for every two kids and one family for every two kids that y'all would have this thing under wraps. Right. And from the outside looking in, the data makes it seem like, well, there's a lot of waste there, right? Or a lot of fluff. That's what it feels like. What it feels like. So let me, let me unpack that even a little bit, because I think this is really important. And I would say every day I learned something new. I've been doing this now 10 years and I can share part of my story. I had a friend invite me to local shelter. I was a church leader of a really large church. What's a church leader? A minister?

I was a minister. I was a paid vocational pastor. And my job at this big church was to help people serve in the community and be connected in community and small groups. So you're like the outreach I was the outreach small groups pastor. I was in charge of all things adults for a church of about six to 10,000 at the time. Okay. It was a big church. Lots of people. And I had a friend that said, hey, I love, God was doing some really cool stuff with adoption in our church. A lot of families were adopting. People were saying, hey, man, our kids ministry looks like the UN, right? I love that. Because these kids were coming in from all over the world and it was really cool. That's as Christ-like as it could possibly be in my mind. It was beautiful. Yeah.

But one of my good friends comes knocking on my door one day and she's got an idea. And as a leader, you know, ideas are a diamond dozen, right? Everybody's got an idea, right? But this is a really good friend, a really smart friend, a friend that I deeply respect. And she's like, hey, I want to take you someplace. And I'm like, absolutely, Rachel, where do you want to go? And she's like, I want to take you to our local kids shelter. But I didn't know we had a kid's shelter. I'm a, you know, not old, old man, but 30-year-old man, right? That's been highly involved. My head has not been in the sand. And it's my job to get people connected in the community. And I didn't know we had a place that we stuck kids with no place to go. And so she takes me to the shelter. And I, and I,

I get handed a two-day-old baby with no place to go in the state of Oklahoma. And this is pre-1-1-1. This is like 2009. And literally, she's like, yeah, this baby came from the hospital. Why the heck is this baby here? Well, there's no foster family available anywhere in the state of Oklahoma that at this moment can take this two-day-old baby. And I'm like, how the heck is that a reality in my state where we have more churches

than gas stations? How is that a reality in the United States? In the United States of America, right? And I'm taking families around the world to do these trips to work in orphanages and that kind of thing. And pragmatically in our own backyard, we have this thing we call a shelter that's supposed to be temporary. But yet, as Ashley crossed, that same place that Ashley talked about on this podcast, it's places that we take 18-year-olds and we move them from the kid's shelter to the adult shelter because we don't have a better plan for them. And that reality to me was like by watershed of this is unacceptable. How can we like tolerate that, right?

And I think in the science of this stuff that we're talking about, right, like the pain of the current situation has to outweigh the effort that's going to be required for change, right? And so for me, that was my moment where like the pain is too great. We got to change things. We got to fix things. So our church began to lean in. we begin to send folks to that shelter to meet those kids and to play basketball and do hair

and have pizza parties and do financial classes, right? This is a temporary shelter. This is supposed to be a temporary shelter. That's, that's about, that's my point. But if there's no home, it becomes permanent. It becomes permanent. But it was never designed or set up to be permanent for children. That's right.

That's right. And we know institutions aren't good for kids. Yeah. If you don't have a mom and a dad and then we say, hey, go bless you, go be an adult. figure it out and you've never had an example of what a functioning household looks like right you've never done your laundry you've never done your dishes you can't cook meals because of the liability associated with you know food handler permits and all that right like the complications of institution make things not healthy for kids and so it it sets them on a trajectory and spiritually for the church

I would echo to this church is how can a kid ever fall in love with this Heavenly Father if they've never had a good earthly one, right? Like, we could talk all we want about God loves you when they've never seen it with skin on. It's going to be a big jump for them, right? So foster care, the thing I didn't know, a state of Oklahoma, just state of Oklahoma, 80,000 phone calls every year to our hotline. That's how many? 80,000. Okay. So that's a coach, that's a teacher, that's a neighbor. That's somebody who cares. That's somebody who cares. That's 2200 calls a day. Somebody who cares says something's wrong here, right?

And I think it's a scary thing as a youth, in Oklahoma, we're mandatory reporters. So if you're the youth pastor and you see a kid come to come to the camp and he's got bruises or scar. Like, you're required to call, right? We're supposed to report. But the reality, that's a lot of things to investigate. And so our 3,000 staff, their primary responsibility. is if that seems like a legitimate call, because some of them are silly, right?

Like there's a marital spat that's happening and husband or wife because they're mad at their spouse or making calls just to create some drama because they're mad, they're angry, and that's their only thing that they can do. But in the midst of all that chaos and sometimes even deception, there's a reality that kids are being harmed

and they're unsafe. And so our frontline child investigation staff, It's their job to figure out what's true or not. And they're handling 2,200 calls a day. And then not only do they just deal with the child, they're dealing with the mom and the dad, but maybe the aunt and the uncle, maybe the neighbor, maybe the teacher, right? Grandparents. Now grandparents and foster parents, everybody's got an opinion, everybody's got a perspective, right?

They've got a supervisor, they've got a judge. So one situation involving three or four kids now becomes this inner web of complication. Here's the part I would celebrate our agency. And once again, the outside is much simpler than the inside of this. But in Oklahoma, 75% of the kids, even in situations of abuse and neglect, stay home or stay with a family member that cares. So a lot of folks will be like, well, these agencies just, they're trying to make money, they're trying to steal babies. They're, you know, they're in it for their own profit. Find me an example where that's true.

