A Place Called Home: A Conversation with Child Welfare Advocate, David Ambroz

The scene is 1990’s New York City. Young David Ambroz and his two siblings are homeless, sleeping in bus shelters and bathing in public restrooms, under the care of his mentally ill mother. The child he was is still evident in the person he grew up to be: a nationally recognized expert on child welfare, and a staunch supporter of the foster care system. In this episode, we discuss both the horror and the joy of his childhood, landing on a vision of hope for the future that everyone (yes, you!) can help bring into fruition. 

 

Sensitivity note: this episode explores the realities of being a homeless child, which includes brief examples of cruelty, and non-graphic mention of sexual assault. 

In this episode we cover: 

• The terrifying, liberating power of putting your personal story out into the world for everyone to see
• “Occasional angels” and how they helped young David survive the cruelty of his upbringing
• The intersections of mental illness, homelessness, and poverty 
• Why homeless kids need to see themselves in books and movies 
• Beyond fostering: how anyone can take action to create the kind of world where kids are safe and loved and cared for

 

Notable quotes: 

 

“It's all out there now. There's no taking it back. And it is the scariest, most beautiful, important thing I've ever done. It's the most self loving thing I could have done. In trying to help other people, I inherently helped myself.” - David Ambroz

 

“I want you to believe that you can do something. I'm here today because people did. And I want you to believe that you can create another David Ambroz. Together, we could create a system that produces only beautiful children that reach their full potential.” - David Ambroz

About our guest:

 

David Ambroz is a national poverty and child welfare expert and advocate. He was recognized by President Obama as an American Champion of Change. He currently serves as the Head of Community Engagement (West) for Amazon, coordinating with non-profits and community leaders for social good. Previously he led Corporate Social Responsibility for Walt Disney Television, and served as the President of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, and as a California Child Welfare Councilmember. After growing up homeless and then in foster care, he graduated from Vassar and later from UCLA School of Law (J.D.). He is a foster dad and lives in Los Angeles, CA.

 

David is the author of the memoir A Place Called Home, a heart-wrenching yet inspiring story, depicting childhood poverty and homelessness as it is experienced by so many young people. It’s at once a gripping personal account of deprivation—how one boy survived it, and ultimately thrived—and a resounding call from the grown-up David, now a nationally recognized child welfare advocate, for us all to move from empathy to action.

 

Follow David Ambroz on Twitter @DaveAmbroz, on Instagram @hjdambroz, and on LinkedIn

Additional res

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I had an original line that I wrote for the
first chapter, and the reaction I gotten from the publishing
folks that I work with was like, absolutely not, And
I understand why, but it was truly how I felt
that I wanted to start. Here's the line. My name
is Hugh John David Ambrose McMahon. But for the first

(00:22):
five years of my life, I thought my name was
I should have had an abortion. And that's what my
mom would say to me. This is Here After, and
I'm your host, Megan Divine, author of the best selling
book It's Okay that You're Not Okay. This week on Hereafter,

(00:42):
national child welfare advocate and expert, David Ambrose shares the
story of his childhood living on the streets of New
York City and his hopes for a kinder, more supportive
world for everybody, kids and grown ups alike. Grief is
stitched into so much of David's childhood that you're going
to hear in this episode. Joy is in there too,

(01:04):
Settle in Everybody. We'll be right back after this first break.
Before we get started, one quick note. While we cover
a lot of emotional relational territory in each and every
episode this show, is not a substitute for skilled support

(01:24):
with a licensed mental health provider or for professional supervision
related to your work. So unless it's part of your
own personal story, you probably don't think about homeless kids
very often, or the experience of kids in foster care.
The thing is, though, both homelessness and foster care have

(01:46):
a much bigger impact on the world than you might imagine.
Those childhood experiences are often full of loss and grief,
and a lot of that grief goes unspoken. Today's has
so much to say about why that matters, not just
for people who have lived those experiences, but for all

(02:07):
of us. In his new book A Place Called Home,
National poverty and child welfare expert David Ambrose tells the
complicated story of his childhood, including his mother's battle with
parentoid schizophrenia, his early life on the streets of New
York City, and his experience of foster care, which tiny
spoiler alert here was not the saving grace that it

(02:28):
could have been, at least initially. Now, one of the
reasons that I wanted to talk with David and to
share him with you is that he has this like
incredibly beautiful way of telling the truth about all of
those experiences, he knows how to explore the joy that
actually existed right alongside the grief and the horror of
that early life without I don't know, like somehow devolving

(02:51):
into one of those terrible transformation narratives that glorifies suffering.
He's also deeply committed to helping people take action to
create the kind of world where kids are safe and
loved and cared for. And now, as you'll hear in
this week's show, a world where kids are safe and

(03:12):
loved and cared for really does help build the world
that we all want to live in. You're really gonna
love this episode, friends, and I bet you fall in
love with David. David the Kid and David the grown
up advocate the same way that I have. A couple
of content notes for this week show. This episode explores
the realities of being a homeless kid, which includes brief

(03:35):
examples of cruelty both mental and physical, and non graphic
mention of sexual assault. One last thing here, David's on
publicity tour for his new book, which means he's being
asked to tell the details of his personal story over
and over and over and over. I've been on that
media circuit, and I know that that repetition can get
kind of rough on a person, so I like to

(03:56):
avoid asking guests to repeat those personal, painful details whenever
I can. So you're going to hear big parts of
David's personal story in our conversation, but I don't ask
him to summarize his story or his book at the
top of the show. Okay, enough out of me, let's
jump right into my conversation with child wilfare expert David Ambrose.

