February 20, 2025 • 35 mins
What if the tools used in counterterrorism could revolutionize foster care? Meet Jennifer Jacobs, the remarkable founder of Connect Our Kids, who has channeled her background in nuclear engineering and military service into transforming the future of foster children. Driven by a powerful article in Time magazine, Jennifer transitioned her career to address the gaps in the foster care system, using technology to connect children with their support networks.
Listen to the incredible stories of Leon and Haley, whose lives changed thanks to Connect Our Kids' innovative approach. Learn how Leon found his biological family, and how Haley reconnected with a cherished basketball coach who became her adoptive parent. These stories underscore the vital role personal connections play in the well-being of children in foster care. Through Jennifer's leadership, inspired by her military background, the organization fosters a purpose-driven mission that transforms lives.
Beyond individual success stories, discover how Connect Our Kids is reshaping public perception of the foster care system by highlighting the undeniable benefits of kinship placements. Jennifer shares insights into the challenges faced by the organization, from funding hurdles to overcoming resistance to change. As we explore the broader impact and recognition of their work, we celebrate Jennifer's inspiring leadership and the profound economic and emotional benefits of prioritizing children's relational health.
#ConnectOurKids #Ideagen #GLS2025
Jennifer's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/connect-our-kids/
Learn more about Connect Our Kids here: https://connectourkids.org/
View the entire 2024 Global Leadership Summit here: https://www.ideagenglobal.com/2025globalleadershipsummit
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the IdeaGen Global Leadership Summit
today.
I'm thrilled to have JenniferJacobs, the founder, co-founder
and president of Connect OurKids and ARP 2024 Purpose Prize
winner.
Jennifer, thank you for joiningus.
Thank you my pleasure.
Just for people who don't know,maybe what you're involved in
(00:32):
right now could you describe forour audience.
You know what Connect Our Kidsis, you know why you founded it
and what are you guys working onright now?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Sure, yeah, so I?
My background is actuallynuclear engineering, I'm an army
veteran, and so sometimespeople do wonder how I got into
what I do now, which is beingCEO and co-founder of Connect
Our Kids, which works to addressthe issue in foster care that
children's relationships are nottreasured as they should be in
(01:04):
the families that they might getseparated from.
So we build tools and trainingto help keep kids in foster care
connected to their people.
And who are their people, youmight ask?
Their people can be theirfamily, their friends, their
neighbors, teachers, coaches,the people who support them.
Some people call this thevillage, and so we build those
tools and training to help makesure that happens.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Wow, I mean a remarkable career journey it
seems that you've had.
I want to just dive into whatinspired you to take that that
jump from your you know yourbeginnings to now working with
Connect Our Kids, and you knowhow does that affect your
approach to what you guys areworking on.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Sure, so I, 14 years ago, I was working in nuclear
counterterrorism space and readan article in Time magazine, and
that article in Time magazinewas talking about foster care.
But unlike some articles aboutfoster care, which are really
negative, this was talking aboutsomething that was working in
(02:08):
foster care.
But first it was describing thehalf million children who
experience foster care everyyear, and it really struck me as
I thought about that.
I, as it happened, was pregnantwith our third child at the
time.
He's now an eighth grader.
And as I was reading about this, I, as it happened, was
pregnant with our third child atthe time.
He's now an eighth grader.
And as I was reading about this, I thought what would this be
(02:31):
like if it was my child, if itwas your child?
And you imagine a child goinginto foster care, being taken
from everything they know anddropped into some other home not
just some other home for youmilitary folks who maybe have
moved a lot, but a differentfamily with different habits and
traditions and rules in thatfamily that you have to learn to
(02:54):
survive, and then sometimesmoving from home to home to home
.
You can imagine how devastatingthat would be and for those of
you familiar with trauma.
You'll then not be surprised bythe statistic that children in
foster care are diagnosed withPTSD at twice the rate of
returning war veterans.
That can be incrediblydevastating.
(03:14):
In this article, though, it wasalso talking about kids who age
out of foster care.
It means they become adults andthey leave foster care, never
having found that forever familythat they were promised.
When that happens, those youthby age 26, two-thirds have
experienced homelessness,incarceration or they're dead.
(03:36):
They experience undereducation,unemployment, at high rates.
In this article, though, ittalked about how that can be
avoided, and that was the partthat was talking about what was
working and what can be done issocial workers, who are
specialists and know how to dothis work, actually reach out to
(03:57):
family, and I noticed asimilarity in what foster care
professionals need to do to findfamilies for the kids in their
care, and what I already knewintelligence analysts do to find
and track terrorists.
Both need to find and visualizegroups of people in order to
influence the person or group inthe center.
(04:18):
The difference is just that onecenters on a terrorist and one
centers on the child.
Just that one centers on aterrorist and one centers on a
child.
I already knew a lot about thenational security space, but I
was curious about how socialworkers do this work, and what I
found out was that, while thenational security space has
multimillion dollar softwarewith data search and management
(04:40):
tools, the national security orthe foster care space is doing
the same work, essentially withpost-it notes and Microsoft
Excel.
That didn't seem right to me.
So I spent the next six yearsafter that trying to learn why
we fight terrorism with all thetools we have, and that's a good
thing but we don't fight forthe features of the half a
(05:02):
million children in our fostercare system.
Eventually, my co-founder and Irealized that if we wanted
those kinds of tools to exist,we would have to build them
ourselves, and so that's what wedid.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Wow, I mean I just want to take a step back because
those are just some staggeringstatistics you laid out there
and I mean it's such an amazingmission that you guys you know
are dedicated to, amazingmission that you guys are
dedicated to.
I mean I don't think I've everseen or heard of somebody just
seeing a problem and tackling itquite like that and on the
scale that you all are doing.
(05:32):
So without getting into thereal technical aspects of it,
could you describe, maybe justelaborate a little bit on how
the technology works?
I know it's obviously verysophisticated stuff, but maybe
just describe for our audience alittle bit more of how
technology works.
I know it's, you know,obviously very sophisticated
stuff, but maybe just describefor our audience a little bit
more of how that works.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Sure.
So you know, in an era whenwe're debating how far AI should
go and how fast, we've leftthis field focused on foster
children with post-it notes, andso our tool can be thought of
like as I told Gretchen earlierlike a Splunk for foster care.
We build out essentially aspider web map of the ecosystem
(06:12):
around a child or a family, andour tools are connected to
publicly available data on theinternet so it can suck down
those phone numbers, emails,publicly available information
that people have shared aboutthemselves online and quickly be
able to populate that map sothat a social worker can then
actually reach out to people whocan be in connection with that
(06:33):
child.
We've heard a lot today aboutthe importance of relationships,
of face-to-face of people, andthat is nowhere more true than
for children, especiallychildren who've become
disconnected from their ownfamilies.
So the technology works likethat and we pair it with
training, but I think maybe itmight be most helpful if I if I
(06:56):
give you an example.
So two years ago I met a socialworker named Maddie, and Maddie
was introduced to our softwareon her second day as a brand new
social worker.
