As always, we were fortunate to have some amazing guests join us this year on The Imprint Weekly Podcast. In this episode we feature clips of 12 great interviews from 2025. If you enjoy this podcast, or the great work our reporters do at The Imprint and Fostering Families Today, and the work that our Youth Voices Rising team does, please consider making a donation. And if you do so this month, during Newsmatch, your donation will get doubled! Fostering Media Connections is very lucky to...

We will post our annual “Best of The Imprint Weekly Podcast” show next, but this is the last new episode of 2025. Frequent guest Marina Nitze, a child welfare and tech expert, joined to discuss the flurry of federal activity on child welfare since the end of the federal shutdown. Marina Nitze is a crisis engineer helping organizations solve mission-critical challenges, with a particular focus on improving America’s child welfare system. She’s co-author of Crisis Engineering and Hack You...

On this week's episode, Imprint reporter Michael Fitzgerald was in Washington last week to interview Alex Adams, who was confirmed in October to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Family Support at the Administration for Children and Families. Fitzgerald asked Adams about a wide range of subjects. They discussed the administration’s goal of “A Home for Every Child” and how Adams plans to achieve that; how and why he plans to "barbecue" much of the regulatory language for states when it come...

On this week’s podcast Maddy Day of Maddy Day and Associates joins to talk about what it takes to provide stability on college campuses for youth who have experienced aging out of foster care, homelessness or both. She is helping to coordinate a Congressional briefing planned for 2026 on the subject. It’s Newsmatch season! Please consider donating to support this podcast and the incredible work that our Imprint reporters do every day. If you donate this month, your contribution will be ...

President Trump’s White House event announcing an executive order on foster care got a lot of attention. But it is not the only indicator of what the administration might have in mind for policy making in child welfare during his second term. We dive into the specifics of the executive order and several other interesting announcements from Trump’s team, then step back and try to describe the big picture. It’s Newsmatch season! Please consider donating to support this podcast and the inc...

In this powerful season finale, Ivory reflects on a transformative year—motherhood through kinship adoption, buying her first home, navigating love, and preparing for preventive surgeries after testing BRCA2+. Joined by spiritual healer and author Lorna J. Hines, she explores faith, ancestry, and healing beyond appearance. This conversation offers gentle truth: you can struggle and still be sacred. You can ache and still be anointed. And you, too, deserve good things.

Barry Cooper is founder of the BRO Experience, a Brooklyn-based organization that uses cognitive behavioral therapy at the center of its approach to mental health support for young men of color. He is among this year’s winners of the David Prize, which each year goes to five New Yorkers with an extraordinary idea for change. Cooper joined us to discuss his own adolescence growing up in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, and how his first early career as a barber informed his app...

On today’s episode we discuss some of the recent Imprint reporting on how the federal shutdown is impacting youth and family programs like food stamps and Head Start, and one state where the shutdown has prompted gatekeeping of child welfare services. We also review the child welfare priorities hinted at in a Journalist and author Nell Bernstein joins to discuss her new book In Our Future We Are Free: The Dismantling of the Youth Prison. We talked about her goals for the book, what the ...

Latonia Rolbiecki, a Minnesota mother of three, died last month at the age of 48. Several years ago, Rolbiecki was the subject of an Imprint series about her fight to adopt her grandson after he was taken into foster care at birth. Rolbiecki lost that legal battle, and her grandson was adopted by non-relative foster parents. On this week’s episode we reflect back on the series, “Latonia vs. Chisago County,” and what her experience reflects about the child welfare system. We ...

In this episode of InnerViews, Ivory sits down with Realtor Joy Hill and Mortgage Banker David McGowan to discuss her journey to becoming a first-time homeowner—while navigating adversity, foster care advocacy, and single motherhood. Together, they unpack the realities of accessible homeownership, financial literacy, and breaking generational cycles. This episode is both informative and deeply personal, reminding us that building a home isn’t just about property—it’s about planting roots for ...

On this week’s episode we present the second part of our career-spanning interview with Vinny Schiraldi, currently a visiting fellow with the Pinkerton Foundation. In part one we talked with Schiraldi about his formative years in youth justice and his first job leading a government agency. We start part two with a job Schiraldi actually didn’t get: leading the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention for the Obama administration. Then we turn to his time leading New York Ci...

On this week’s episode we begin a two-part in-depth interview with Vinny Schiraldi, a firebrand for justice reform whose career has included leadership on alternatives to incarceration, advocacy, and government leadership. In part one we talk to Schiraldi, now a fellow with the Pinkerton Foundation, about his own formative impressions of the justice system as an adolescent growing up in Brooklyn. Then we discuss his first job working at a New York group home for delinquent youth, and the chan...

On this week’s Headlines edition of Imprint Weekly Podcast, we discuss the implications of the government shutdown, the newest federal data on foster care, and promising research on home visiting programs. We also talk about recent headlines about the rollback of youth justice laws in D.C., chronic absenteeism in Georgia, and a college president looking to make his campus more supportive of foster youth. Reading Room Trump, Kids and Families: Register for Free https://us02web.zoom.us/we...

In this powerful episode of InnerViews, Destiny Jackson shares her journey of navigating foster care, homelessness, and life with Type 1 diabetes—all while pursuing her dreams at Spelman College. From overcoming systemic barriers to advocating for healthcare equity and child welfare reform, Destiny’s story is one of courage, resilience, and unapologetic hope.

On this week’s episode we talk to Gretchen Sisson, a sociologist studying abortion and adoption. Sisson’s research on mothers who choose to relinquish their rights into private adoptions led to her writing Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood. We talked about that research, her book, and what both experiences have led her to believe about the framework and very existence of adoption in America. Gretchen Sisson is a qualitative sociologist study...

On this week’s episode we talk with Claudia Rowe, one of the true veteran journalists in the child welfare and youth justice space. We talked about her experiences covering both systems in New York and in Washington State, but focused on her recently published book Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care. Claudia Rowe is a member of the Seattle Times editorial board, and has reported for decades on youth and family services for the New York Times, Huffington Post and...

On this Headlines edition of the podcast, we start by talking about recent Imprint coverage that examines the on-the-ground impact of recent Trump policies and actions. We also cover new research about foster youth access to both medication and therapy, and Texas’ recent policy update to define what does not count as neglect. We also dive into some more recent Imprint reporting on hidden foster care, aging out, and a class-action lawsuit. Reading Room ‘Fast, Sudden, Unexplainable and Po...

In this episode of InnerViews, we sit down with Lakievia to explore her powerful story of resilience, transformation, and advocacy. From navigating the juvenile justice system to becoming a fierce champion for youth, she reveals how cycles can be broken through restorative justice, trauma-informed care, and community support. Tune in for an inspiring conversation on healing, hope, and rewriting the narrative for the next generation.

On this Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we start with news of out Washington, D.C., including the confirmation hearing for Trump’s child welfare nominee; the lack of grants available on juvenile justice; and several actions related to immigration policy and youth. We also discuss several recent stories from The Imprint on adoption assistance and out-of-state placement, a survey of Indigenous foster youth, and an increase in homeless families in Georgia. Reading Room “St...

On this week’s episode, Michael Tanana of Lyssn, joins us to talk about artificial intelligence, or AI, in the child welfare system. Tanana helped found Lyssn, which uses AI to help assess the quality of various services in a way that used to require painstaking transcription and notetaking. We talked about starting an AI company in this space and also about his views around the ethical application of it in a system where the integrity of families is often on the line. Michael Tanana i...