(04:18):
Here you hey, good morning, good morning. Look at you
all prepared with your giant book thing behind you. Oh
my gosh, what a pleasure. I've been listening to you
all weekend. Oh really, Yes, have you started a lot
of the press yet where you're like, oh my god,
I have to sit through the story again. I just
begun in the last two weeks, and I thought writing

(04:42):
it was the hard part. It's the publicity part and
the excavation that you kind of open yourself up to
in the kind of the intimate, dark corners of your
life that I've just been like, Okay, this is exactly
why I'm doing it. But it's still I get terry
on all these things. Yes, as somebody who now, having
done the media circuit with my own story for ten years,

(05:04):
I still get tier on the regular. So part of
the course here, and this is actually, this is actually
where I wanted to start our conversation to write, like,
so much of your work, even before this book, so
much of your work was about visibility, right, visibility for
homelessness and the foster care system and all of these things.

(05:25):
But I wanted to start with like, Okay, so now
you have this book out and there's a personal aspect
that is visible now. And you mentioned that a little bit,
but like, what's that like for you now that everybody
can pick up this book and read really personal stuff?
I just got chills. And that's not an a typical
reaction for me. I think so many people in my

(05:47):
life have had bits and pieces of my story and
I have otherwise just pushed it down and acknowledged it,
but never really thought about it as something I wanted
to share and great detail. And I'll say it is
very personally that the first people to read it or
my brother and sister, and my brother apologized to me.

(06:09):
He has nothing to apologize to me for, but it
wasn't something that he did it was the pain that
he read and is my older brother and my sister,
who are You're simply supposed to protect you, and we
tried to protect each other. So that was profound, I
would say. The other profound piece has been letting go
of the power that these things had over me. I

(06:31):
think of emotion now as a superpower, and before I
thought of it as a weakness that could get me hurt.
And that made sense when I was a kid, but
it carried on into my late thirties when I was
surrounded by people that I loved, that loved me, and
still I had a barrier. I remember when me too

(06:51):
was royally through Hollywood. I worked in the media business
and entertainment, and I'd be in these rooms or people
are talking about rape and I us inside was dying
and I'm a sis gendered white male and I experienced
rape and I could not talk about it. It's so
much shame. And so how it's been. It's been a

(07:12):
profound feeling of more space. When I breathe, that stuff
is still there, it doesn't have that authority over me,
and putting it all on paper, it's all out there.
There's no pulling it back. Yeah, there's no take baxas
now I drove off the cliff with Elman Louise. It's
just one way now and it is the scariest, most beautiful,

(07:34):
important thing I've ever done, and it's the most self
loving thing I could have done. We'll try and help
other people. I inherently have helped myself by releasing that power.
I love that. That's that is the best possible response.
I didn't even realize I was. I was hoping to
more from you. But but there's there is this thing
about the transformational power of telling a deeply personal story.

(07:57):
Not just to tell this deeply person an old story,
not that there's anything wrong with that, but that there
is a power and an agency we claim back from
those events when we tell that story. And also there's
that time travel element of it, right, Like that, looking
back on it, you see different facets, That lens of
the story gets a little bit larger, right And I

(08:20):
love the liberation that I hear in what you just shared,
the liberation of that too, to really look back at
that kid and that young person and say, like this,
this really shaped me in good ways and in not
so good ways. In the writing course that I run,
I remember when I moved to the West Coast, realizing

(08:42):
that any new people I met would never know my
partner right because he had been dead for five years
when I moved out here, and that that weirdness of
they would never get to know this person, And so
I started writing about how they would know him by
who I had become because of him, right for me,

(09:04):
Like when I'm teaching writing, I'm talking about how do
we know the person you were or the person you've
lost by the shape of them in you? Cool? Right,
And I was thinking about that as I was reading
your work and preparing for our conversation today and wondering
about what do we know about the kid that you were?

(09:25):
What is the shape of that childhood in you today?
Kirst of All, I love the story about your partner
and how people know these people or things that happened
to you by the way that you are today. It's
a really beautiful thought. In the acknowledgements, there are a
number of individuals I call out, and there's one mystery

(09:47):
one and it's h J. D A, which is my
legal name, Hugh John David Ambrose. And when I was
about eight, my mom renamed me be as she had
me circumcised and decided that I was going to become
Jewish because that that was what would make me more successful.

(10:09):
They were more successful as a people, and therefore I
was going to become Jewish. And it almost killed me.
We were we were homeless, I had very little after care,
and I became deathly ill. And I think about that name, Hugh,
and I think about that as one of these critical
moments of my life where there was a before and

(10:31):
there was an after, and before I was not pretty.
We lived in public transportation stations in the park and shelters.
We were starving, but there was a before and in
and amongst all that terrible upbringing was joy. I didn't
go to school. We played, we called the ghetto Tag.