You know, there's always cases of fraud, but on a whole, nobody's getting a bonus for taking another kid. And nor do they want that on their caseload, you know. But the reality is 75% of the time, they're figuring out things to leave kids, even in, cases where dad's done some things. Because what they recognize is, man, it's much better to support that family than to remove that kid. Because once we remove that kid, the trauma to the kid is not worth it, right? Like just removing a child from their family creates enough chaos.

But even for dad, what happens psychologically to a dad when you remove his kids from? even a dad that struggling with that addiction. Might that dad, when there's a kid in his home, have some checks, even as faint, you know, is that voice still in his head? Like, maybe I should party this hard tonight because... That's interesting. Right?

I'm going to have my six-year-old that's going to be knocking at my door tomorrow morning. I may throw some things at that six-year-old, you know, because I have a hangover. But we would all recognize that there would be some accountability for having a child in most healthy situations or family situations. But when you remove that kid, what motivation is there for dad anymore? Right? The one thing that he might be proud of.

The one thing that he might be hopeful for. The one thing that, I mean, what parent doesn't want? Good parent wants their kids to thrive or wants to brag on their kids. And so when you remove the child from their home, it really hurts actually the success of progress you can actually have with family. Whereas if you can leave that kid in there, wrap around supports, right? So that's the work of the agency that people do not appreciate. So we need to talk about 3,000 people.

It's really not that many. It's not that many. For that kind of work. And recognizing also because we don't have enough foster families in the state of Oklahoma, that child may be placed three hours away from where that worker originated that case. So guess what they're actually really doing? They're driving to pick up this kid in this part of the state to this part of it, just to do a family visit for an hour with mom.

And mom, because she doesn't have transportation, might be there late, might not, right? Like, she's struggling herself and we're blaming mom. Well, mom may be walking five miles to. So the whole system, once you get inside of it, you realize how really complicated and hard it is for somebody. And so the ones that are making it and it's a $45 bus pass to help them be successful,

it's like, why wouldn't I want to fix that? So maybe I've got 45 hours total of hearing these stories and thinking through these things, which, you know, that's significant enough to start having a perspective. But it is nothing compared to somebody like you've worked at. And I sit here and hear you talk. You even got emotional a little bit when you were talking about the two-day old bag. and what clicked for you when you went from being a pastor to ultimately this. Clearly, your perspective on the foster system has changed.

But I think also it's important to talk about the perspective on the foster families themselves and how we support them and how that perspective has shaped what Project 101 does today. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, foster families are my heroes. They're normal folk. Very few of them have the experiences that they really need to walk in or the training to walk in. I mean, it's the most underappreciated professional role, but yet it's not seen as a professional role, right? I mean, it is the most underappreciated that every time I sit across from someone who is a foster and I hear their story.

Lydia, the Memphis Service Club president. Yeah. Just 13 children and I think eight, how many? She's adopted 11 and eight of some form of disability. Every one of them. Yeah. Every, are you kidding me? I know that Lydia is not Christ because he came a while back.

So there's no seat on the right. hand of God for Lydia, but she's going to be close. And this is the thing I get a little arranged about, Bill, is somebody on the bleachers is going to say, well, she's in it for the money. That is horse blood. We have words for it, right? Because. Yeah, there are words for it.

And from an Oklahoma guy, that is a pile of cow dung. Yeah. Bull. Yeah. Yeah, right. And so because I know even, yeah, there's additional. stipends that are going for higher level needs of kids. And there's even some recent things that I've seen recently that's tried to elevate

some of that. Guys, look at the numbers. Most situations, foster families, are subsidizing the government to care for a challenge a situation that's not their making. They're taking their personal wealth and time and energy to step in to things that They didn't create voluntarily. And yes, they get a stipend that, I mean, barely pays for the eggs in an household, right? Like $20 a day, right?

Like $20 a day for a kid? Okay. Like, guys, that, like, that doesn't cover a lot. And it's different in different states and different challenges that kids have. But it's there because of the medical needs or like we're trying to do this as best as we can. But nobody's getting rich. from my experience off foster care. And if you are, you got the wrong mindset on how to get rich, right?

Or that you're making money because you don't know how to look at a budget or a balance sheet because that's not a way that you make money. You can make a whole lot of money doing a whole lot of other things. And it's a 24-7 responsibility, right? It's there's not, there's not breaks. There's not, right? And the amount of additional things that you're bringing in. So for a lot of our families, I mean, they say yes,

of foster care and they feel bad receiving help because they recognize they're the ones that made that commitment, right? But the amount of appointments, the amount of people that they're dialoguing with. Just the need to every once in a while go out and have dinner with your spouse alone. Alone, right? And that's just in normal parenting, right? But you add all these other layers associated with the complex things associated with being involved in foster care. And it's really tough. We'll be right back. You've heard the chaos.

Now you can see it. Do we want to jump right in? Watch all your favorite podcasts from start to finish, right inside the free IHard Radio app. Make some noise. Wooee! Catch every laugh and eye roll on shows like Bestie Listen, Hey Jonas, and Las Culturistas.

Now with full video. I'll just leave that there. It's the same hosts and the same chemistry with all the hilarious moments you've been missing right on your screen. Open the free IHR radio app. Search video podcasts and tap watch. What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches women's sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo roer to go from California to Hawaii.

My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout start. the moments to take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

Naomi Osaka showing out, she beat. Sabalinka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports.

