Fulfilling a Dream

During her senior year of high school, Madelyne Yang sat down with her counselor to strategize about college applications. Together, the pair identified Augsburg University, a private institution in Minneapolis, as a viable option for Yang. The school was a good fit for a number of reasons: the liberal arts education, the breadth of academic […]

How to Navigate Conversations on Race

Talking to children about race can be a challenge, especially if you and your child are from different races. I remember my nephew as a toddler, who is half South East Asian and half white, looking at my sister, pausing for a moment, and asking, “What color are you?” While in our case the topic […]

A Language Reframe

This is the second article of a three-part series advocating for positive strength-based words and expressions to replace historically negative and deficit ways of communicating used in child social welfare. Over the past 50 years, experts in child social welfare and associated disciplines authored numerous articles and commentary on “adoption of the hard to place […]

ICWA Stands, Native Families Empowered

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the right of Native children to remain with their families and tribes, reaffirming for the first time, the Indian Child Welfare Act. The measure regulates the adoption and fostering of Indigenous children. Because a tribe’s most precious resource is its children, the ruling — and the history of the […]

A Room of Their Own

Home Sweet Hope provides free custom rooms for kids in foster care Eighteen-year-old Mez couldn’t hold back his tears. The room he’d lived in since he was 16 had just been transformed into a teenager’s haven and there, on a shelf, stood a framed photo of him and his grandma. Every item in the room […]