(10:51):
We had adventures all over New York City. But after
that I had to change my identity because my mom
was suffered some mental illness. Decided that I was going
to be a different person. And I became a different
person because I was so violently hurt and experienced something
so so treacherous that it changed me. I think names
have power, and I think about that boy quite often

(11:14):
who he would have been, not just with the circumcision,
but also with what happened after that, the decades of
relentless abuse and violence, but also love, joy, crazy, adventure.
So I see the shape of these things in me.

(11:35):
I think about that boy often. I attended a spiritual
retreat and one of the things you had to do
was you had to write a letter to your childhood self.
No one knew anything about me. People are all on
their own journey. And I wrote a letter of apology
to a twelve year old David who just about was
about to enter foster care, and I wrote, I said,
I'm so sorry for what's about to happen to you,

(11:57):
but you come out the other side. And so I
think about different periods of my life than who that
younger person was. And I'll tell you this. I get
asked quite often, would you change your life? I would
change anything I have had, the most beautiful forest Gump
meets hillbillyology meets precious life, the adventures I've had, the

(12:21):
people I've met, the family I've cultivated and curated. Talking
to you today about this book, how many people write
a book. I love the life that I've loved, as
hard as it is, and I don't even compare pain.
I think about that boy, what he would have to overcome.
But all of us have our own Mount Everest, and
it's it's our own mountain to climb, and so regardless

(12:44):
of who he might have been, he would have faced
something too. But I do think about him. I do
think about the power of the names, and I think
about what I would have wished for this young person,
and I think about that with foster care. Actually had
a lot of my foster care work, I asked people,
close your eyes and picture a child that you love,

(13:05):
your child and niece and nephew, yourself as a child.
What system would you want to take care of that
kid if they had to go into foster care? And
it's the same way I feel about the younger David,
which is you would not want the system we have today,
and we need to address that. We need to identify
with that and really feel what these kids are going through,

(13:26):
these children all over our country. So I love the question,
and I do think about it, and I'm still one
final kind of dark tangent dark tangent Larry to say this,
but hey, just you and me listening and talking. I
had an original line that I wrote for the first chapter,

(13:46):
and the reaction I got from the publishing folks that
I work with was like, absolutely not, and I understand why,
but it was truly how I felt that I wanted
to start. Here's the line. My name is Hugh John
David Ambrose McMahon. But for the first five years of
my life, I thought my name was I should have

(14:09):
had an abortion. And that's what my mom would say
to me. So I think about these younger David's or
Hughes or she sometimes called the other names just because
she wanted to, and who that person would have been,
I don't know. But I love the person that I am.
I love a life that I lead, and I love

(14:29):
the fact that I'm able to just do this project
and share my story hopefully to get people to to
do something to help children like my family. Yeah, and
there's so much in there. You picked up on some
threads that I wanted to get into, which was like
the one the horrors of the system and even the

(14:53):
precursor to that, right, like the realities on the ground
of mental illness and parenting and health care systems and
homelessness and racism, classism, all of all of those things
that go into creating a childhood like yours, creating a

(15:13):
person like you. I think one of the things that
can happen for people is we start talking about these
issues and they one by one the sort of walls
come down because they're like, it's too much, it's too much,
it's too much. I can't close my eyes and picture
a child. I can't close my eyes and picture somebody
I love being put through all of these things. And
as a sort of protective mechanism for our olympic systems

(15:36):
and our hearts, we say, nope, can't think about this. Yeah,
so what do you think we need to change? Is
maybe the wrong word, but how do we get people
to really listen to the truth about child welfare? So
the first place I've started, after working in entertainment media
for decades, is the realization that people are are human,

(16:02):
have emotions that can become overwhelmed, which is what you're describing.
I start with something positive, which I have found very powerful.
We have the best foster care and poverty system ever
invented in human history right here, right now, in the
United States of America. We have the most transparent, equitable
society that we've ever had in our country. Right now,

(16:25):
more kids are taken care of by our system, and
we'll do better than they would have than any other
time in our history. Right now, yes, we must do better.
But if we as a child welfare movement and people
that are empathetic to it constantly screened fire, the walls
that you talked about will come down. And the reality

(16:46):
is is there's a buffet. You don't have to have
every item at the buffet, but you as an individual
can contribute something and take an item from it. I
launched a nonprofit ten plus years ago called Foster More,
and the reason I launched Boston Wore was in looking
at my sisters in the breast cancer movement. I wondered,
how did they go from death and massectomy and half

(17:08):
the species thinking it wasn't their problem to where we
are today, where the research dollars are flowing, where there's
an associated color which has been taken over, where I
can buy a pink car out of that. Totally issues
with that too, But yes, I'm with you, I hear you, Yeah,
and I'm sure absolutely in greenwashing. There's all sorts of

(17:29):
things we could talk about, but I'd rather the pendulum
in that direction, yeah, rather than where we are with
child affair. What I hear you describe, I'm just gonna
interrupt for one second because I can hear people who
are listening going, okay, but the pink washing thing is
a real situation. Yes, yes it is friends, Yes it
is topic for another day. And what I hear you
saying is, let's look at the mechanism of action that

(17:51):
took breast cancer from a not my problem thing that
people were dying of because nobody pays attention to women
and health into something that is so popular a topic
that we've also got problems with its popularity. So what
is the cultural movement? What is that? What is the
culture jamming engine that we can apply to Foster Care.