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This is Chelsea Handler from Dear Chelsea. Every week, the news gets worse. The world gets crazier. And Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible, you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'm a check you. Okay? If you do some in the news that don't sound good, I'm going to play you. Join Yomeneka Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast.

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Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Pure, pure naked disclosure. What was your perspective of a foster family, kind of just a snippet, your foster family pre-holding the two-day old baby and today? Yeah, I mean, I think all of us, you can either, you know, glorify it. You can overly simplify it, right? To make it seem, you know, like this really rosy thing, like this beautiful thing.

Oh, you're saving a kid's life, right? It's admirable. But it's complicated. And it will push and test every part of you as a parent, right? And so confession, I'm not a foster parent. And some people are really surprised about that. And I'm intentionally not a foster parent because I can't do the work of mobilization that I do and still foster. I can't be in all these different.

I am a parent, right? You've got a whole rude. And we support foster families and we've done respite. We've stepped in in other ways because we recognize how hard it is. But we intentionally had a conversation to say it's like, hey, you can't. be in the battle and be a frontline infantry men. And be home to be a father to a father. Right. And try to try to bring in resources, right? Go get the stuff that those frontline people need. And so we felt a calling to try to really

supply and support. But if I wasn't willing to get dirty as well, if I wasn't willing to get in the trenches, sometimes that creates a little disconnection. Like, who are you to, you know? And so I think the reality of with the foster families that I've walked with and the kids that we've we've loved as a community um you know it it it takes a lot more than what people i think appreciate and then i would add to that for the adoptive families i think they are another i mean they're 20 or 25 000 kids just in the state of oklahoma that Oklahoma is still doing some case management that have been adopted wow right so so yeah they're in a safe environment good environment with a fan but but some of those challenges even for babies um you know we we all would

recognize that if you have alcoholism in your family that at times there's this weird thing that we don't even really understand but you have a predisposition to alcoholism even though you've never drank alcohol right so there is these things with the mind and the body that are so complex as good as we get with science we still don't understand And so for a lot of kids that come from trauma, even trauma in the womb, what we recognize is that leaves a mark. And there's hope and there's healing and their restoration. But there's things that still are complicated that we, there's not a solution for. And so it leads to these situations that are really complicated for families, behaviors, safety concerns that for a lot of our adoptive families, they're in a rock and a hard place because there's no one that has an answer.

There's no, there's no pill that fixes that, right? Or program that fixes that. We're just going to sit and hard for a really long time. And that hard actually leads to involvement with the justice system, you know, with with jail and criminal backgrounds, or it leads to other addictive behaviors or it leads to other mental health things that some of these families have had no experience with. And those are the hard. These families have to have support. And they got to figure it out, right? They don't have an option.

It's living in their home, you know, and yet they say yes to it every day. Alex says you have a radical vision of wanting to see families waiting on children instead of children waiting on families. How realistic is that. Yeah, I would never have believed that we would be statewide. I would have never believed that we've seen the overwhelming surge of support that we have in Oklahoma. And, you know, God, I think, gives you just enough favor and success that's like, hey, what, like, back here, it's a pipe dream. But here it's like, no, like, I see the future of that. And I'm far enough along now that I see the future of it.

And the reason I still want to believe and believe that it's not a resource problem. You know, Jesus, when he looked over Jerusalem, he wept over Jerusalem. But the prayer that he encouraged to pray was the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. And what I see in a state of Oklahoma is not a resource problem or even a connection problem, but it's still a people challenge. But I see four million people in the state of Oklahoma that if we can't figure it out to serve 6,000 kids at any given time, I don't know who can, but I believe we can. I want to ask two things before we move on.

you have set goals for churches yearly and monthly. Can you talk about that? And goals may be, that may be saying a little too crass, but like targets that ideally in the idealized world that each church would be doing and then how are you guys doing against that right now? Absolutely. So simply, you know, there's about 15,000 kids that come in and out of the Oklahoma foster care system every year, right? The math would say they're in tubes on average, you know, like people are caring. for them and doubles. So if you have 6,000 churches that served one family every month, that's 12,000 families that are served every year. That touches every case in the state of a loan. So the simple challenge to an army of good is, are you willing to serve a family a month?

A whole church. One whole church. It's not much to ask. It's not much to ask, right? Like that simple goal. Now, it would be ignorant of me to say that that takes care of all the problems, but dang it sure would help. Boy, that makes it down. Right? Yeah. Because the caseworker is saying dad could make it if he had a little extra help. If that, if dad had a rent deposit that he can't currently afford, we could speed up his pathway to housing because he's got a job. He's on a pathway for being clean, but he needs a dang rent deposit. So he's either going to wait three, four months before he gets his kid back or we could do it today, right? The scripture alludes to this idea of where our treasure is, there are hearts follow, right? So the simple concept is,

if I want to care about the stock market, what do I do? I put a little money into it. And now, now what? I follow a stock because I've got some investment there. That's interesting. Right. And you're saying if you put a little money in a human being, now you're interested and you follow and then relations. Time energy, capital, right, time treasure talents, whatever those things are. But when you make that investment, you're it. You're in for sometimes alive. You didn't realize where this thing was going to go. And the challenge with institutions and even with government is they control for liability and protection.

And they do this. And nobody's ever able to get connected or invests. But when we open up some doors, some pathways, some honor and answer people to them, they get involved. they begin to care. They begin to realize that child welfare worker is just like their college kid that they have that just graduated that is pursuing a dream and their dream was helping people. And so they got into social work because they felt called to social work. But yet the daily opportunity that they have kicks their butt every day and they want to quit. And so they don't last long, right?

