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Welcome to The Foster Friendly Podcast. We’re bringing foster care closer to home by sharing stories from the front lines. We're talking with former foster youth, foster parents and others who are finding unique and powerful ways to dramatically improve the experiences and outcomes for kids in foster care.
The Foster Friendly podcast is brought to you by America’s Kids Belong, a nonprofit that helps kids in foster care find belonging in both family and community.
Courtney Williams (00:02.073)
Welcome to the Foster Friendly podcast today. I am one of your hosts, Courtney Williams. I am a foster mom of going on 17 years of over 60 children now, and just excited to be here today.
Travis (00:13.726)
And I'm the other cohost today, Travis Fong's Nest. I'm a storytelling and a marketing manager at America's Kids Belong. I'm a former foster and current adoptive dad. guess you're always stay current as adoptive dad, but, yep, adoptive dad. So today we are really happy to have on Sarah Boyd. She's out in Colorado and she's going to be talking about water safety and kids. really kind of, especially when I lean this into foster care, but a lot of her experiences just around water safety.
and so Aqua Tots is the business she's representing. They're a foster friendly business. They're helping kids in foster care become water safe, not just foster care, but also in foster care become water safe, potentially life -saving experience. And with a focus on water safety, confidence building Aqua Tots offer swimming lessons for children of all ages and abilities beginning at four months of age. Sarah Boyd is a regional manager Aqua Tots swim schools, which oversees locations in Houston, Utah and Colorado.
Courtney Williams (00:53.194)
life -saving experience, and the focus on water safety.
Courtney Williams (01:03.289)
Sarah Boyd is a retail
Travis (01:10.838)
She's been working for Aquatauts for seven years and started as a front desk staff member. She's passionate about preventing drownings in the communities that we serve and is thankful to work for a company that has a direct impact on keeping kids in the water safe, which we're grateful for. Thank you for being on.
Courtney Williams (01:26.829)
Yes.
Sarah Boyd (01:28.353)
Yeah, thank you guys so much for having me.
Courtney Williams (01:31.359)
Okay, before we like dive into stuff, I just got to know Sarah, this is the Foster Friendly Podcast. I'm curious, do you know a lot about foster care?
Sarah Boyd (01:40.323)
To be totally honest with you, no, I don't. I've learned a little bit more since becoming part of this, but no, truly not.
Courtney Williams (01:48.951)
OK, how many kids do you think are in foster care roughly across the United States?
Sarah Boyd (01:54.082)
my gosh. I have absolutely no idea.
Courtney Williams (01:57.369)
Yeah, there are roughly 400 ,000 kids in foster care right now across the United States. And in the state of Colorado where you and I live, there's roughly 4 ,000 kids in foster care at any given moment. And the numbers, it's kind of interesting to watch because across the United States, 400 ,000 with 100 ,000 of them waiting to be adopted. In Colorado, we have 4 ,000 with about 100 or 1 ,000 of them waiting to be adopted. So the numbers really match up.
nationally to what they are in probably most states. I'd be curious. I don't really know every state, but the numbers really do match up. Do you know anybody that fosters?
Sarah Boyd (02:34.977)
You know what? No, I don't.
Courtney Williams (02:36.833)
Okay, awesome. Well, we're so glad to have you. And part of this is, you know, we want everybody to recognize that you don't need to know a whole bunch about foster care to really see like, this is something we can get involved in, even though I don't have a history in foster care or know people that are fostering. so we're just thankful that you're here and that your business is willing to be part of this. so tell us a little bit more about Aqua Tots. How did you get started? What's kind of the mission and what do you offer? What's your
offering for people that are just looking for a swim school.
Sarah Boyd (03:10.755)
Yeah, absolutely. So Aqua Tots is a learn to swim program and we were founded in 1991. So we've been in business over 30 years now. And we started in Arizona. Our founder, Ron Ciara, he just started it in like a backyard swimming pool and he was just teaching lessons. And then now it's grown into this huge company and we have some international.