(18:12):
So now continue so that people are still listening to
you and not being upset about pink washing. No, it's
it's thank you for saying that, and I plan to
adopt some of that. I think we can learn from it,
because talk about an area where people don't think they
have anything to give or contribute, or that it's not
their problem, or it's too overwhelming, or there's no solution.

(18:36):
There is. And so Foster More learned from some of that,
and we really focused on rebranding foster care as something
that you want to be part of, and we did
a number of ways. One was talking to people that
create entertainment shows elevating stories. We created the National Scholarship
Fund for foster you kind of like the Pink Cure fundraising.

(18:57):
You may not be able to foster, but could you
give a dollar to the scholarship fund so kids can
be a vocational education or higher out of any sort.
We created Child Welfare foster Care Friendly Workplace certification so
companies can certify that they love and care about this
population by allowing their employees, for instance, to take time

(19:18):
off when they get a placement. So we've tried to
adopt some of the things we've learned from other movements
where companies and individuals have been able to contribute other
than adopting of fostering, and that has made a big
difference and started to move the needle on it. We've

(19:41):
been talking to David Ambrose, a national poverty and child
welfare expert and all around awesome human. Let's get back
to it. I'll tell you a story. When I was
in postcare, I went through a series of very challenging,
challenging assist to euphemism horrible placements that or physically an
emotionally violent and abusive that rented me out for terrible things.

(20:05):
And I did not think I was gonna make it through.
And I remember I was working as a volunteer at
the y m c A. And I met a woman
and she was the camp director. Her name was Holly,
and y'all can't see it, but right to my left
as a picture of my foster family. And the reason
I happened there about my biological family photo is because Holly,

(20:27):
who was not a foster parent, I saw what I
was going through and spent more than a year hiding
to get me and I her and eventually we did.
So here's a person that I had no no horse
in the race, and she decided this was what she
was going to do. All of us can do something.
We don't all have to be Holly. I think about

(20:50):
l A. If anyone's ever been l A, you'd drive
down the freeway and there's a car accident and your
your two things at once. You're piste off that it's
slowing down traffic and you're hopeful that everyone's okay, and
they are in competition because we're human and we're awful
and beautiful. That car accident is the condition of children,
and the reality is is that no one is getting

(21:11):
out of their car, and we have to because either
we pay now or we pay later, both in economic
and moral terms. So I strongly believe you may not
be able to be holly. But instead of asking someone
what they did that weekend, can you donate your small talk?
Can you talk about children and poverty? Can you look

(21:32):
at free fun facts and say, hey, did you know
seven hundred kids entered foster care this weekend. I love
that you brought up donate your small talk because I
saw that on the foster care website. I was like,
I want to talk about donate your small talk, and
I actually used it in conversation yesterday, which I will
tell you about in a second. But I think I
think what you're you know, where you're going with this
is like if we really start feeling into it, thinking

(21:55):
about it, becoming aware of all of these issues and
problems in the suffering involved in so many different levels
of it, there is the temptation to just say I'm
not interested in fostering kids for whatever reason, and then
that's the end of it. Sort of like, there's this, Okay,
there's one yet one more disaster in the world for

(22:18):
which I am helpless, right, and nobody likes that feeling
of helplessness that we try to like not look at it.
But I also love that you brought in Look this,
this is not just a foster care issue. If we're
looking at racism, classism, sexism, violence, incarceration, rates, homelessness, Like
all all of the things that we look at as

(22:41):
problems and challenges in modern culture, so many of them
begin in childhood. So many of them begin in suffering
an abuse and neglect and torture and economic instability, like
all of these things bill this culture that we have,

(23:02):
and we we have to find in roads to start
talking about them. Otherwise we just collapse in despair. And
that while it has its merits for an afternoon, collapsing
into despair like that doesn't build the world that we want.
I think for a lot of folks, foster care is
just not it doesn't make it into the top ten
issues that they're thinking about, when in reality, it is

(23:25):
one of the top ten foundational things that build the
world that we have. So I what I love about
I'm going to tell you what it means in a second. Everybody,
but the donate your small talk thing. What I love
about that one from an artistic point of view, like
I love culture jamming, it is my favorite, and too.
Getting people to be curious about an issue is the

(23:50):
biggest hurdle in a lot of ways, and I love
how you describe that that, Like, if we can get
you curious, then you can find ways that you can
be of service to act on your own personal agency
to create the world that you want. And it doesn't
have to mean that you have to add on three
more bedrooms to foster more kids, right. There are lots

(24:11):
of different ways to get involved with that. So the
if you go to well we'll link it in the
show notes, everybody, but the if there's a video on
the nonprofit website that shows you, like a really cute
interaction of I think it's a it's a person in
an uber and the uber driver says, wow, crazy about
those foster kids stats huh or something like that, and