Maddie's Gen Z, so it took herabout 30 seconds to learn how to
use it.
And that was good, becauseMaddie had also just been handed
her first case, 14-year-oldLeon.
(07:17):
Leon had been in foster carefor two years, ever since his
adoptive mother had left him ata behavioral facility and moved
out of state, effectivelyabandoning him.
He then spent two years movingfrom home to home to home,
because you can imagine how a12-year-old and then 13-year-old
and then 14-year-old's behavioris after that kind of
(07:37):
abandonment.
So this case landed on Maddie'sdesk and she'd just been
introduced to this new coolsoftware so she figured she'd
use it.
Maddie knew that she had anoverriding imperative and that
was to find Leon's people Usingour software.
In the same afternoon she endedup on the phone with Leon's
(07:58):
biological aunt who, as itturned out, lived six blocks
away from where Maddie wassitting, and the aunt said bring
him to me right away.
I had no idea he wasn't stillhappily adopted, I will take him
now.
Maddie's supervisor was on thesame Zoom call and she jumped in
and she said you know, I'venever seen the county move so
(08:19):
fast.
They had Leon cleared to movein with his aunt.
He got to meet his two cousins,his two full brothers he didn't
know he had.
He got to meet his birth mother, who was still not well, and
his aunt immediately filed toadopt him, to bring him into his
own clan that he had not evenknown existed, had not known,
(08:41):
wanted him.
He was adopted later that sameyear.
Similarly, another case a youngteenage girl named Haley who had
lots of family but none of them.
She had been in foster care fora number of years but none of
her family was in a position toactually step up and become her
permanent family.
And the team did somethingreally smart.
(09:01):
They talked to Haley and theysaid you know who's been a
really good influence in yourlife?
Who do you look up to?
Who would you go live with ifyou got to choose?
And Haley said you know, I justreally look up to Coach Mark.
Who's Coach Mark?
Coach Mark, he was my fifthgrade basketball teacher,
(09:24):
basketball coach coach mark.
He was my fifth gradebasketball teacher.
Basketball coach hayley's infoster care and she has, since
fifth grade, moved schools,towns, poems at least six times.
So how are they going to findcoach mark?
Well, they were able to traceback through her files and find
a last name and then our toolswere able to find coach mark's
phone number and can you imaginegetting that call.
(09:44):
There's a girl in foster care,haley.
Oh, I remember Haley.
She was so great.
I love that team.
Well, haley's in foster care.
No one's been able to step upfor her.
We ask her who you matter inher life.
She said you, mark, and Haleywants to know if you might
(10:05):
consider letting her live withyou and your wife.
Mark and his wife had had nodiscussions or interest in
fostering or adopting or any ofthat.
They'd never thought about it.
But how can you turn down acall like that?
So they ended up gettingapproved to be foster parents
and fostered her, and last yearthey adopted her.
So that's the kind of thingthat our tool helps with.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Wow, I mean two extremely powerful stories and
I'm sure they're just, you know,few of many that you guys have
really impacted, and I mean Ijust love that in the second
story, the input that the childhas as well.
I mean someone that they canlook up to, and someone that
they know and that they can canlook up to, and someone that
(10:48):
they know, um, and that they canguide you to somebody that they
think is you know resonateswith them.
So I mean, yeah, two incrediblypowerful examples.
And you know it leads me to mymy next question.
With the mission so impactfuland positive, uh, I'm sure you
know you're able to drum up somesupport, but what kind of
leadership strategies have youimplemented to drive support for
(11:12):
the mission of Connecting OurKids?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
So I think one of the most important things in
leading any organization is tohave a great team, and so part
of having a great team is makingan environment that that team
wants to be part of.
Having a great team is makingan environment that that team
wants to be part of, butespecially making sure that the
team understands the why.
And I think this is especiallyimportant in nonprofit work,
(11:36):
where there tends to not be afinancial driver for the team
personally, but there tends tobe an enormous potential for an
enormous why be an enormouspotential for an enormous why.
And we really focus on the whyat Connect Our Kids, so that
even our team members who aredeep into the code of our
software or deep into thedetails of animating one of our
(11:56):
on-demand trainings understandwhy they're doing that work.
My initial leadership trainingwas in the military and one of
my when I was a platoon leader,one of my sergeants told me one
time he said you know, ma'am,I'll walk through the swamp up
to my neck all day long as longas you tell me why.
And that's obviously alwaysstuck with me and our team.
(12:20):
We have a number of team memberswho have been affected by child
welfare directly and we alwayswork to make sure that we're
hearing their voice, thatthey're part of our story, to
the extent that one of our teammembers, our outreach
coordinator and writing director, posted last Christmas her
story about spending Christmasin a residential facility and
(12:43):
she talked about she was therewith her sister, she'd been in
foster care for a couple ofyears and she found herself in a
residential facility.
And she talked about she wasthere with her sister, she'd
been in foster care for a coupleof years and she found herself
in a residential facility.
And she talked about waking upon Christmas morning really
excited, not about any kind ofpresents or anything, but
because she knew, without adoubt, that that day someone
from her family would definitelyvisit or call because, I mean,
(13:09):
if you're going to do it,christmas would be the day, so
definitely it's happening.
And she talks on um on thevideo, about how, as the day
went on, she thought, well, okay, maybe no one's coming, but
definitely they're going to call, because when she and her
sister went into foster carethey had no contact.
No one reached out to them.
They knew they had a lot offamily, but no one reached out
(13:31):
to them.
This was years before theinternet, she didn't understand
why no one from her family wasshowing up.
Did they really not have anyinterest in her at all?
And later, as the day continuesto go on and a phone call comes
, she says well, maybe there'llbe a card that gets delivered.
Surely definitely someone atleast will deliver a card.
(13:53):
And at the end of the day noone came and no phone calls came
and no cards came.
And she said she was forced toface the fact that really and
truly no one in her family gave.
What kind of language are weusing here?
No one in her family wasinterested in having a
(14:18):
connection with her or hersister, and that was devastating
.
But she said then she found outlater as an adult, when she
herself went to go find familyit's not that they didn't want
to call or visit or send a card.
They didn't know where she was,they had no way to contact her,
(14:39):
they had no way to reach out toher.
They were as separated from heras she was from them.
And so that's one of the thingsthat she repeatedly says to us
on the team at Connect Our Kids.
She says what you guys aredoing would have changed my
whole experience in foster care.
She was lucky enough to end upfinally getting a foster mother
(15:02):
who's still in her life todayand is an amazing person.
But to have known that herfamily cared about her and was
part of her village, part of herclan would have made all the
difference to her.
So that's how we try to focuson the why I connect our kids.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
That's amazing and that's really interesting what
you're talking about, I'm sureyou know we can all understand
the experiences of the child,right, but the flip side too is
the experiences of the family,you know, and how, how they hurt
for that connection as well,and the you know the joy they
must feel when that's made to beconnected with the child.
You know, I think that's thewhole other side that maybe you
(15:40):
know you guys are obviouslyhelping to to to, you know,
bring to light.
So that's amazing.
