Fostering Change
Comfort Cases founder Rob Scheer hosts this inspiring show about how communities can come together to bring dignity and hope to children in the foster care system. Guests will include former youth in foster care, foster parents, celebrities touched by the foster care system, child welfare advocates, and everyday people working to improve the lives of kids in care. Rob brings a sense of positivity and humor to his conversations. If you have a story to tell as it relates to foster care or any questions, please email fosteringchange@comfortcases.org. And please follow Comfort Cases @comfortcases. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
This week on Fostering Change, host Rob Scheer welcomes Tracey Heisler, Executive Director of CASA of Somerset, Hunterdon, and Warren Counties (CASA SHaW) in New Jersey.
CASA—Court Appointed Special Advocates—ensures that children in the child welfare system have a voice in the courtroom and access to the support they need to thrive.
With nearly two decades of leadership at CASA SHaW, Tracey shares:
💬 How CASA changes lives: ...
Welcome to a special Best of Edition of Fostering Change! Originally aired during National Foster Care Awareness Month, this powerful conversation is worth revisiting.
In this episode, host Rob Scheer sits down with the incredible Charell Star—author, speaker, and foster care advocate. Many first discovered Charell through her moving feature in Humans of New York. Now she returns to share wisdom from her brilliant new book, Tras...
Welcome to this week’s episode of Fostering Change, hosted by Rob Scheer. 💙
Today’s guest is Dr. Danisha Keating—author, speaker, and former foster youth whose journey from heartbreak to healing is nothing short of extraordinary. At just 16, CPS workers separated her from her eight siblings and handed her a trash bag with five minutes to pack her life. By 24, she became the guardian of her five younger siblings, choosing resili...
What started with one simple question—“What can I do with my old bras?”—turned into a global movement. 🌍
In this inspiring episode of Fostering Change, host Rob Scheer is joined by Dana Marlowe, founder of I Support the Girls and Accessibility Partners. Dana’s work provides dignity to marginalized women and youth through access to bras, new underwear, and menstrual hygiene products.
Together, Dana and Rob discuss:
✨ How to st...
Today is International FASD Awareness Day, a day that deserves our full attention. On this powerful episode of Fostering Change, host Rob Scheer is joined by Patricia (Patti) Kasper, a Neurobehavioral Coach and Trainer who discovered she had FASD as an adult.
Patti’s story is one of resilience and advocacy. After learning about her diagnosis, she shifted her work to focus on the 15 million U.S. adults living with undiagnosed FAS...
Welcome to Season 7 of Fostering Change!
Believe it or not, this is our 243rd episode — and it’s all thanks to YOU and your support. Starting this season, new episodes will drop every Tuesday, just like you requested!
👉 We’d love your help: after watching/listening, please leave a review. It takes just a minute and makes a huge difference with the “mysterious algorithm,” helping us share our incredible guests with even more ...
Welcome to our final Best of Summer episode of Fostering Change! 🌟 Next week kicks off Season 7 (premiering Tuesday, September 2) and—by popular demand—we’re back to WEEKLY episodes.
This week, Rob Scheer is joined by:
👩💼 Jennifer Perry – Co-Founder of FosterMore & Executive Director of Children’s Action Network
📚 Lara Love Hardin – FosterMorey Award Winner & New York Times bestselling author of The Many Lives of Mama...
"When good people get together, great things happen." – Jamie Truman
In this Best of Fostering Change episode, Rob Scheer sits down with Jamie Truman of Truman Charities, an organization dedicated to helping both local and national charities — including Comfort Cases — by hosting multiple fundraising events each year. The best part? 100% of the funds raised go directly to the charities they support.
Over the past 15 years, Jamie ...
Welcome back to a special Best of Fostering Change episode!
This week, we revisit a powerful conversation originally aired in March, featuring two changemakers in the world of child welfare and LGBTQ+ advocacy: Kate Trambitskaya, CEO of Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children, and Brian Rosenberg, founder of GWK Academy Family Building.
Join host Rob Scheer for an honest and urgent discussion about how federal cutbacks ar...