(24:34):
the woman in the back goes huh, and he goes, yeah,
seven kids a day coming into foster care. And the
look on the person's face, you know, the rider in
the car as they just like they become curious and
horrified about it in that moment. And it's not a
weird interchange, you know, like it doesn't last very long.
But I love this idea that like we all have

(24:57):
these kind of awkward, small talky kind of moments. I
invoked it yesterday. I was sitting with a friend and
we were talking about voter rights and voter registration and
how to get younger people to register to vote and
show up at voting polls. She actually said, I figure,
any time there's an opportunity for small talk, I'm going
to talk about voter registration. So she did that mechanism

(25:18):
of action that culture jamming on onto one basis, and
it was so cool, and I got to bring you
in and say, hey, there's actually a really great video
about this. So anyway, total culture jamming nerdy detour there,
but we will totally get in the show notes everybody.
And and this is I think this is really an
important thing here. So much of what I tend to
talk about is like that fire hose of overwhelming things

(25:40):
that need attention and how do we how do we
find in roads into those things, and how do we
help people care and how do we how do we
help people understand that that feeling that comes up when
you read your book or when you really dive into
what it's like to be a homeless child in this culture,

(26:01):
in this country, when those feelings come up, you can
actually do something with those feelings. I have a whole
series of these campaign ads and they're hilarious, and they're
on my website David Ambrose dot com. You can see
all of them, and we have a new round coming
out too. And the reason I created them is because
when have you ever seen a foster care or child

(26:22):
poverty p s A that's funny and and so I've
learned from other movements that humor is one of the ways,
in addition to other tactics, to get to people's heart.
The reality is to more than two thirds the kids
coming into foster care in different systems are there because
of quote neglect, which is a euphemism for poverty, which
is a euphemism for racism and classism. So we can

(26:47):
remove two thirds of young people roughly by supporting their families,
by having whole communities that have not a poverty of opportunity,
but an embarrassment of riches of opportunity with you know,
recreation space, positive schools that are healthy, non food deserts,
parents that have the skills they need and if they don't,

(27:08):
will help them mental illness that's treated. Instead of taking
your kids away and spending whatever it is four dollars
a year, we can work with the families to preserve
them and negate the need and really focus on the
kids that need to be removed. That is not asking
anybody to do anything but center children and families and

(27:29):
their politics. To have the conversation to be like, hey,
does my accounting removed two thirds of the kids because
of neglect. Ask that at the county supervisor meeting. Asked
that to your assembly person when they do their town halls.
We're not asking to foster necessarily, but could you start
to center this in your politics? And I think there's
a real opportunity people could donate that talk, which we

(27:50):
can all do, and also just use humor and intelligence.
Have fun. When you get into the elevator and someone
asked you how your weekend was, no one actually cares.
No one cares. No one cares about your kids, No
one cares if you had for lunch, No one cares
what you thought about the movie, but if you could
use that time to talk about this issue, and that's
one of the offshoots of foster More is, in addition

(28:12):
to changing the stories that get told by movies and TV,
can we change the narrative in the public conversation so
that you don't run away screaming from this topic. Because
you're right, you said it's so beautifully Foster care is
not a root problem. Foster care is a symptom of
the failure of all the other social welfare shafety net
programs that have failed. We capture the children who, through

(28:35):
no fault of their own, are here because these other
systems have been hacked to death, being underfunded, public schools,
social workers, are too many kids, whatever it is, and
this unique moment, we all can do something to create
the system we would want for our own children. The
afterward of my book A Place Called Home, is a
prescription for the some of the things that I believe

(28:58):
would change the outcome for these children. Uh And and
the reason I made the afterward not a flash forward
of where I am today, but a policy prescription is
the exact reason you're asking when we started talking, is
why I wrote the book which is to move people
from empathy to action, whatever that action is. Action. Yeah,

(29:19):
I love this. I love this idea of empathy and
action being partners, right, and that that is the antidote
to overwhelm Right. I also really really adore that we're
talking about foster care as an end result of system failure.
This is what I love about this work is we

(29:39):
get to talk about the patterns, the bigger systems, the
web that we are all part of that creates these
sort of hot flash moments of like, oh, this terrible
story about foster care, Oh, this terrible story about whatever
else is up today. Right, That these are not issues
that happened in a vacuum. There are issues that happen

(30:02):
in the culture, in the networks, in the safety nets
or lack of safety nets that we build and that
we pay attention to and we talk about and we
fund and we vote for. It all comes down to
one kid in one place at one time, living this story,
and that child sitting inside a system that created his life.

(30:25):
I see why you do this for a living. You're
incredibly eloquent. I think all of us have the capability
to do big things. I think we as a society
have gotten to this place where we don't believe we can,
where we can barely build subways. We all just kind
of accept it as it is. I don't accept it.
I I always think about a coin. When you flip

(30:48):
a coin, there's heads or tails, right, it's actually a
third side when it lands on its side, called equipoise.
And I think of society as an equipoise where it
is a collective delusion. And thank God, but we get
to create that world every single day with our actions
or inactions, and I think all of us can do something.