And so like you begin to meet people and make friends and see opportunities. but here's what's also beautiful is as you get involved, you begin to see the gaps. And what caring people do is they fill gaps. They solve problems. And there's so many problems that are so different in every community that if you don't invite the community in, they'll never solve it because they don't have any ownership in it.

They don't have any buy-in that's there, right? But when you invite them in to be a part of it, you've got churches that are starting bunkbed ministries because there's not enough beds for kids. Sleep in heavenly peace. Or Judy, Sharon, from New Hope Baptist in small town, Oklahoma, right? She doesn't even have a sleep in heavenly peace. She just making beds.

You've got churches that are creating small little medical clinics because they're hearing in their community. People are not getting their medical needs addressed and they can't drive and there's not a close clinic. And so some of their clinicians are giving extra time and they're using a Sunday school class to serve two or three families a week. On the surface sounds simple. You connect churches with kids who need families. Hold on.

I think we missed one of the goals, though. I didn't answer your question very well. The other one was the church is trying to recruit. One family a year. Recruit and support one family a year. So in the state of Oklahoma, we have 3,500 families that are in the game. we have 6,200 kids. If we had a net 3,000 families,

we would have a one-to-one ratio, which the federal government says is like unreal. Yeah, right. But if we had every church recruit and support one new family every year, it would overwhelm the system. The problem would be we would have excess and we would say that it's waste.

Right? Like how do we license homes that we're not even going to use? It creates a whole other set of problems that we would have to solve, but there would be really good problems. Like, oh, we have options? We have five families to choose from? Yeah, I would think that that would be what you would want.

But no government is going to pay for waste, right? So the community's got to get creative. Like, how do we create on-deck foster families? How do we create people lining up that are ready to go when we need them? Maybe the state of Arkansas would pay the state of Oklahoma for their extra family. Right. Pitch that to it. A business guy, right?

They may love it. The mind is turning. Lumber people. Well, no. I mean, if Oklahoma had extra places in Arkansas didn't, maybe Arkansas invest the money they were going to invest. And the reality is, I think, again, like we've been dreaming about a volunteer program in our offices because we have kids that are at the offices that are waiting. And so wouldn't we want people engaging those kids there just like we did at the school. shelter. And so we're trying to bring innovation to our system to say, okay, hey, it costs you too

money for the insurance and the case management to support an empty home. But what if that empty home is doing something that's helpful? And what if that empty home is also getting experiences while they're waiting, right? They're meeting the kids. They're meeting the workers, right? They're developing the skill set. Oh, we need a development league in the foster care system. A development league. I got it. Yeah. What if you have? What if you have? had a football team and there was no use sports in your community. Some of this is kind of like, say, families for children or Isaiah 117. Another amazing partnership, right? And so what we recognize in this whole ecosystem is all these things are needed because it's your development league. It's how

you get people the experiences to get them to these higher levels of care. They got to have the, like, they got to have these other opportunities that are that are easy on ramps. Okay. Is that how it works? I mean, because the execution cannot be just as simple as saying, okay, let's connect churches the kids who need families and we're good. How does it actually, we don't have to get into a 30 minute detail, but just in general, how does it work? Yeah, I'll tell you how it's worked so far. I'll tell you how it has worked so far. So one of the things that I think is the challenge in leadership is you want to have a high expectation for the product and things that do, right? You want high quality. But to have a development league, you actually got to lower the bar.

You got to make it super easy for people to play. Because if whatever game that you're playing is too complicated, and I can't do it, day one, I'm out. That's why I don't play Majong. The learning of the game seems overwhelming, right? It's incredible, yeah. And so I think one of the things that we've just, instead of coming into a church and saying, hey, here's all the things that you have to do day one. It's like, we just, we just need. So just someone looked at you, you just go, ugh. Yeah, right.

You see the air going out of their lungs. Church leaders, it's not like they're sitting around dwelling on thumbs, wondering what they're going to do today, right? Like, they've got plans, they've got dreams, they've got visions, they've got programs and ministries that they want to run. So you got to step in there and say, hey, this is important. And we need you to advocate, but I need to quickly get this off your plate, right? And so our strategy has been that we feel like,

has worked is to try to lower the bar to say, how simple can we make this? And for churches, we say, hey, can you give us a person that we can interact with? Because you're the pastor, you're busy. Who is the best person at your church for us to begin dialoguing with to start a conversation because we're not going to be a traveling salesman and give you a vision that we don't want to walk alongside you to fulfill? And so our first strategy is just give us a person. If you give us a person, we're in, we're going to play. Game on, right? And it's kind of like this. I brought some props.

Okay. And this actually is a really great place in a prop. But like, have you ever seen one of these? No. Do you know what this is? It's a ball. It's a ball. It's a ball with holes.

It's a ball with holes. Ball with holes. So this is actually a Takara ball. They play this in Thailand. Okay. And what would the game look like? With that ball? With that ball.

What would be your guess? You juggle it and kick it around each other. Actually, you're right. Yeah. So you can play it like volleyball. It's like a hack sack. Just like a hackac. But these guys, actually, old guys, will, like, do a overhand, like, hit, like in tennis,

but with their feet and hit it over a volleyball net. It's actually fascinating. Oh, I have seen that. There's a volleyball net. It's a volleyball net. It's volleyball with your feet, with a hacksack. Yeah, that would be the simple version, right? I've seen pictures of that.

