Despite an abusive home, living in foster care, and being adopted only to have his adoptive parents pass away far too soon, Steven has never given up. Today he is a professional athlete and an advocate for foster kids. Whether you are a foster or adoptive parent or spent time in foster care yourself, Steven's story will give you hope.

We're so honored to be featured in the Top 20 Adoption Podcasts on FeedSpot.

Chrystal Smith had a difficult childhood that included brokenness and abuse, but she was not defeated. Instead, Chrystal started an organization that creates opportunities for the community to be a "village" of support for underserved children and families. Through her personal experience and work with Foster Village, Chrystal shows us how we can all come alongside children and families and show them they are not alone.

Keia Jones Baldwin is a proud, strong black woman with experience in adoption, and foster care, and raising children in a multicultural family. So when she got a call for another foster placement Keia didn't hesitate. But when she got to the hospital and the nurse pointed to a little white baby, Keia knew she was embarking on a whole new journey of racism, family, and love.

Having grown up in 12 different homes, sleeping on floors and couches, living in a group home, and eventually aging out of the system, Tori Petersen offers an inside look at growing up in foster care and reminds us that it's never too late to find someone to call family.

Becoming a parent is hard enough, but becoming parents to multiple big kids and teenagers who aren’t much younger than yourself… well, that was a curveball foster parents Emily and her husband Brian didn’t know they would face.

Emily opens up and shares what it has been like fostering teenagers, why they love it, and how it has impacted their biological children. We are confident this podcast will open your eyes to fostering older children!

Welcome back to Around the World with The Archibald Project! My name is Whitney and together with my husband Nick, we started our orphan care advocacy organization, The Archibald Project. We've been working hard to tell inspiring stories about vulnerable children ever since and our goal is to ultimately end the global orphan crisis through storytelling! We believe that the more people who see and hear our stories then the more people who will be inspired to get involved and help end the orphan crisis! 

In today's episode, we have an inspiring conversation with Daniel and Shellee Hyde! Daniel and Shellee went from 0 to 6 kids in just 3 years! They share with us how they made the jump from 0 to 6, and what becoming foster parents was like for them and how it lead to the adoption of 4 of their children! During our conversation, Daniel and Shellee open up and give us a front row seat to what it was like to just show up and be consistent with the kids that came in and out of their care, even when there wasn't certainty or permanency in their journey.

Enjoy our encouraging conversation with foster and adoptive parents, Daniel and Shellee!

Welcome back to Around the World with The Archibald Project! In today's episode we bring you with us into Chinese foster home on the outskirts of Beijing, China!  

Bethel China is a home for visually impaired orphaned and vulnerable children and they are doing wonderful work towards educating and equipping the up and coming generation. A few weeks ago we traveled to China to document the adoption of a 13-year-old boy who is blind and also grew up at Bethel. 

While we were documenting the adoption we were able to sit down with two of the employees of Bethel, Anna and Tabitha and interview them!

In this podcast, we learn why children are abandoned in China, how Bethel's education for visually impaired children is working to keep families together, we help break down some of the fears and preconceived ideas around adopting special needs and/or boys and much more!  

You will be so inspired listening to this podcast, and be sure to stay tuned until the end because Anna and Tabitha give you all ways to get involved with the incredible organization that is Bethel. 

We have continued on from May's National Foster Care month to share even more inspiring foster stories. One huge part of the system are the children who age out without ever finding a forever home. Today we get to talk with one of those children, Carlina Shotwell.

During our time with Carlina we talk about the day when she and her four siblings were separated, the different homes she was placed, the raw emotions she felt and still feels today, her current relationship with her biological mother, and the book she wrote to inform and inspire people about the desire foster youth have for a family! 

Carlina is honest and inspiring; she knows the system was created as a good thing to help children but also wants to shed light on the problems it holds within. This podcast will make you laugh while still informing you of how some youth deal with being placed and passed through foster care. 

Definitely stay through until the end to hear about one of Carlina's recent accomplishments! Sit back, relax, and enjoy our interview with Carlina! 

Certain websites claim that Burkina Faso, a small country in Western Africa, is the 4th poorest country in the world. And where you have extreme poverty, you have vulnerable families and orphaned children, often in excessive numbers. 

This past April we spent 8 days in this desert country, sweating in the 107 degree weather, and learning as much as we could about it's orphan crisis. Now, 8 days may not seem like a lot of time to the average person, but we've spent the last 5 years developing a keen sense and particular knowledge in the world of ethical orphan care. We know the questions to ask and the signs of dishonesty or corruption. So let me say this: The people and organizations we met in Burkina Faso are honest, ethical and incredibly needed. Not they type of "need" that pushes its way into a community, unwelcomed and shouting how to "change", rather these organizations are coming alongside the government, local Burkina Bay leaders and communities and partnering together, hand in hand, and they are doing their best.  Because let's be honest, there's not a lot of aid in this country and people are struggling. 

However, Streams of Burkina Faso has an orphan care portion of their organization and they are raising up the local villagers to foster and care for orphans. They are not an orphanage, rather they find families willing to care for vulnerable children until that child can be safely resettled back with it's biological family! 

For the entire month of May, our orphan care nonprofit, The Archibald Project has been sharing real and raw stories of the U.S. foster care system with the hopes of educating and inspiring you to get involved in the lives of our country’s vulnerable children! So far we’ve brought you blog posts from foster parents, CASA volunteers, babysitters to foster families and podcast interviews with an adult adoptee, a foster care director, a foster care judge and now, to end the month, a foster care father! 

We’ve been sharing new stories every week day on our blog www.thearchibaldproject.com/blog and have had such a wonderful response that we are going to continue the stories into June, so make sure you stick around! 

However, today, we bring you a very insightful conversation with a foster care father by the name of Randy Doleman, who started a nonprofit centered around building community for foster and adoptive families.

In our interview with Randy we hear what made him take the plunge into foster care, what advice he would give parents just entering the foster care, what advice he would give to a friend of a foster family, why he believes community is essential in orphan care and about his amazing nonprofit, The Orphan Care Network!

So sit back, relax and enjoy our time with Randy!

In today’s interview we cover how Judge Martinez Jones actually became a judge, what the legal system is when a child is removed from their home, how the system works with biological families, why family visits and bonding are so important, and how to best approach a loving and healthy relationship with a child of trauma and their biological family. 

In today’s episode we cover what you need to know about the foster care system works, why children are taken from their families, insight on birth parent’s perspectives, some beautiful moments of healing in children of trauma, how you can learn more about fostering in your state and what the first steps are to get more information on foster care!

Around the World with The Archibald Project kicks off National Foster Care Month with an interview with adult adoptee from foster care, Jeanette Jolley. Jeanette takes us through the emotions of growing up knowing she was adopted but not knowing where she came from or her family heritage. Jolly sheds an important light on using your life and skills to advocate for others and even shares about the time she met her birth mom on live T.V. with Richard Simmons. 

Jeanette is a television producer and has worked on shows such as: Emmy award winning Extreme Home Make Over, Blue Collar Millionaires, the CMA Red Carpet and countless others! Jeanette is passionate about using her life to advocate for orphans and vulnerable children and we are so excited to bring you her inspiring interview today!