(31:09):
If we can send a person to the moon, No
child should be homeless in this country. No child. We
just make that decision, and we get to decide that,
and then we get to manifest that by our political
power and voting once every four years is not a democracy,
make showing up asking questions. There's so many school districts

(31:31):
where we know as young as eight to twelve that
these kids will not graduate high school. We know, we
statistically know. How are we not doing everything we can
to make sure that they do? How? And we can't
put that on the educators either, because the educators are
doing everything they can with a system that doesn't support them.
You can't pluck one piece out of this without making

(31:53):
the whole web reverberate, right, And it's like I think
those those conversations often go to like, teachers need to
do Okay, you need to act the hell off a
teachers everybody, And let's let's get schools, schools and libraries right, Like,
let's get schools and libraries supported to do the work
the social work that they are already doing. Schools have

(32:15):
become health clinics, mental health centers, feeding programs, guidance counselors,
family integration therapists. We have asked schools without giving them
the resources to do so much more than we created
them for. And then we're collectively shrugging our shoulders been wire.
Schools in trouble. Schools are in trouble because why are

(32:36):
teachers quitting? Well, yeah, let's ask some teachers. My sisters
was a sourceworker from were almost fifteen years and I
remember asking her how she would describe her job, and
she she said, paperwork occasionally punctuated by interacting with kids. Absolutely.
So we create these systems and we overwhelm these people,
and then when we underfund them like foster care, and

(32:57):
they have bad outcomes, we pointed it and go look
out tear of the outcomes. So I go back to
the positivity, which is where I truly feel because in
any other time, in any other place, I would not
be talking to you. I would be a statistic dead
in jail or something. We can do this. I strongly
believe it, and I also believe that the American public

(33:17):
in general is good, especially on issues as it pertains
to kids. I talk about closing your eyes and envisioning
that system. When I close my eyes, I cannot see
your political party. I strongly believe that kids in these
situations are a place where we can come together and
create a more holistic system. Foster care is ironically and

(33:38):
uniquely a place of bipartisanship. Donald Trump signed one of
the most important bills, and Foster Care Reform, which allowed
for the first time, money to be spent to preserve families.
It was buried in this other bills, but it passed.
Bill Clinton signed the first bill, spending money on eighteen

(34:00):
US for foster kids that were leaving so they didn't
become almost automatically, this issue can bring us together. We
can solve big things, and we can stop that intergenerational
poverty and violence. You may not be able to foster,
but can you give a damn? Can you talk about it?
Can you post that video? Can you just do something
to contribute to the conversation, Because when you look around,

(34:22):
you're going to pay for it. You're gonna pay on
your taxes, You're gonna pay in your morality. However you
calculate your it's important to you. The bill will come
do and we don't want to pay that. We want
to do better, and I believe we can, and I
believe we've steadily improving. But the reason I'm sharing this
story is to go even further. I've had this forest
Gump life, to have the connections, capability, education, to share

(34:45):
my story to inspire people to do things. I'm so
fortunate for that. And it didn't follow me like an apple,
like I carved it. Be that as it may. Opportunity
met accident, and I am here today because of the system.
So I'm trying to get people to be a little
bit more lean into the forwardness of it. Take whatever
action you can. Here's some ideas, and let's do it together. Yeah,

(35:09):
So we've we've talked about the book as a way
to lead people from your story into action? Right? What
do we do as adults with resources of whatever those
resources look like. So we've talked about that, and one
of the things that I want to come back to
is the power of your story for kids. You write

(35:35):
on your website about finding hope and libraries, right, And
I'm gonna I'm gonna assume that this is not just
the physical space but also stories, right, And what I
want to know is, what is the power for you
in telling the truth about the horrors and joy of
your life as a child. What is the power in

(35:58):
that story for kids who are living a similar horror
story today? Well, first, we say about libraries just like schools,
they become homeless shelters, they become cooling centers, they become
new immigrant education centers, and yet we just whittle away
their support. I would be that libraries, I would stay

(36:20):
warm and cold. I tell a story in the book
where I didn't go to school and I learned to
read at the library, and I I went to one
story time and the librarian picked up a book and
I was hoping it was James and the Giant Peach
because I had heard the start of that story at
another library, and I was dying to hear the rest

(36:41):
of it. But she read Where the Sidewalk Ends, and
if you're familiar with that book, it opens so beautifully.
And my book opens actually with the discussion of sidewalks
in New York City, because when you're cold and walking
as a child, you try to distract yourself to not
feel everything you're feeling. And I would look down at

(37:01):
the sidewalk and I would see the ones with mica
or the slabs and the bowery, and you just see
all this diversity. And she pulled that story out in
the middle of me having this life, And as she
was beginning to talk, this mother came up and stood
in front of me, and her son was stening next
to me, and she basically said, you know you're filthy,
get away from my son. And to her credit, I was,

(37:24):
I'm sure I had life. I'm sure I smelt. I
probably hadn't showered in an eon. And I was so mortified.
And this librarian came over and she smoothed it all out,
and I moved a little bit, and I heard the story,
and she read that poem the opening of that book,
which like It's burnt into my mind. I am here