And there's other varieties of this. But what I love about this soccer ball is, like, we would, we love to travel. They would throw this out in the park, and anybody and everybody would, just kick this around, right? Old people, young people. Like, it just is simple, right? Like, it's a simple way. Is this how they are?

They're hard like this? So there's, that's, that's kind of like a cheaper version. I didn't bring you the Taj Mahal of, but some of them are like, you kind of develop some tenacity. You could break a toenail. But even like this ball, you know what that ball is?

I've never held one of these in my hand. High lie. It's not a handball. I know what those look like. 2.4 billion people play with this ball. This very one? Not that very one. It's not high lie?

No. You wouldn't kick this. You wouldn't hit it with your hands. It's too hard. So squash? No, squash is a littler. Is it cricket? It's cricket.

That's a cricket ball. I have never held. Nobody's ever taught me how to play cricket. I guessed it finally. Did you know it? No. I don't know the rules of cricket. To this day, but like billions of people play cricket. Yeah, that's a cricket ball.

I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. All right. How will we learn to play cricket? Well, you got to have a ball. You got to have a ball.

And you go hang out with other people who play it. Yeah, I get it. And to me, that. You're trying to get the one person at church to hang out with people who do it and just learn. And just learn. You're not going to be the best cricket player. or Takra player the first time you... What is this thing called?

Takra. I think it's how you say it. Takra. T-H-T-A-S-K. You have plenty of people. But Takra. Yeah. And so I think it's that simple, but it's also that complex, right?

Like, if you look at professionals that we all fill stadiums to go watch, and you try to compete with their athleticism, it's off the charts. But the game's as simple as me and my daughter, we're in the backyard, they're on the football around. right are we playing football I mean not football but playing and there's a pathway there right so I think that's the work of mobilization

that's what we're trying to do is to get more people in the game and then a development league so that we've got enough folks with the experiences when they're facing the problem in the community that's that 350 pound you know what to do with it I love it

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I think you travel around a lot around the state, and it seems like even just from your website, you have like a ton of community meetings. Yeah. Like what are those community meetings or like how are you? you talking to churches, like what message actually gets them to move? Like, what's your, your pitch? Yeah. So I actually assumed it was like the head pastor going, yeah, I'll give you something. If you promise you're going to give me something if you're going to leave me alone.

I mean, honestly, that feels like that works. Yeah. I mean, somebody comes to me at my company and says, this is a thing that you need to do. And I'm like, yeah, I do. But I don't have time. Just give me somebody and I'll leave you alone. Yeah. I'm all over. Yeah, right. If it's, I'm dead serious. Right. And so I think part of the pitch with Care Portal, what I love about Care Portal is it's one of the easiest ask. So easy. So when and if and how you want to serve, right?

Like, what? And what I also love is it's one of those opportunities that I can check some other boxes. Like I can take my kids and my wife with me, right? Like we can do this with my group of guys from my small group, right? I can also mobilize people from the community because they get it. It's not just like, hey, go serve at youth camp where we're singing, Kumbaya. I guess that's part of the pitch of the churches too.

Yeah, it's right. So this is a tool that you can use to be relevant in your community, to partner with your community in a real way, and everybody gets it, right? Everybody gets the work that's happening through this. It's important. And so I've seen folks that theologically probably would never do anything together, and they'll do Care Portal together, right? They'll partner together.

So then here's what's crazy is when we start playing together, we start talking and there's actually some relationship that's form. And then it's like, okay, how do we organize this? Right? Like how do we invite more people? Well, then that's the next level. It's no longer playing catch. It's, hey, we're going to have a game.

And that game requires some date and some time and some rules and some structure and some systems. And so for us, that turns into what we call a community gathering or community coalition or service club, right? There's some organization that begins to happen because what we recognize is, man, if we could combine our efforts and our skills, which are all unique and different, we could do more together than what we could do on our own. And so it starts with people learning, getting excited about playing and then they connecting those people together. And we call it the connection of getter doneers, you know, like we don't want the pastors, right? We don't want the talkers, visionaries. We want the getter doneers. Because the getter doneers when you put the normal phones.

The normal folks, when you put them in a room, it gets done, right? Like, it's so beautiful to watch. You know, I have a woman named Kay Leslie that's one of our church leaders, and Kay is a retired former foster parent. But she has some autoimmune, different medical challenges that sometimes keep her from even going to church. And she's our primary care portal person at her church, Faith, You and I Methodist in Tulsa.

And she doesn't know. use all the bells and whistles of the technology, but she literally, I think, I think even literally Kay would probably hate me for even saying this, but like a Rolodex, right? Like she sees a need and she calls up a church member and says, hey, I think you'd be really good at this, right? She is quarterbacking, calling the plays of mobilization, and she's getting people involved through an invitation, right? It's the lost art is the invitation of, hey, come with me.

Right? I mean, church leaders just say it, hey, come, come with me to church. That's the best way you get somebody to come to your church. is invite them to come with you, right? And the same way for service, it's an invitation to say, hey, come, come see this, come do this, come play, right? And so one of our big strategies is community gatherings. And then again, we got to have some point leadership.