Of course, with a problem thislarge, the challenges are
inevitable, right.
What have been some of thebiggest challenges that you all
have faced, whether that'simplementing your technology,
building your system, any ofthose challenges, and how did
(16:02):
you overcome them so far?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Sure, yeah, well, building high-quality technology
and providing high-qualitytraining can take a lot of
resources, and so funding, likeany non-profit funding, is a
challenge.
One of our real immovablepoints of what we're doing is
(16:27):
that the training and the toolsbeing provided to this field
need to be high quality.
So, because we insist on thatquality, that means that we have
to really find high qualityfunding partners, and so that's
something we're always workingon.
But we have found that a lot ofpeople do care about this space
(16:47):
.
People tend to not know aboutit.
So there's a lot of educationthat we have to do with the
general public as well aspotential funding partners.
But the second challenge that wehave, and probably overall the
bigger challenge, is fear ofchange, and this can come in a
lot of forms, but essentially,just like all of us, when we're
(17:09):
doing something, we're going todo something differently.
That triggers a lot of fear.
It doesn't matter what it is.
If we're going to start a newexercise program or start a new
job, or even if it's a goodthing we're going to start a new
adventure in our life.
There's fear there, and thatapplies to this as well.
We address that by partneringclosely with our users.
We don't drop off software andsay enjoy, see you later.
(17:32):
We partner closely so that wecan help social workers to build
those new habits.
We also work with judges andlawyers, parents of all types in
our training to learn aboutvaluing the child's
relationships and why that is soimportant.
We've also gotten to learn alot about how bureaucracies need
(17:53):
to work and how we canaccommodate their needs.
Child welfare in this countryworks at the state and county
level and through privateagencies in a lot of different
kind of jigsaw ways, so weessentially have a bureaucracy
in about 3,000 parts.
When you're talking about thechild welfare system, it is a
multi-multi-part system, sowe've had to learn a lot about
(18:15):
the details of that, as well asMedicaid.
So Medicaid is also one of ourmost crucial user groups because
it turns out so most fosterkids are served by Medicaid and
it turns out that taking care ofchildren's relational health is
incredibly smart business.
It is not only good for thechild, for their health, for
(18:38):
their future, but it also hasreal healthcare savings in both
the short and the long term.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Wow, I mean it's the domino effect.
I mean, like you said in yourstatistics earlier, like the
negative impacts that can happenwhen a child, you know, goes
through the foster care systemup till they're 18, or they
never have that village, as youcall it.
I mean, if you just think aboutthe potential there, you know
the potential that's maybe notbeing harnessed because they're
not surrounded in the rightthere.
You know the potential that'smaybe not being harnessed
(19:07):
because they're not surroundedin the right situation.
You know there's truly anopportunity there.
I think as well, and you knowit's evident, you guys, through
your stories, you've achievedamazing success, immeasurable
success.
What is your future?
Or the future vision that youhave for Connect Our Kids on a
national level, and you know howdo you see yourself.
Or the future vision that youhave for Connect Our Kids on a
national level, and you know howdo you see yourself shaping
(19:31):
that future vision.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
So what we're trying to do at Connect Our Kids is
bring the discussion aboutrelationships to the forefront
of child welfare.
First thing that we're doing ismaking it feasible to find
grandma.
If it is not that hard to findfamily, then there's no excuse
for not doing it.
(19:54):
So that's kind of a first, verytactical level stuff.
Then, second, we're scaling ourreach.
So we are already used at somelevel in 40 different states.
That could be a few small users, that could be a state contract
.
We are rolling out an extensionof that.
We are talking to as manystates and counties and agencies
(20:15):
that are interested in doingbetter by their kids as we can.
But Just like if you're tryingto start on that new exercise
program and you put that stepstracker on your Apple Watch and
so you're trying to get thatextra walking in the app itself,
(20:37):
tracking your steps doesn't doa thing.
It's the walk.
You have to do the walking.
You have to do the work.
The app tracker is justsomething to help you see what
you're doing, encourage you todo the walking.
You have to do the work.
The app tracker is justsomething to help you see what
you're doing, encourage you todo it.
But if you don't, if you'relike my kids and you realize you
can just shake that thing upand down and look at that I got
a lot of.
I got a lot of steps right, itdefeats the whole purpose.
(21:00):
So even if we had every socialworker working in foster care
using our tools, that would notbe my definition of success.
I hope that that would be ahelpful step towards success.
But my definition of success isthat everyone interacting with
children or families remotelytouched by child welfare is
(21:22):
focused first and foremost onthe relationships and the
preciousness of a child'srelationships with their family
and a family's relationship withthat child.
As you've said, we had one ofour earliest cases.
We had a social worker inWashington state who had a young
man named Calvin who was 17.
(21:44):
He was going to age out fromfoster care soon and the social
worker was really worried aboutCalvin because Calvin had never
met, spoken to on the phone orreceived a birthday card from
anyone he was related to.
And Calvin knew that this wasnot normal, and so Calvin had
(22:06):
created a story to explain tohimself why this was, and the
story was that he had been suchan awful toddler that his family
had thrown him away, thrownaway the key and walked away.
He must have been that bad,because otherwise, I mean, how
hard is it to send a birthdaycard and they chose not to.
(22:27):
Calvin's social worker used ourtools and within a day had
found Calvin's paternalgrandmother and a paternal aunt.
The grandmother still hadpictures of that toddler, calvin
, on her wall, because Calvinhadn't been thrown away.
Calvin had been lost.
They had no way to find him.
(22:51):
They had nowhere to send thebirthday cards, no phone number
to call, and Calvin got to learnthat not only was he not trash,
that he was in fact sotreasured when he was born that
he had been given the mostimportant name the family had to
give.
It was the grandmother's ownfather's name.
He had been a local lawenforcement hero in the family
(23:15):
and they had given him that name, and he did not even know that
about himself.
In that case he did not movebeds.
He stayed in the loving fosterfamily that he had been living
with most of his childhood.
But he now went out into hisadulthood knowing that he was
precious and wanted and claimed,and that can make all the
(23:40):
difference in the world.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, wow, I mean, just the sheer number of
firsthand accounts that you haveis incredible on the success
you've had.
And it leads me to my nextquestion, and it may seem
obvious at a point but how areyou measuring success?
I know you've mentioned a lotof ways success can be
connecting someone with theirfamily or getting them into a
(24:05):
better situation, but how areyou measuring the success and
the effectiveness of yourprograms and what outcomes or
outcome do you think you're mostproud of?
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, so, and this is , of course, very complex.
When you're talking aboutpeople it's complex and if you
try to make it simple, you riskmissing the point.
But if you're going to spendmoney on something and you're
going to choose some risk toaccept at the expense of other
risks, it's helpful to know whatyou're choosing and what the
(24:34):
efficiency is.
So there's a number of metricsthat are incredibly powerful in
this space around the value offamily children placed with
family.
If they have to be taken fromtheir birth family, children who
are placed with kin do better.
They're more likely to graduatefrom high school, they're less
likely to run away, they're morelikely to express satisfaction
(24:54):
with their placement, they're 10times less likely to be
re-reported for abuse.