Happy July and welcome back to a Best Of episode of Fostering Change! In this lively and heartwarming conversation, host Rob Scheer reconnects with fan-favorite Doogie Sandtiger, also known as The Croc King — a man with a passion for comfort and color who has collected over 3,000 pairs of Crocs.
You may have seen Doogie on The Today Show or follow him on social media. But beyond the viral Croc fame, Doogie's story is deeply pers...
BEST OF SEASON 6 — As we close out Season 6 and gear up for Season 7 of Fostering Change, we’re highlighting some of our most powerful conversations from the past year. With over 220 episodes behind us, we’re grateful to every guest and listener who has helped us grow this platform into what it is today.
In this featured episode, Rob Scheer is joined by guest co-host Rita Soronen, CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, ...
Welcome to the Season 6 FINALE of Fostering Change! 🎉
What an incredible season it's been — filled with inspiring, motivating, and heartfelt stories. THANK YOU for being part of our journey, for tuning in each week, and for all your comments and reviews. We do this for YOU. 💙
📅 Coming Soon:
Starting June 17, join us for our "Best of" Summer Series — a special collection of our favorite episodes. Whether you’re re-listening ...
Welcome to Fostering Change! Today marks the final installment of our special episodes for National Foster Care Awareness Month. We hope you've enjoyed the series—and, more importantly, learned something meaningful from each conversation. As always, we encourage you to share your thoughts in the comments and pass these episodes along to others.
In today’s episode, we welcome back one of Rob’s favorite guests: Charell Star, who f...
On today’s episode of Fostering Change, we continue our special acknowledgment that May is National Foster Care Awareness Month. We hope you have taken some moments to reflect on what you can do to support those in the foster care system: donate, volunteer your time, mentor, or even consider taking steps to be a CASA or foster parent. Thank you for all you do!
If you’d like a simple way to support Comfort Cases, here’s an idea...
In this week’s episode of the Comfort Cases Podcast, Rob Scheer sits down with Amy Vale, foster parent and founder of For the Cubs, a purpose-driven brand creating sensory tools to support emotional regulation in children and adults alike.
Amy shares how her own foster care journey inspired a mission: to design products that provide real comfort, like Percy, a weighted plush bear that mimics the feeling of a hug. Their conversat...
May is National Foster Care Awareness Month, and we’re kicking it off with one of our most powerful episodes yet.
This week on Fostering Change, host Rob Scheer is joined by special guest co-host Jennifer Perry, Executive Director of the Children’s Action Network and Co-Founder of FosterMore. Jennifer’s tireless advocacy has brought national attention to the urgent needs of the 108,000+ children in U.S. foster care currently wai...
When people think of fostering or adopting, the image that often comes to mind is a cute little baby. But what’s often forgotten are the older children—pre-teens and teens—who are just as in need of love, support, and a forever family.
On this episode of Fostering Change, Rob Scheer welcomes Randi Thompson, co-founder of Kidsave—a remarkable nonprofit helping youth ages 9–17 in foster care and orphanages find meaningful, lasting...
On today’s episode of Fostering Change, Rob Scheer sits down with another incredible “Good Human” — Tristian Smith. After losing his mother at the age of seven, Tristian entered the foster care system, where he experienced over 25 placements and attended 13 different schools. Despite these hardships, he never let his circumstances define him.
Tristian shares the powerful story behind his memoir, Against All Odds, which chronicle...
Don’t you just love a really good person? On today’s episode of Fostering Change you’re about to meet one. Shawn Henss is truly the definition of what we call a “Good Human.” A nice guy, with a HUGE heart.
Shawn is the founder of Giving Sole, a non-profit organization that gives new shoes to youth in foster care. Technically, Shawn’s son came up with the idea for Giving Sole at the age of 10!
Since founding Giving Sole ...
It’s always special when we can welcome both a returning guest and a first-time guest who are making a real difference. Join our host, Rob Scheer, as he sits down with Kate Trambitskaya and Brian Rosenberg for an urgent and eye-opening discussion about how federal cutbacks are impacting youth in foster care, LGBTQ+ youth, and other vulnerable communities.
Why This Episode Matters:
Kate, who last joined us in May 2022, is a passio...
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