We've got to develop some structure so that they're, you know, going the right direction. And that's work because people are work, right? People are always complicated, but that's also what brings the greatest joy to this work, his relationships. A young man named Michael Weitzman that I've got to be a small part of his life. I came to my life at 19. And Michael's got a complicated story where he was in foster care, was adopted, has a broken relationship with his adoptive family. But Michael would say it's relationships that brought brokenness in his life and it's only relationships that are going to bring healing and restoration. And so Michael, one of the beautiful things about Michael is he has sought out,

intentionally relationships as a kid that had a lot of brokenness in his history. And now he doesn't have one family. He's got dozens of families and multiple cities that have loved him and supported him. And titles are complicated, right? But yet what I hope Michael knows, and I think what Michael would say today is I've got the backing of people of relationships because of that connection and uh michael just got a job working in dc um as a policy advisor for one of our government agencies um and he he has been super resilient now as a late 20 something uh that you know fractured and broken relationships but yet he continued to show up and he continued had the opportunity to learn and participate connect and that's what really matters and so it's got

to happen in communities connection and relationships got to happen it can't just be a platform or a system or a tool. It's got to happen through people. That's kind of a good segue to what I was kind of asking, which is, you know, Care Portal obviously beats tangible needs, but it can also enable these relational needs. Yeah. Yeah. So every, we call it meaningful connections that happen on Care Portal. So I got a picture from one of our very first sweet ladies that jumped in on Care Portal 10 years ago. And she met a family through delivering a bus pass to them at a gas station. That bus pass turned into a friendship.

And I just got a picture of this last week for this kid's graduation. Right? Like 10 years of relationship that happened originally through an email. For a tangible bus pass that led to a decade of a relationship. Right. And I don't know the full story, right? Who cares? That kid's enriched.

He's got another person who cares about him in his life. That's it. That's a win, right? And she's cheering for mom, not just kid. How about the woman who gave the bus pass who was invited to the skits graduation? What a win for her. Yeah. Her life's enriched.

Right. And that's what I would say about my relationship with Michael. My life has been so enriched. And I'd say you would say the same thing about these young men. we that you've invested in we're encouraged by we're challenged challenged by their resiliency their progress like your life gets better from being in the game you know it does it does you were also telling me the other day you can also upload a relationship need yeah on the platform too yeah can talk about that because i i was completely clueless about that yeah so uh care portal we believe

in a reality that we can advocate for things other than stuff on care portal uh but we also know is getting people to give up their time is actually the hottest commodity. We all have a limited supply of time. So stuff we can get more of time. We can't. Asking somebody to give up their family is like the golden ticket. But this in-between time mobilization is really, really hard to ask somebody to be a coach of a football team. That's a freaking big ask, right? But even to get somebody to commit to mentoring a kid an hour a week. For some families, that's a huge ask when they're already overwhelmed. So what we recognize is you've got to have a bigger pull of people to pull from

to be successful and pulling people in for time mobilization. But careful as an option for that. So in Oklahoma, we actually recruit mentors for schools, mentors for foster youth. We also have a couple of statewide entities that review child welfare cases. So for the people that don't like kids, there's actually an opportunity for them to jump in and be helpful to mediators. You know, there's lots of ways to even events. You know, one-time event is an easy place to invite somebody to initially participate. But we know the life chain happens for all of us when we have quantity of time because it's in quantity of time that the beautiful thing of quality time takes place.

And so if we're not willing to give some quantity very rarely, do we ever get to experience those light bulb moments? Because they're typically not fabricated, manufactured, right? They happen organically. And they happen organically through other organic things like trust and friendship, you know, that only happens. And so we're all constantly advocating for people to, because we recognize that until they meet some,

somebody with skin on, it's a number, it's a statistic, it's this, you know, not real thing. Yeah, and that also leads to people having empathy for a situation and thinking that, wow, you know, I really forgot for them, for somebody should do something, as if that sentiment matters and sentiment doesn't. Yeah, does it. Is there a way to mobilize businesses as you do, churches? How's that look? Yeah. So I mean, I think business are the greatest resource. They are the resource hub, right? They are the economic generator. Well, just about everybody who's insurers has been

involved in a business somewhere. So we we love to raise, we call them in Caraportland champions. So there's a, there's a role actually on Care Portal for businesses. But there's a role in the community for businesses as employers. You know, I think giving opportunities to folks that maybe aren't quite job ready to find pathways. Again, development league is really, really a big deal, especially kids from hard places and families that have maybe difficult situations. Whether they be a foster family, you're giving them a little bit of extra leave when they take in a new placement.

Like that's, I mean, some companies have policies, not just for when somebody has a new child, but when somebody brings in a foster family, that they get some PTO for that, right? Like, that's an approved, at least an approved PTO thing. So that's one way that your business can be more friendly to folks that are really trying to make a difference in community. Two, one of our partners in Oklahoma City is Pizza Hut. They give pizzas and food is great gifts in every scenario, the welcome gift in every scenario.

And so they put pizzas into the office because in the state of Oklahoma, stipends and reimbursements and gift cards and all that are so complicated to manage that if a worker can just say, I got a kid in the office and they've just come from a meth lab bust and they're traumatized and we're traumatized and I can have a pizza delivered here hot fresh to the office for this kid. Game changer, right? So pizza that's donated pizzas there at our shelter, even also when a new foster family welcomes a kid, we've been able to give out some food coupons so that that foster family could order a pizza when that kid comes up, right? So are you out soliciting businesses and companies? Yeah, trying with the time that we got, right? Yeah, I understand. But same.