So those are really importantmetrics that establish that
generally, it's important tohave a child be connected to
their family, to their safefamily.
At Connect Our Kids, our toolshave been shown to increase
(25:15):
kinship.
Placement rates can even doublethem when used by committed use
groups, and I'm extremely proudof that number.
Our pilot testers told us thatthey could find six times as
many connections for a child inhalf the time.
But I also, as a scientist anda lover of data myself, I have
(25:35):
to always caution to rememberthat not everything that can be
measured matters and noteverything that matters can be
measured.
How do you value your ownfamily?
What units would you use tovalue the joy that your child
brings you or the pain that thatchild sometimes brings you?
(25:59):
What kind of a number do youput on that?
What value do you put on thehonor and the pain of being
present at a loved one's lastmoments?
How do we quantify that?
I don't know.
I'll tell you another storythat maybe will illustrate how
(26:23):
hard it is to capture this andwhy we have to be careful when
we start putting numbers onthings.
One of our early users was doingin the pilot for a girl named
Jordan.
Jordan's a teenager, but shewas taken from her birth family
age three.
We don't know why, but mostlikely for neglect due to drug
(26:47):
use.
It's a very common reason thatkids end up in foster care.
Jordan responded so poorly tobeing taken as a three-year-old
from her family that she becamevery difficult to place.
Now a three-year-old,physically healthy child is
usually fairly easy to place,but Jordan moved through many
(27:08):
homes, even as a toddler, buteventually she was adopted and
often we would celebrate that asa new, a wonderful new
beginning for Jordan, but inthis case, unfortunately.
Eventually, her adopted fathersexually abused her and so, as a
young teenager, jordan foundherself back in foster care once
again.
She was so distressed anddespondent by this that Jordan
(27:38):
began multiple attempts to takeher own life Serious attempts,
including jumping in front ofMedicaid for that case, told me
that they added up that in the18 months Jordan had been in
their care, she had cost them amillion and a half dollars.
(28:00):
The team that was caring forJordan was trying everything.
They really cared.
They had tried all themedicines they could, they had
tried therapies, that she was ina high-level residential
facility getting hands-on carearound the clock, and finally
they realized there was actuallyone thing they had not tried,
(28:21):
and that was to ask Jordan whatshe thought might help.
So they asked her and sheimmediately replied I would like
to meet my birth family.
I would like to know if theremight be people who would be
(28:42):
willing to be part of my lifewithout having to be paid to do
so.
So luckily, they had recentlygotten access, the team had
recently gotten access to ourtools, and it took them all of
20 minutes to find her mother,her father, her grandmother and
an aunt.
They had been looking for herfor years.
(29:06):
They were overjoyed to have herback in their life.
Jordan immediately stoppedtrying to kill herself.
She was able to eventuallystart taking advantage of the
healing opportunities that herteam had been trying to put in
front of her, and, with herfamily's support, she then
(29:26):
finally was able to startbuilding a new life for herself.
So we have a lot of numbers inthat story a new life for
herself.
So we have a lot of numbers inthat story, but I'm not sure
they capture the full measure ofwhat happened there, and we
need to not lose sight of that.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Oh, I mean, I'm speechless, the story that you
said and I'm just, theeffectiveness of Connect Our
Kids and what you're doing 20minutes, minutes, 20 minutes to
change someone's world.
You know, um, it's just, andthe passion that you have for
this is immeasurable.
I think it's, you know it's,he's already reflected in this
(30:03):
interview.
Everyone here can see that, um,you know.
Moving on to our next question,I mentioned earlier that you're
an arpP Purpose Prize winner.
We love the Purpose Prize andwhat they're doing.
Could you just maybe describewhat that recognition means to
you and maybe how it's helpingto amplify the work that you're
doing?
Speaker 2 (30:21):
the amazing work you're doing, yeah, yeah.
So the AARP Purpose Prize isjust an amazing award.
It's a highly selected prize,so we were incredibly honored to
be selected.
The credibility and thevalidation that the prize has
brought to our team isinvaluable and, of course, the
(30:43):
visibility that it raises aboutthis issue.
Most people just haven't had achance to know much about what's
actually happening in our ownchild welfare system, and so the
AARP Purpose Prize selectionhas been a huge opportunity to
raise that visibility.
Aarp is an incredibleorganization which I, frankly,
(31:04):
had not realized the size andimpact of AARP personally until
I got involved with this prize,and it's been so much fun to
work with AARP.
The prize also comes with ayear of supports and training
for our whole team, and so we'rejust getting started on that,
and that's really exciting foreveryone.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, congratulations .
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
I wanna close this interview with one last question
for you.
You know, what do you think arethe biggest misconceptions
maybe that people have about thefoster care system, and how are
you guys challenging thosemisconceptions?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah, so I think, because the the really egregious
horror stories are the onesthat tend to make the news.
Those are the stories that weall come across if we're just
going about our lives, and sothe result is that the public
often has a misconception thatchildren in foster care are
(32:04):
there either because ofsomething bad they did or
because their parents aremonsters.
But the reality is thatchildren who are on foster care
are there through absolutely nofault of their own, and the vast
, vast majority of them havebeen taken from parents who love
them as much as you love yourown children and who cared for
(32:27):
them as best they could and whomay have stumbled in some way
that drew government attentionthey could and who may have
stumbled in some way that drewgovernment attention and perhaps
government overreach, but theyare not the egregious monsters
that a tiny slice of people turnout sometimes are.
The other misconception that alot of people have about foster
(32:48):
care is that kids in foster careare orphans, actual orphans
with no living parents and noone to take care of them at all,
and I hope that we've dispelledthat myth here today, in that
everyone has people the smallpercentage of kids in foster
care whose mother and father arein fact deceased, still have
(33:10):
people, but the vast majority ofkids in foster care have at
least one living parent, if notvery often two living parents.
Generally there are around100,000 kids in foster care who
are considered legally free foradoption, but it does not mean
that they're orphans.
(33:30):
It means that their parents'rights have been terminated,
often against the parents' ownwill and often with parents
desperately trying not to havethat happen.
So sometimes that is the rightpath.
Many times it is notnecessarily the right path, but
public doesn't usually get achance to even have this level
(33:54):
of information.
We as the public have more orless outsourced this issue to
the child welfare apparatus andas a result, unfortunately,
we've sort of stopped payingattention to our neighbors if
there's a child welfare issue.
We've stopped stepping up andhelping each other.
We've learned a lot today aboutthe value of relationships and
the face-to-face and theoxytocin and how we need to
(34:19):
actually talk to each other, andthat is nowhere true more than
in the space of raising children.
We all have heard in manydifferent ways it takes a
village.
We are all of us today aliveare the descendants of those
early humans who best protectedtheir clan.
And so, if you think about it,our brains have evolved to know
(34:44):
that the clan has to beprotected and you have to be
part of a clan, or the deep,reptilian part of your brain
will always be at a level ofanxiety, because getting thrown
out of a clan means that youwill probably die.
