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AI is here and how it impacts our work and lives is only going to speed up. As AI becomes ubiquitous in child welfare and family well-being systems, an important question emerges: who is shaping the use of these tools, and whose experiences are reflected in their design?

On today’s episode we are joined by David Muhammad, founder and executive director of the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform. We talked to Muhammad about “high risk, hard to reach youth,” which is a term he and fellow justice reformer Vinny Schiraldi have coined to describe the relatively small group of youth they believe should be the focus of the next phase of youth justice reform. This group of youth, he says, have come more into view after decades of declining incarceration rates and greater attention to community alternatives. 

To proclaim and honor June as Stolen Children’s Month, we gather to tell the truth about what has survived. This season, we are inside True Narratives — a call to listen differently, to witness more deeply, and to make room for the messiness that is necessary for solidarity and liberation.

In this powerful episode of InnerViews, Ivory Bennett sits down with author, musician, and creative visionary Qpidluv for a deeply honest conversation about foster care, masculinity, identity, and healing through storytelling. From entering foster care as an infant to creating The Safe Home Chronicles and the Forever Home Project, Qpidluv reflects on survival, imagination, and the search for belonging. Together, Ivory and Qpidluv explore what home really means—and how creativity can become both refuge and reclamation.

What happens when the origin stories we are told growing up turn out to be folklore? In this powerful and deeply intimate conversation, host April Dinwoodie sits down with therapist, researcher, and author Dr. Abby Hasberry to unpack the layers of transracial adoption, identity, and the systemic complexities of the adoption constellation.

In this episode of Community In-Site, host Valerie Frost speaks with Sixto Cancel, founder and CEO of Think of Us, about what it would take to transform the current child welfare system into something fundamentally different. Drawing from both his lived experience in foster care and his national policy work, Sixto reflects on why he believes change can happen from within rather than starting over entirely.

In this episode, Emilie Kao, senior counsel and vice president of advocacy strategy for Alliance Defending Freedom and member of the Parental Rights Foundation Board of Advisors, joins us to discuss her article “Preserving Childhood: Dependency, Consent, and Parental Rights in Healthcare,” featured in The State of Parental Rights in America. Emilie explores the legal foundations of parental rights in healthcare decision-making, the Supreme Court’s parental rights precedent, and the historical understanding of childhood dependency and parental responsibility.

On this week’s Headlines edition of the podcast, we discuss the latest on the Trump administration’s A Home for Every Child initiative and some child welfare bills moving in Congress. We also discuss The Imprint’s recent reporting on parental relinquishments, a law in Oklahoma prompted by a child fentanyl death, foster youth and chronic absenteeism, and more. 

In this episode, Joyce McMillan, founder and executive director of Just Making a Change for Families and a member of the Parental Rights Foundation Board of Advisors, joins us to discuss her recent article “Common Sense Guardrails for CPS,” featured in The State of Parental Rights in America. Drawing from her work with families impacted by the child welfare system, Joyce argues that Child Protective Services often functions less like a helping profession and more like an investigative and prosecutorial agency. She explains how poverty is frequently confused with neglect and how families can become trapped in cycles of surveillance and punishment.

In 2021, Christopher Baker-Scott joined The Imprint Weekly Podcast to talk about Sun Scholars, a new nonprofit he started to help support Connecticut foster youth on college campuses. Unlike many school-based approaches around the country, Sun Scholars is a centrally located organization serving youth on a number of campuses around the state. Five years later, Baker-Scott joined us to talk about what’s gone well, what’s changed, and what he hopes to accomplish in the future as Sun Scholars continues to grow in the state. Christopher Scott is the founder and Executive Director of SUN Scholars Inc. Drawing from his personal experience in the Connecticut foster care system, Scott has led SUN to achieve a graduation rate 10 times the national average for this demographic. Thanks to iFoster for sponsoring this episode.

In this episode of Community In-Site, host Valerie Frost speaks with Angela Burton, an attorney and advocate who was recently one of the final candidates to lead New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services.

In this episode, Allison Green, Chief Legal Officer at the National Association of Counsel for Children, and Natalece Washington, Policy Counsel at NACC, join us to discuss the Counsel for Kids Campaign and the effort to guarantee legal representation for children in foster care. They explain the current gap in access to counsel across states and make the case for why children, like parents, should have representation in proceedings that deeply impact their lives and family relationships. They highlight how legal advocacy for children can improve outcomes, including faster reunification, fewer placement disruptions, and greater stability.