Yeah, come on. And we would love to be creative with them. Like, what do you have that you want to leverage? And let's leverage that together. And if it's not with one one, one, one, who can we partner you with? Right. And we have a company called Bug Bros that does termination services. So we have a lot of situations that we run into in child welfare where there's roaches

or there's bed bugs. And especially bed bug bug treatment is... That's a big one. It's a big one. It's so expensive. It's so prevalent with families that are at risk. And it impacts everybody that's involved. It becomes a really challenge.

So what's awesome, I think every business owner wants to give back. I'm just going to believe that inherently about business owners. It's not all about profit, right? It's not. And until you know some business owner, owners, you don't recognize that all of us have things that we want to give back. We want to be a part of making things better. But I think the challenge is we recognize we can't give everything away.

And so I think one of the cool opportunities through Care Portal is, again, the business can choose when and if they give versus just car plon, you know, give all the time. And so I think jumping in and being intentional about their generosity or partner intentionally with one of those nonprofit epicenters of need is a great way for businesses. There's this resource on your website titled 20 Ways to Support Foster Families, Small Things to Large Things, mention a few of them. Yeah. My favorite, I mean, there's some foster families that are a little particular about this, but go mow their lawn. Really? Yeah. That's a big one. Like don't, like, don't, like if you think you can get away with you, if relational equity, don't even ask. Just show up. Just show up, right? Like,

just show up, take care of it. Like, I think for a lot of times, all of them, us feel weird about asking for stuff? I think that is, you know, that's a really good point. I think a lot of people just, even when they're in the most dire circumstances, he'd asking for a dread it. Yeah. And I would say the same thing about your neighbor that just had a baby. Yeah, probably.

Like we, like, you don't need to be weird about this serving foster. It's what we should be doing with our neighbors the same way. It's like, hey, you got some extra eggs, drop some eggs off. Got a casserole and you can make a little extra drop it. as you go, what are the acts of kindness through your extra that you can kind of extend your tent sticks out and say, you know what? I'm going to give a little bit. I have extra. Right.

And so if you've got extra time or you've got an extra seat in your van to take a kid to the park or to the playground to give that foster family a break. That's the one. The one that I think about the most in supporting foster family, certainly food and gifts and everything else. But for a mother and a father to be able to go to dinner and a movie for four hours without some kids screaming at them over something. That's right. Lisa and I had four kids in four years. Yep. And we didn't have any money.

So we couldn't even afford a babysitter because a babysitter for poor kids. Yeah. That was expensive. We wouldn't have any money to go eat. Yeah. And on occasion, one of our parents would buck up and give us a night. Yep. I can't tell you how refreshed our relationship was and our pro-strong children was with just a little respite.

Do you not think that's a huge thing for a foster family? Just give them a break. Yep. And education-wise, go to Applebee's and catch a flick. That's right. Every state has a thing called the Prudent Parenting Act that they interpret in some way. And what that means is for a certain amount of time, you can watch somebody else's foster children. because they know you and you know them and there's trust for a period of time without any certification

because we're friends like a night like a night or a day right um Oklahoma's actually interpreted it for up to 72 hours right so like a weekend so and and the goal of that was to make things normal for kids so if I've got a young teen that wants to go spend the night or go to a camp everybody doesn't have to be foster family service right it is it really I trust that youth pastor I trust this church and policies or I trust this friend with my biological kids. So why can't I trust them? I'm the one liable as a foster parent. Why can't I trust them with my foster children? So that is huge. And then the other thing I'd say is really huge is, you know, some families that have some gumption that would say, hey, even when your kid is sick and you're going to have to miss another

day of work, set up to us, right? Like, you can call us. Like, we'll do the harder, things even with you, right? Like, when, when there's a blow up, blow out, like, please call us or send him over or, right? Like, like, at times, that's the really heavy lifting. You mean being a neighbor? That's crazy. Isn't it crazy? What is wrong with you? But especially, especially post-COVID, right? Like, oh, he's got the sniffles. We're out. I know, but I just think back to when he's running a hundred fever. Yeah, bring him over. I just think back to when I grew up, literally, the neighbors around. We didn't come up with anything and our neighbors didn't have anything. But if my mom was gone or needed something or whatever.

That's right. Can I go around to the store? Yeah. They wouldn't. They wouldn't ask. They just do. Yeah. It was that way.

Yeah. That's what we're all dreaming about. And that's actually, I think, the secret sauce. And here's the other thing I would say, too, is whatever we can do to decouple institutionalization. And here's what I mean by that. Our way that we solve problems is we stick all the poor people in one, part of town, right? And it makes things really complicated instead of spreading it out, right? And so I think in the same deal is how do we, how do we micro enterprise service where it's okay if you serve two

families this month? Great. We're going to celebrate that just as much as the 50,000 backpacks delivered, right? Because everybody doing something is actually what makes it easy. Well, you just basically stated in a different way the entire purpose of an Army of normal folks. That's it. Do what you can where you can, and you don't have to be part of some massive thing. And it's actually better that way. It actually is. Right.

Because it goes back to the relationships. We're Army and normal folks. Every time we interview somebody, we're celebrating them and their story. And we want that story to be entertaining, but inspiring. Hopefully somebody's in Oklahoma listening today and they join your army. Come on. Right. So we're celebrating kind of your army, right?

Tell me a couple of heroes. Tell me a couple of your heroes inside your organization. Let let our listeners know about the normal folks who revealed themselves to be heroes inside the work that you're doing. Yeah. Take a chance. Take a, I'll pay a celebrate them. I mean, to the 3,500 foster families that we have in our state, you know, we get the chance to get to know them and walk with them and encourage them. They're heroes.

