“Their healing begins with your hope.”

Our guest ended our time together on this phrase, but we wanted to start with it. This is at the heart of what individuals, churches, nonprofits, and agency workers do all across Houston, and hopefully, it’s why you are here, now, listening to this conversation.

Foster care is not an isolated issue. There are many factors at play, both upstream (before a family is impacted by the foster care system) and downstream (after a child or young adult has been impacted by the foster care system).

DeJuana Jernigan serves as the President and CEO of Arms Wide Adoption Services, an organization devoted to supporting families through the life-long process of permanency. With a 30-year professional journey rooted in advocacy, leadership, and service, she’s deeply committed to helping children in foster care find safe, nurturing families. DeJuana has been a long-time friend of The Riverside Project, and we are thrilled to have her here for this conversation.

In this episode, you’ll hear how foster care has shifted over the last 30 years, some of the underlying circumstances that cause children to enter foster care, the importance of post-permanency support, what you can do now to help improve outcomes for children and families involved in the child welfare system, and much more.

Find the show notes and links to anything we discussed here: riversideproject.org/dejuana-jernigan-39