(37:46):
today because of sleeping on subway cars from one end
of their their route to the other. I am here
today because librarians. That one snuck a candy bar into
my bag, which was a thank you Bodega bag plastic
thank you Bodega bag. So they're just critical infrastructure. And
as I was thinking about this book, I really thought

(38:06):
about the stories I would tell in order to get
it into many hands as possible. How young could I
still share the truth but also not alienate people that
would not want to necessarily share this book with young people.
So I really aimed for like a middle school age
where our kids are experiencing real things right now, we
all know it. I wanted to share the stories of

(38:28):
that kids like me saw themselves, not in some sort
of cute book like Harry Potter, which I love. He's
a kinship foster kid if you think about it, live
with his relative as kinship foster care. But what really
goes on. I wanted to see themselves reflected and in
sharing that truth, to give them actual hope, not a

(38:49):
candy high, but an authentic hope that they too will
come out the other end through perseverance and So I
shared my story not just for the you and me
and adults who vote, but to get into the hands
of young people that may be experiencing any element of
this poverty, families with mental illness, violence, deprivation, instability, foster care,

(39:13):
failing schools, whatever it may be, that they will see
their story in there and bear a little bit hope.
So I think sharing your story is a powerful way
to change politics, but it's also hopefully reaching people like
myself that never saw themselves in these books. Regardless of
the Catcher in the Rye, all these great books. As
a kid, I never read about a foster kid, a

(39:36):
homeless kid that lived in Grand Central or the Park,
And what does it mean to take a shower at
a fast food restaurant in the bathroom and get chased
out and feel disgusting to not have healthcare? And so
I wanted stories to be there so that a kid
who picks up this book or has given this book
by a social worker or a teacher who sees them,

(39:58):
that they feel just a little bit of that hope
that I was really so hungry for and so desperate
for it so many times in my life. So I
hope adults read it. I hope it changes policy, hearts
and minds. I hope it gets in the hands of
young people who really need this. That's that's part of
what I hope has happened here. So teachers, if you're listening,

(40:22):
I know you better than anybody else, are going to
see these kids, what's going on their lives. Please make
sure they give this book. You kind of jumped right
into how I've been closing every conversation this season, which
is a conversation about hope. One of the things that's
been really cool for me having these conversations. Everybody seems
to come around to Hope so far, every single person

(40:46):
I've spoken to, and we I haven't told y'all ahead
of time that this is what we're going to talk about,
but I think we're really tapping into something here that
there is so much disaster and so much beauty, and
so much overwhelmed and so much we want for this world,
that those desires, those thoughts, those stories seem to just

(41:11):
by their own natural rhythm, end up at the doorstep
of Hope. You brought us there, And I'm I'm stammering
a bit here, everybody, because the that story about what
Hope really means. Hope isn't a pang of fluffy bunny
the way that it often gets sold to us in
the media and in books. Hope is this right, like

(41:33):
hope is seeing yourself reflected in something truly horrible, so
that you have hope for something that surrounds that horror.
There are so many moments in the book and in
my life. I call them occasional angels. Yeah, I tell
the story in the book of Robbing Holmes Survive. We're

(41:56):
hustling people, and people that I was thinking that I
was ripping off would give me more money than needed
to pay for the rapid paper I was selling door
to door because they saw me. Hope was when the
church in the book let Us Sleep in a linen closet.
Hope was Holly rescuing me from the brink. Hope was

(42:21):
Gabrielle in the book when I committed fraud on an
exchange program grant application and got emancipated and moved to
Spain at seventeen, And Gabriella was this mother bear who
helped rebuild a human out of pieces that built on
what Holly started. Hope was a secretary whose son worked

(42:44):
for the Clintons who got me a White House internship
that then plugged me into national politics and policy. Hope
was my foster son, who at thirty seven, taught me
that my feelings and emotions are a superpower and taught
me to be open and free with that, which allowed
me to write this book, which hopefully will add hope
to other people's lives. I think we're all just innately

(43:09):
hopeful and beautiful. Every day us as humans go home
to our families all over the world, and we do
our lives, and they may be hard, but we do them.
I think about l a like four points something million
people got home last night and just had dinner and
did whatever. Doesn't mean they don't struggle. But there's so
much beauty in the world. And I have had the

(43:29):
occasional angel in my life so many times that here
I am talking to you. I try and paid forward.
I try to be an agent of that. How could
you not be hopeful? That's how I feel. My therapist
a couple of years ago, I described as I was
starting to deal with my emotion, said, David, you have

(43:51):
taken all of these things that have been thrown at you,
and you put them in a clear plastic box, and
you label them and you put them in the index box.
You know exact see where they are, and you can
see them, but you don't have to feel them. He said,
your shelf broke, your boxes are coming off all that
old trauma, and your coping mechanism is God. You can't

(44:13):
put anything on there. And the way that I've been
able to move through all that process and deal with
it and find a new way to deal with life
is hope. Is to realize I am buried in love
all around me, by my found family, by my biological family.
I care for my mom today, my biological mom, the
very woman who's at the root of his book. I hope.