But, I mean, some of my staff on my team to those that, you know, work part-time for us. You know, I've got several staff that are adoptive and foster parents. And they themselves at times have some really, really hard stuff as foster parents. But yet they're going out there and saying, hey, it's worth it. you know, it's worth it to jump in. And so, and the Misty Seals on my team to Bree Cruz, you know, these ladies, Jen Holbert are ladies that are champions. Like, they are advocates, fierce advocates for the biological family, you know,

that's trying to the kids that are in their care, to the kids that are in the community. I would shout out our DHS leadership, our government leadership. I love that you have that relationship with them. Yeah, man. And you honor them. Yeah. I mean, our new director of child welfare, Michael Williams, is an all-star. I just tremendously respect his heart, who he is, to that leadership team, to the frontline

caseworkers, you know, I think of people like Natalie Love and Beth Passmore that are part of our government DHS team that are out there doing the work and they're trying to get people to get involved even though they know what they're asking them to do is going to be complicated, it's going to be difficult, going to be hard. It's not a job for them. It's a calling for them. And Michael Williams would even say that. Our director would say, this is a sacred work,

getting to step into the lives of children and families, maybe in some of their worst days. That's holy ground. And it's something that should be approached with a sense of all, not trite answers and solutions. It's like, hey, God, what do you want to do here? and we recognize this as wholly and potentially restorative and transformational and generations of impact could come from that. That should make us kind of go, okay, like turn our listening ears on before we just start, you know, rattling off what we think is the right answer.

Alex says we're thinking about doing some work together. I honestly have no idea what you guys are up to. You want to tell me what it is? Yeah. I mean, like, one, we want to mobilize more people, you know, together. We, you know, it's fun when you find people that are run in the same direction as you. And so if you can figure out how to partner and collaborate together, and so as you guys rally folks in clubs, you know, in this army of normal folk life,

we're of the same vein, right? Like, we want to do that in Oklahoma. The more, the merrier, I think the more hands are helpful. and so as we can pull together some clubs, leverage the sandbox that's already been created. There's no reason there's not a club in Oklahoma City. Yeah. That being honestly,

Oklahoma City is or Tulsa or both. Yeah. Are perfect places for that. I hope you all pull that. Oh, we can figure that out. A million people in both of those metros. Surely we can find some clubs, right? And, you know, part of what those clubs do is each club kind of choose its own thing.

could be part of the project one than one. And back to this idea that you kind of were even alluding to, these things are all interconnected. They are. Right. I mean, family. They really are.

Family to schools, to child welfare, to criminal justice reform, to mental health, the addiction, right? Like to job and economics, right?

I mean, like, there's so much data that if you pay attention to it, it all overlaps. Yeah. It all connects, reading all of it. Yeah.

And in the same, the same way that, Like, we used to talk about this at our church. Like, if there's a piece of trash in the hallway in the church, whose trash is it? It should be every member, right? Like, how do we pass on ownership to recognize for all of us? Hey, I, like, I'm the closest one.

I should be the first one to pick it up, right? It's not rocket science to figure out where I should help, when I should help. Start with your family. Start with your neighborhood. Start in your community. and look for those pathways to jump in. But don't just walk by that, be like, that's not my problem.

You know, I was going to ask you, what would you tell our listeners about service? But I think you just said it. It's all our problem because if it's, you know, I envisioned what you're saying. And if I was walking around in church and there was a cup spilled over the floor, I would absolutely bend over, pick it up.

If it was in my house, I would bend over and pick it up. Yeah. It was in my yard. I've been over to pick it up. Why is my society not identical to that? We need to bend over and pick up the things that need picking up. That's a really good metaphor.

Hadn't heard that either. I love that. And I think the biggest challenge to that is time, right? There's been studies on this. As we get so maxed out, we get so burnt out, we don't leave any margin to be intentional. And so it takes some intentionality to say, okay, you know what? I've seen that squeaky door on my neighbor's fence for a long time. She could use some help with that, you know?

One of my old coaches used to say quit wine and complacencies for retirement. And now at 58 years old, I'm starting to wonder about what is this retirement people talk about? Because I don't see that. Yeah. It's just more time to be intentional with it, right? That's exactly right. Or do I believe in it? I like the Ken Blanchard line that you don't retire, you refire into something.

There you go. You have a radical vision of wanting to see families waiting on children instead of children waiting on families. And you made a really good point. I would have never thought we would have started Project 101. Why could not, why would not dream of having to see families waiting on children instead of children waiting on families? I have no doubt that if your passion is an indicator of your future success, maybe Oklahoma will be the first day to do that. Chris Campbell, everybody, executive director of

1-1-1 project, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, which is basically Tulsa. Dude, thanks for coming to spend an afternoon with me. Yeah, thanks for your advocacy, your voice, and let's raise up some more people to get in the game. I love it. Let's get a club going in Oklahoma City or Tulsa somewhere.

Do it. All right, buddy. Thank you. And thank you for joining us this week. If Chris Campbell has inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action, by getting involved with Care Portal, the one-one-one project, starting something like it in your community or something else entirely, let me know. I really do want to hear about it.

You can write me anytime at bill at normalfolks.us. I'm telling you guys, I'll respond. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends. Share it on social. Subscribe to the podcast, wherever you're watching or listening to it. from. Raid it, review it, and give us five stars. Join the Army at normalfolks.org. Join or start one of our local service clubs. Take the 10-level challenge. Buy our birch. Any and all of these things that will help us grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.

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