That's what the deep part ofyour brain understands, and so
when children are taken fromtheir clan, deep down in their
(35:05):
brain they are in a survivalpanic.
And when children are takenfrom their clan, that clan is in
a panic because it is not safeto be outside of your clan.
The public never gets a chanceto learn these things.
So I hope that this has helped alittle bit.
I hope that you'll take theopportunity to learn more about
the complex details of childwelfare, and I'm always happy to
(35:28):
talk to anyone if you'reinterested.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Jennifer, thank you again.
I'm inspired by your mission.
Your leadership is amazing andI just, you know, want to
applaud again the mission thatyou guys are focused on and
connect our kids.
Thank you very much for coming,Thank you so much.
Daniel.
Welcome to the IdeaGen Global Leadership Summit
today.
I'm thrilled to have JenniferJacobs, the founder, co-founder
and president of Connect OurKids and ARP 2024 Purpose Prize
winner.
Jennifer, thank you for joiningus.
Thank you my pleasure.
Just for people who don't know,maybe what you're involved in
(00:32):
right now could you describe forour audience.
You know what Connect Our Kidsis, you know why you founded it
and what are you guys working onright now?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Sure, yeah, so I?
My background is actuallynuclear engineering, I'm an army
veteran, and so sometimespeople do wonder how I got into
what I do now, which is beingCEO and co-founder of Connect
Our Kids, which works to addressthe issue in foster care that
children's relationships are nottreasured as they should be in
(01:04):
the families that they might getseparated from.
So we build tools and trainingto help keep kids in foster care
connected to their people.
And who are their people, youmight ask?
Their people can be theirfamily, their friends, their
neighbors, teachers, coaches,the people who support them.
Some people call this thevillage, and so we build those
tools and training to help makesure that happens.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Wow, I mean a remarkable career journey it
seems that you've had.
I want to just dive into whatinspired you to take that that
jump from your you know yourbeginnings to now working with
Connect Our Kids, and you knowhow does that affect your
approach to what you guys areworking on.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Sure, so I, 14 years ago, I was working in nuclear
counterterrorism space and readan article in Time magazine, and
that article in Time magazinewas talking about foster care.
But unlike some articles aboutfoster care, which are really
negative, this was talking aboutsomething that was working in
(02:08):
foster care.
But first it was describing thehalf million children who
experience foster care everyyear, and it really struck me as
I thought about that.
I, as it happened, was pregnantwith our third child at the
time.
He's now an eighth grader.
And as I was reading about this, I, as it happened, was
pregnant with our third child atthe time.
He's now an eighth grader.
And as I was reading about this, I thought what would this be
(02:31):
like if it was my child, if itwas your child?
And you imagine a child goinginto foster care, being taken
from everything they know anddropped into some other home not
just some other home for youmilitary folks who maybe have
moved a lot, but a differentfamily with different habits and
traditions and rules in thatfamily that you have to learn to
(02:54):
survive, and then sometimesmoving from home to home to home
.
You can imagine how devastatingthat would be and for those of
you familiar with trauma.
You'll then not be surprised bythe statistic that children in
foster care are diagnosed withPTSD at twice the rate of
returning war veterans.
That can be incrediblydevastating.
(03:14):
In this article, though, it wasalso talking about kids who age
out of foster care.
It means they become adults andthey leave foster care, never
having found that forever familythat they were promised.
When that happens, those youthby age 26, two-thirds have
experienced homelessness,incarceration or they're dead.
(03:36):
They experience undereducation,unemployment, at high rates.
In this article, though, ittalked about how that can be
avoided, and that was the partthat was talking about what was
working and what can be done issocial workers, who are
specialists and know how to dothis work, actually reach out to
(03:57):
family, and I noticed asimilarity in what foster care
professionals need to do to findfamilies for the kids in their
care, and what I already knewintelligence analysts do to find
and track terrorists.
Both need to find and visualizegroups of people in order to
influence the person or group inthe center.
(04:18):
The difference is just that onecenters on a terrorist and one
centers on the child.
Just that one centers on aterrorist and one centers on a
child.
I already knew a lot about thenational security space, but I
was curious about how socialworkers do this work, and what I
found out was that, while thenational security space has
multimillion dollar softwarewith data search and management
(04:40):
tools, the national security orthe foster care space is doing
the same work, essentially withpost-it notes and Microsoft
Excel.
That didn't seem right to me.
So I spent the next six yearsafter that trying to learn why
we fight terrorism with all thetools we have, and that's a good
thing but we don't fight forthe features of the half a
(05:02):
million children in our fostercare system.
Eventually, my co-founder and Irealized that if we wanted
those kinds of tools to exist,we would have to build them
ourselves, and so that's what wedid.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Wow, I mean I just want to take a step back because
those are just some staggeringstatistics you laid out there
and I mean it's such an amazingmission that you guys you know
are dedicated to, amazingmission that you guys are
dedicated to.
I mean I don't think I've everseen or heard of somebody just
seeing a problem and tackling itquite like that and on the
scale that you all are doing.
(05:32):
So without getting into thereal technical aspects of it,
could you describe, maybe justelaborate a little bit on how
the technology works?
I know it's obviously verysophisticated stuff, but maybe
just describe for our audience alittle bit more of how
technology works.
I know it's, you know,obviously very sophisticated
stuff, but maybe just describefor our audience a little bit
more of how that works.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Sure.
So you know, in an era whenwe're debating how far AI should
go and how fast, we've leftthis field focused on foster
children with post-it notes, andso our tool can be thought of
like as I told Gretchen earlierlike a Splunk for foster care.
We build out essentially aspider web map of the ecosystem
(06:12):
around a child or a family, andour tools are connected to
publicly available data on theinternet so it can suck down
those phone numbers, emails,publicly available information
that people have shared aboutthemselves online and quickly be
able to populate that map sothat a social worker can then
actually reach out to people whocan be in connection with that
(06:33):
child.
We've heard a lot today aboutthe importance of relationships,
of face-to-face of people, andthat is nowhere more true than
for children, especiallychildren who've become
disconnected from their ownfamilies.
So the technology works likethat and we pair it with
training, but I think maybe itmight be most helpful if I if I
(06:56):
give you an example.
So two years ago I met a socialworker named Maddie, and Maddie
was introduced to our softwareon her second day as a brand new
social worker.
Maddie's Gen Z, so it took herabout 30 seconds to learn how to
use it.
And that was good, becauseMaddie had also just been handed
her first case, 14-year-oldLeon.
(07:17):
Leon had been in foster carefor two years, ever since his
adoptive mother had left him ata behavioral facility and moved
out of state, effectivelyabandoning him.
He then spent two years movingfrom home to home to home,
because you can imagine how a12-year-old and then 13-year-old
and then 14-year-old's behavioris after that kind of
(07:37):
abandonment.
So this case landed on Maddie'sdesk and she'd just been
introduced to this new coolsoftware so she figured she'd
use it.
Maddie knew that she had anoverriding imperative and that
was to find Leon's people Usingour software.