(44:34):
I'm just gonna admit it. I pray. I wish I
could talk to my mom for an hour without the
mental illness. I think about what we would talk about,
and I hope that she finds some peace in her days,
because God, that's a prison. He feels so much hope

(44:55):
in my life. I hope people read the Day of
book and do something. Read the book, take action, Yes,
how could do not hope. I'm just check filed. I'm
over I'm overflowing with hope. Your hope cup runneth over. Indeed,
I love this. You're holding up a vision of hope
for Okay, at least me to walk into. Thank you

(45:18):
for that. All Right, this has been an amazing conversation.
I am so glad we got a chance to talk.
Obviously we're going to link to everything in the show notes.
But what do you want? What do you want to
leave people with? David? Where should they find you? What
do you want them to do? How do you want
them to donate their small talk? What do you want
people to know? First? Before the business? You have power

(45:44):
whoever you are, to do something, and when we do
it together, it's even bigger power. But you have power.
You're looking around waiting for someone to save whomever or
whatever you are that person. That's we have to realize.
That's why I want you to do. I want you
to go to my website David Ambrose dot com, which

(46:05):
links to the p S a S that you're talking
about to donate your small talk. It links to Foster More,
which is my nonprofit which has a ladder of engagement
from simple small steps like we talked about, how do
you become a COSA, a special volunteer or a foster
parent or adopt. It has that all laid out. It
also lets you purchase my book, A Place called Home. Um.

(46:28):
I also read the audio book. So if you like
my voice and enjoy the journey, encourage you to do that.
I want people to get involved. My book is a lens.
I hope it inspires people. But I want to go
back to the first thing I said. I want you
to believe that you can do something. I am here
today because people did, and I want you to believe
that you can create another David Ambrose, and together we

(46:51):
could create a system that produces only beautiful child and
that reach their full potential. Thank you, David. All right, everybody,
we'll be right back during this last week. Don't go anywhere.
Each week I leave you with some questions to carry

(47:13):
with you until we meet again. This season has a
running theme, and sometimes it is more obvious in some
episodes than it is in other episodes. But this season
is all about hope, finding it, losing it, redefining it,
fighting for it in these weird, personal, uncollective times. And
you know it really struck me in my conversation with

(47:34):
David was how easily and naturally he jumped into hope
to keep your eyes open to so much pain, so
much complicated pain, so much complex pain of the world,
and to come out with a kind of unshakable hope
that David has. It's just really cool. Which parts of
the conversation stuck with you today? What parts made you

(47:57):
think or cry? David and I actually you spent a
lot of time just sitting in silence crying together, which
you don't hear in this episode, but it was in there.
What parts made you feel empowered to do something about
the pain of the world, whether that's your pain or
someone else's. Let me know, everybody's going to take something

(48:19):
different from today's show, but I do hope you find
something to hold onto. As you heard David say, talking
about this difficult stuff really does make a difference. And
we would love to hear from you about what you've
taken from this episode, or really about anything at all.
Check out Refuge in Grief on Instagram or here after
Pod on TikTok. Yes we are on TikTok now to

(48:43):
see video clips from the show and to leave your
thoughts in the comments on those posts. We do read
the comments to be sure to tag us when you
share the show on your own social accounts, use the
hashtag here after pod on all of those platforms. We
love to see where this show takes you. If you
want to tell us how today's show felt for you,
or you have a request or a question for upcoming

(49:05):
explorations of difficult things that we'll do on the show,
give us a call three to three six three eight
and leave a voicemail. If you missed it, you can
find the number in the show notes, or visit Megan
Divine dot c O. If you'd rather send an email
with your thoughts or your questions, you can do that too,
right on the website Megan Divine dot c O. We

(49:27):
want to hear from you. I want to hear from you.
This show, this world needs your voice. Together, we can
make things better even when they can't be made right.
You know how most people are going to scan through

(49:48):
their podcast app looking for a new thing to listen to.
They're going to see the show description for Hereafter and think,
I don't want to listen to difficult things even if
cool people are talking about them. Well, here's where you
coming your youse. Let people know it really isn't all
that bad in here We talk about heavy stuff, but
it's in the service of making things better for everyone.
So everyone needs to listen. Spread the word in your workplace,

(50:11):
in your social world, on social media, in your friend groups,
or as David says, donate your small talk, and also
click through the Leaver review of the show, subscribe to
the show, download episodes, keep on listening all the things
you want more Hereafter. The grief education doesn't just belong
to end of life and death issues. As my dad says,

(50:34):
daily life is full of everyday grief that we don't
call grief. Learning how to talk about all that without
cliches or platitudes or simplistic dismissive statements is an important
skill for everyone. Find trainings, professional resources, and my best
selling book, It's Okay that You're Not Okay. Plus The
Guided Journal for Grief at Megan Divine dot c O.

(50:58):
Hereafter with Megan Divine is written induced by me Megan Divine.
Executive producer is Amy Brown, co produced by Elizabeth Fossio,
Logistical and social media support from Micah, and edited by
Houston Tilly. Music provided by Wave Crush, background noise occasionally
provided by Luna and the Leaflowers is the realization that

(51:22):
people are human. You have emotions that can become overwhelmed,
which is what you're describing. So so I'm not sure
we understand either Syria and Irish accent. I can't help it.

(51:43):
I love it.