In the same afternoon she endedup on the phone with Leon's
(07:58):
biological aunt who, as itturned out, lived six blocks
away from where Maddie wassitting, and the aunt said bring
him to me right away.
I had no idea he wasn't stillhappily adopted, I will take him
now.
Maddie's supervisor was on thesame Zoom call and she jumped in
and she said you know, I'venever seen the county move so
(08:19):
fast.
They had Leon cleared to movein with his aunt.
He got to meet his two cousins,his two full brothers he didn't
know he had.
He got to meet his birth mother, who was still not well, and
his aunt immediately filed toadopt him, to bring him into his
own clan that he had not evenknown existed, had not known,
(08:41):
wanted him.
He was adopted later that sameyear.
Similarly, another case a youngteenage girl named Haley who had
lots of family but none of them.
She had been in foster care fora number of years but none of
her family was in a position toactually step up and become her
permanent family.
And the team did somethingreally smart.
(09:01):
They talked to Haley and theysaid you know who's been a
really good influence in yourlife?
Who do you look up to?
Who would you go live with ifyou got to choose?
And Haley said you know, I justreally look up to Coach Mark.
Who's Coach Mark?
Coach Mark, he was my fifthgrade basketball teacher,
(09:24):
basketball coach coach mark.
He was my fifth gradebasketball teacher.
Basketball coach hayley's infoster care and she has, since
fifth grade, moved schools,towns, poems at least six times.
So how are they going to findcoach mark?
Well, they were able to traceback through her files and find
a last name and then our toolswere able to find coach mark's
phone number and can you imaginegetting that call.
(09:44):
There's a girl in foster care,haley.
Oh, I remember Haley.
She was so great.
I love that team.
Well, haley's in foster care.
No one's been able to step upfor her.
We ask her who you matter inher life.
She said you, mark, and Haleywants to know if you might
(10:05):
consider letting her live withyou and your wife.
Mark and his wife had had nodiscussions or interest in
fostering or adopting or any ofthat.
They'd never thought about it.
But how can you turn down acall like that?
So they ended up gettingapproved to be foster parents
and fostered her, and last yearthey adopted her.
So that's the kind of thingthat our tool helps with.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Wow, I mean two extremely powerful stories and
I'm sure they're just, you know,few of many that you guys have
really impacted, and I mean Ijust love that in the second
story, the input that the childhas as well.
I mean someone that they canlook up to, and someone that
they know and that they can canlook up to, and someone that
(10:48):
they know, um, and that they canguide you to somebody that they
think is you know resonateswith them.
So I mean, yeah, two incrediblypowerful examples.
And you know it leads me to mymy next question.
With the mission so impactfuland positive, uh, I'm sure you
know you're able to drum up somesupport, but what kind of
leadership strategies have youimplemented to drive support for
(11:12):
the mission of Connecting OurKids?
Speaker 2 (11:15):
So I think one of the most important things in
leading any organization is tohave a great team, and so part
of having a great team is makingan environment that that team
wants to be part of.
Having a great team is makingan environment that that team
wants to be part of, butespecially making sure that the
team understands the why.
And I think this is especiallyimportant in nonprofit work,
(11:36):
where there tends to not be afinancial driver for the team
personally, but there tends tobe an enormous potential for an
enormous why be an enormouspotential for an enormous why.
And we really focus on the whyat Connect Our Kids, so that
even our team members who aredeep into the code of our
software or deep into thedetails of animating one of our
(11:56):
on-demand trainings understandwhy they're doing that work.
My initial leadership trainingwas in the military and one of
my when I was a platoon leader,one of my sergeants told me one
time he said you know, ma'am,I'll walk through the swamp up
to my neck all day long as longas you tell me why.
And that's obviously alwaysstuck with me and our team.
(12:20):
We have a number of team memberswho have been affected by child
welfare directly and we alwayswork to make sure that we're
hearing their voice, thatthey're part of our story, to
the extent that one of our teammembers, our outreach
coordinator and writing director, posted last Christmas her
story about spending Christmasin a residential facility and
(12:43):
she talked about she was therewith her sister, she'd been in
foster care for a couple ofyears and she found herself in a
residential facility.
And she talked about she wasthere with her sister, she'd
been in foster care for a coupleof years and she found herself
in a residential facility.
And she talked about waking upon Christmas morning really
excited, not about any kind ofpresents or anything, but
because she knew, without adoubt, that that day someone
from her family would definitelyvisit or call because, I mean,
(13:09):
if you're going to do it,christmas would be the day, so
definitely it's happening.
And she talks on um on thevideo, about how, as the day
went on, she thought, well, okay, maybe no one's coming, but
definitely they're going to call, because when she and her
sister went into foster carethey had no contact.
No one reached out to them.
They knew they had a lot offamily, but no one reached out
(13:31):
to them.
This was years before theinternet, she didn't understand
why no one from her family wasshowing up.
Did they really not have anyinterest in her at all?
And later, as the day continuesto go on and a phone call comes
, she says well, maybe there'llbe a card that gets delivered.
Surely definitely someone atleast will deliver a card.
(13:53):
And at the end of the day noone came and no phone calls came
and no cards came.
And she said she was forced toface the fact that really and
truly no one in her family gave.
What kind of language are weusing here?
No one in her family wasinterested in having a
(14:18):
connection with her or hersister, and that was devastating
.
But she said then she found outlater as an adult, when she
herself went to go find familyit's not that they didn't want
to call or visit or send a card.
They didn't know where she was,they had no way to contact her,
(14:39):
they had no way to reach out toher.
They were as separated from heras she was from them.
And so that's one of the thingsthat she repeatedly says to us
on the team at Connect Our Kids.
She says what you guys aredoing would have changed my
whole experience in foster care.
She was lucky enough to end upfinally getting a foster mother
(15:02):
who's still in her life todayand is an amazing person.
But to have known that herfamily cared about her and was
part of her village, part of herclan would have made all the
difference to her.
So that's how we try to focuson the why I connect our kids.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
That's amazing and that's really interesting what
you're talking about, I'm sureyou know we can all understand
the experiences of the child,right, but the flip side too is
the experiences of the family,you know, and how, how they hurt
for that connection as well,and the you know the joy they
must feel when that's made to beconnected with the child.
You know, I think that's thewhole other side that maybe you
(15:40):
know you guys are obviouslyhelping to to to, you know,
bring to light.
So that's amazing.
Of course, with a problem thislarge, the challenges are
inevitable, right.
What have been some of thebiggest challenges that you all
have faced, whether that'simplementing your technology,
building your system, any ofthose challenges, and how did
(16:02):
you overcome them so far?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Sure, yeah, well, building high-quality technology
and providing high-qualitytraining can take a lot of
resources, and so funding, likeany non-profit funding, is a
challenge.
One of our real immovablepoints of what we're doing is
(16:27):
that the training and the toolsbeing provided to this field
need to be high quality.
So, because we insist on thatquality, that means that we have
to really find high qualityfunding partners, and so that's
something we're always workingon.
But we have found that a lot ofpeople do care about this space
(16:47):
.
People tend to not know aboutit.
So there's a lot of educationthat we have to do with the
general public as well aspotential funding partners.
But the second challenge that wehave, and probably overall the
bigger challenge, is fear ofchange, and this can come in a
lot of forms, but essentially,just like all of us, when we're
(17:09):
doing something, we're going todo something differently.
That triggers a lot of fear.
It doesn't matter what it is.
If we're going to start a newexercise program or start a new
job, or even if it's a goodthing we're going to start a new
adventure in our life.
There's fear there, and thatapplies to this as well.
We address that by partneringclosely with our users.
We don't drop off software andsay enjoy, see you later.
(17:32):
We partner closely so that wecan help social workers to build
those new habits.
We also work with judges andlawyers, parents of all types in
our training to learn aboutvaluing the child's
relationships and why that is soimportant.
We've also gotten to learn alot about how bureaucracies need
(17:53):
to work and how we canaccommodate their needs.
Child welfare in this countryworks at the state and county
level and through privateagencies in a lot of different
kind of jigsaw ways, so weessentially have a bureaucracy
in about 3,000 parts.
When you're talking about thechild welfare system, it is a
multi-multi-part system, sowe've had to learn a lot about
(18:15):
the details of that, as well asMedicaid.
So Medicaid is also one of ourmost crucial user groups because
it turns out so most fosterkids are served by Medicaid and
it turns out that taking care ofchildren's relational health is
incredibly smart business.
It is not only good for thechild, for their health, for
(18:38):
their future, but it also hasreal healthcare savings in both
the short and the long term.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Wow, I mean it's the domino effect.
I mean, like you said in yourstatistics earlier, like the
negative impacts that can happenwhen a child, you know, goes
through the foster care systemup till they're 18, or they
never have that village, as youcall it.
I mean, if you just think aboutthe potential there, you know
the potential that's maybe notbeing harnessed because they're
not surrounded in the rightthere.
You know the potential that'smaybe not being harnessed
(19:07):
because they're not surroundedin the right situation.
You know there's truly anopportunity there.
I think as well, and you knowit's evident, you guys, through
your stories, you've achievedamazing success, immeasurable
success.
What is your future?
Or the future vision that youhave for Connect Our Kids on a
national level, and you know howdo you see yourself.
Or the future vision that youhave for Connect Our Kids on a
national level, and you know howdo you see yourself shaping
(19:31):
that future vision.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
So what we're trying to do at Connect Our Kids is
bring the discussion aboutrelationships to the forefront
of child welfare.
First thing that we're doing ismaking it feasible to find
grandma.
If it is not that hard to findfamily, then there's no excuse
for not doing it.
(19:54):
So that's kind of a first, verytactical level stuff.
Then, second, we're scaling ourreach.
So we are already used at somelevel in 40 different states.
That could be a few small users, that could be a state contract
.
We are rolling out an extensionof that.
We are talking to as manystates and counties and agencies
(20:15):
that are interested in doingbetter by their kids as we can.
But Just like if you're tryingto start on that new exercise
program and you put that stepstracker on your Apple Watch and
so you're trying to get thatextra walking in the app itself,
(20:37):
tracking your steps doesn't doa thing.
It's the walk.
You have to do the walking.
You have to do the work.
The app tracker is justsomething to help you see what
you're doing, encourage you todo the walking.
You have to do the work.
The app tracker is justsomething to help you see what
you're doing, encourage you todo it.
But if you don't, if you'relike my kids and you realize you
can just shake that thing upand down and look at that I got
a lot of.
I got a lot of steps right, itdefeats the whole purpose.
(21:00):
So even if we had every socialworker working in foster care
using our tools, that would notbe my definition of success.
I hope that that would be ahelpful step towards success.
But my definition of success isthat everyone interacting with
children or families remotelytouched by child welfare is
(21:22):
focused first and foremost onthe relationships and the
preciousness of a child'srelationships with their family
and a family's relationship withthat child.
As you've said, we had one ofour earliest cases.
We had a social worker inWashington state who had a young
man named Calvin who was 17.
(21:44):
He was going to age out fromfoster care soon and the social
worker was really worried aboutCalvin because Calvin had never
met, spoken to on the phone orreceived a birthday card from
anyone he was related to.
And Calvin knew that this wasnot normal, and so Calvin had
(22:06):
created a story to explain tohimself why this was, and the
story was that he had been suchan awful toddler that his family
had thrown him away, thrownaway the key and walked away.
He must have been that bad,because otherwise, I mean, how
hard is it to send a birthdaycard and they chose not to.
(22:27):
Calvin's social worker used ourtools and within a day had
found Calvin's paternalgrandmother and a paternal aunt.
The grandmother still hadpictures of that toddler, calvin
, on her wall, because Calvinhadn't been thrown away.
Calvin had been lost.
They had no way to find him.
(22:51):
They had nowhere to send thebirthday cards, no phone number
to call, and Calvin got to learnthat not only was he not trash,
that he was in fact sotreasured when he was born that
he had been given the mostimportant name the family had to
give.
It was the grandmother's ownfather's name.
He had been a local lawenforcement hero in the family
(23:15):
and they had given him that name, and he did not even know that
about himself.
In that case he did not movebeds.
He stayed in the loving fosterfamily that he had been living
with most of his childhood.
But he now went out into hisadulthood knowing that he was
precious and wanted and claimed,and that can make all the
(23:40):
difference in the world.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, wow, I mean, just the sheer number of
firsthand accounts that you haveis incredible on the success
you've had.
And it leads me to my nextquestion, and it may seem
obvious at a point but how areyou measuring success?
I know you've mentioned a lotof ways success can be
connecting someone with theirfamily or getting them into a
(24:05):
better situation, but how areyou measuring the success and
the effectiveness of yourprograms and what outcomes or
outcome do you think you're mostproud of?
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, so, and this is , of course, very complex.
When you're talking aboutpeople it's complex and if you
try to make it simple, you riskmissing the point.
But if you're going to spendmoney on something and you're
going to choose some risk toaccept at the expense of other
risks, it's helpful to know whatyou're choosing and what the
(24:34):
efficiency is.
So there's a number of metricsthat are incredibly powerful in
this space around the value offamily children placed with
family.
If they have to be taken fromtheir birth family, children who
are placed with kin do better.
They're more likely to graduatefrom high school, they're less
likely to run away, they're morelikely to express satisfaction
(24:54):
with their placement, they're 10times less likely to be
re-reported for abuse.
So those are really importantmetrics that establish that
generally, it's important tohave a child be connected to
their family, to their safefamily.
At Connect Our Kids, our toolshave been shown to increase
(25:15):
kinship.
Placement rates can even doublethem when used by committed use
groups, and I'm extremely proudof that number.
Our pilot testers told us thatthey could find six times as
many connections for a child inhalf the time.
But I also, as a scientist anda lover of data myself, I have
(25:35):
to always caution to rememberthat not everything that can be
measured matters and noteverything that matters can be
measured.
How do you value your ownfamily?
What units would you use tovalue the joy that your child
brings you or the pain that thatchild sometimes brings you?
(25:59):
What kind of a number do youput on that?
What value do you put on thehonor and the pain of being
present at a loved one's lastmoments?
How do we quantify that?
I don't know.
I'll tell you another storythat maybe will illustrate how
(26:23):
hard it is to capture this andwhy we have to be careful when
we start putting numbers onthings.
One of our early users was doingin the pilot for a girl named
Jordan.
Jordan's a teenager, but shewas taken from her birth family
age three.
We don't know why, but mostlikely for neglect due to drug
(26:47):
use.
It's a very common reason thatkids end up in foster care.
Jordan responded so poorly tobeing taken as a three-year-old
from her family that she becamevery difficult to place.
Now a three-year-old,physically healthy child is
usually fairly easy to place,but Jordan moved through many
(27:08):
homes, even as a toddler, buteventually she was adopted and
often we would celebrate that asa new, a wonderful new
beginning for Jordan, but inthis case, unfortunately.
Eventually, her adopted fathersexually abused her and so, as a
young teenager, jordan foundherself back in foster care once
again.
She was so distressed anddespondent by this that Jordan
(27:38):
began multiple attempts to takeher own life Serious attempts,
including jumping in front ofMedicaid for that case, told me
that they added up that in the18 months Jordan had been in
their care, she had cost them amillion and a half dollars.
(28:00):
The team that was caring forJordan was trying everything.
They really cared.
They had tried all themedicines they could, they had
tried therapies, that she was ina high-level residential
facility getting hands-on carearound the clock, and finally
they realized there was actuallyone thing they had not tried,
(28:21):
and that was to ask Jordan whatshe thought might help.
So they asked her and sheimmediately replied I would like
to meet my birth family.
I would like to know if theremight be people who would be
(28:42):
willing to be part of my lifewithout having to be paid to do
so.
So luckily, they had recentlygotten access, the team had
recently gotten access to ourtools, and it took them all of
20 minutes to find her mother,her father, her grandmother and
an aunt.
They had been looking for herfor years.
(29:06):
They were overjoyed to have herback in their life.
Jordan immediately stoppedtrying to kill herself.
She was able to eventuallystart taking advantage of the
healing opportunities that herteam had been trying to put in
front of her, and, with herfamily's support, she then
(29:26):
finally was able to startbuilding a new life for herself.
So we have a lot of numbers inthat story a new life for
herself.
So we have a lot of numbers inthat story, but I'm not sure
they capture the full measure ofwhat happened there, and we
need to not lose sight of that.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Oh, I mean, I'm speechless, the story that you
said and I'm just, theeffectiveness of Connect Our
Kids and what you're doing 20minutes, minutes, 20 minutes to
change someone's world.
You know, um, it's just, andthe passion that you have for
this is immeasurable.
I think it's, you know it's,he's already reflected in this
(30:03):
interview.
Everyone here can see that, um,you know.
Moving on to our next question,I mentioned earlier that you're
an arpP Purpose Prize winner.
We love the Purpose Prize andwhat they're doing.
Could you just maybe describewhat that recognition means to
you and maybe how it's helpingto amplify the work that you're
doing?
Speaker 2 (30:21):
the amazing work you're doing, yeah, yeah.
So the AARP Purpose Prize isjust an amazing award.
It's a highly selected prize,so we were incredibly honored to
be selected.
The credibility and thevalidation that the prize has
brought to our team isinvaluable and, of course, the
(30:43):
visibility that it raises aboutthis issue.
Most people just haven't had achance to know much about what's
actually happening in our ownchild welfare system, and so the
AARP Purpose Prize selectionhas been a huge opportunity to
raise that visibility.
Aarp is an incredibleorganization which I, frankly,
(31:04):
had not realized the size andimpact of AARP personally until
I got involved with this prize,and it's been so much fun to
work with AARP.
The prize also comes with ayear of supports and training
for our whole team, and so we'rejust getting started on that,
and that's really exciting foreveryone.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yeah, congratulations .
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
I wanna close this interview with one last question
for you.
You know, what do you think arethe biggest misconceptions
maybe that people have about thefoster care system, and how are
you guys challenging thosemisconceptions?
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Yeah, so I think, because the the really egregious
horror stories are the onesthat tend to make the news.
Those are the stories that weall come across if we're just
going about our lives, and sothe result is that the public
often has a misconception thatchildren in foster care are
(32:04):
there either because ofsomething bad they did or
because their parents aremonsters.
But the reality is thatchildren who are on foster care
are there through absolutely nofault of their own, and the vast
, vast majority of them havebeen taken from parents who love
them as much as you love yourown children and who cared for
(32:27):
them as best they could and whomay have stumbled in some way
that drew government attentionthey could and who may have
stumbled in some way that drewgovernment attention and perhaps
government overreach, but theyare not the egregious monsters
that a tiny slice of people turnout sometimes are.
The other misconception that alot of people have about foster
(32:48):
care is that kids in foster careare orphans, actual orphans
with no living parents and noone to take care of them at all,
and I hope that we've dispelledthat myth here today, in that
everyone has people the smallpercentage of kids in foster
care whose mother and father arein fact deceased, still have
(33:10):
people, but the vast majority ofkids in foster care have at
least one living parent, if notvery often two living parents.
Generally there are around100,000 kids in foster care who
are considered legally free foradoption, but it does not mean
that they're orphans.
(33:30):
It means that their parents'rights have been terminated,
often against the parents' ownwill and often with parents
desperately trying not to havethat happen.
So sometimes that is the rightpath.
Many times it is notnecessarily the right path, but
public doesn't usually get achance to even have this level
(33:54):
of information.
We as the public have more orless outsourced this issue to
the child welfare apparatus andas a result, unfortunately,
we've sort of stopped payingattention to our neighbors if
there's a child welfare issue.
We've stopped stepping up andhelping each other.
We've learned a lot today aboutthe value of relationships and
the face-to-face and theoxytocin and how we need to
(34:19):
actually talk to each other, andthat is nowhere true more than
in the space of raising children.
We all have heard in manydifferent ways it takes a
village.
We are all of us today aliveare the descendants of those
early humans who best protectedtheir clan.
And so, if you think about it,our brains have evolved to know
(34:44):
that the clan has to beprotected and you have to be
part of a clan, or the deep,reptilian part of your brain
will always be at a level ofanxiety, because getting thrown
out of a clan means that youwill probably die.
That's what the deep part ofyour brain understands, and so
when children are taken fromtheir clan, deep down in their
(35:05):
brain they are in a survivalpanic.
And when children are takenfrom their clan, that clan is in
a panic because it is not safeto be outside of your clan.
The public never gets a chanceto learn these things.
So I hope that this has helped alittle bit.
I hope that you'll take theopportunity to learn more about
the complex details of childwelfare, and I'm always happy to
(35:28):
talk to anyone if you'reinterested.
Speaker 1 (35:31):
Jennifer, thank you again.
I'm inspired by your mission.
Your leadership is amazing andI just, you know, want to
applaud again the mission thatyou guys are focused on and
connect our kids.
Thank you very much for coming,Thank you so much.
Daniel.
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