Travis (03:31.063)
Hmm.
Sarah Boyd (03:40.451)
sites and locations. So we've really grown a lot. And really just our overall mission is to prevent drownings in our communities. You know, we always say that what we do is really important and you know, creating like just safe kiddos around water is so important, but it's also more than that too. I think you guys mentioned in kind of the bio that we...
work on building kiddos' confidence, we work on social skills, we work on creating bravery in kiddos too. So it's more than swimming too, but that's our main mission.
Travis (04:16.512)
Hmm.
Courtney Williams (04:16.665)
That's great. Yeah. So you have this business or work for a company that's growing and thriving. You're in Colorado. How did you hear about the Foster Friendly app?
Sarah Boyd (04:29.525)
Yeah, great question. we were actually just talking to a bunch of different agencies that provide funding for kiddos that might not have access to swim lessons. So some government agencies, that kind of stuff, we were just trying to get our name out there to just say, hey, we would love to provide swim lessons for kiddos that might not have access. And so one of those agencies mentioned the Foster Friendly app to us. And we were like, my gosh.
We have to be a part of that. We were really excited about it. So they just kind of guided us and gave us a contact and now we're here.
Travis (05:05.59)
Mm -hmm
Courtney Williams (05:06.457)
That's awesome. I love it because as a foster mom, you know, we get kids all the time. A lot of kids don't come into our home not knowing how to swim and not having, you know, any previous, you know, swim lessons or things like that. And sometimes it's, it's sadly a lot of kids in care, their families do struggle with poverty. And so sometimes that's related, but I have noticed it's been amazing to see, I'd say even in the last five years as a foster parent versus 17 years ago.
Community is really rallying around and we see community centers giving discounts or recognizing like these families need support and help. If we want them to be water safe, sometimes that means we need to give a little bit for these families that might not be able to afford or to do these things, have these opportunities that other kids might have. So we just appreciate you guys being willing to be on the app and recognizing that.
Sarah Boyd (05:58.391)
Yes, absolutely. definitely just one of our goals is to make it as accessible to as many kids as possible because we know it is a life -saving skill, you know, and it's different than soccer or basketball or something like that. It's an activity, but it's also a life -saving skill. So every kid needs to know.
Travis (06:15.7)
Yeah, definitely. Well, and I love to how you kick things off of just saying, you know, you're also building bravery and confidence. So outside of just water safety, mean, kids that, you know, come into foster care and, know, really any kids, but just, you know, battling self -esteem issues and battling, you know, lack of confidence in different ways, how not only then can they become water safe, but then can grow in other ways through that. So, you know, Courtney already mentioned access. I know that's going to be a huge kind of.
correlation between kids who are experienced with swimming or not. But can you share any stats around water safety in kids?
Sarah Boyd (06:51.745)
Yeah, absolutely. So drowning is actually the number one leading cause for death for kiddos age one through four, which is wild to us. And the good side of that is that it is preventable. But that is the leading cause of death. And so I don't have specific statistics, but in doing a little bit more research, it seems that kiddos in foster care are actually at an even higher risk.
because again it goes back to just having that access to be able to learn those skills.
Travis (07:27.19)
Yeah, I was, I had done just a little bit of digging on this and I think it's really hard to kind of correlate the foster care stats with water safety, but, this kind of goes back again to access, but that it looks like two out of three African -Americans and three out of four Hispanic adults have never taken swimming lessons. And so we know that access and costs are big barriers and maybe there's some cultural things around that as well, but for sure.
Courtney Williams (07:28.025)
I was, I just want just a little bit of digging on this. I think it's really hard to of, to of, to find a water safety bud. And this kind of goes back into access. that it looks like two out of three African Americans and two out four Hispanic adults have never taken swimming lessons. And so we know that access and talk are the key.
Courtney Williams (07:55.234)
Do you have any stories that you can share about the impact on kids or families going through aquatauts and how it's changed them or their experiences?
Sarah Boyd (08:02.785)
Yeah, absolutely. feel like, you know, being in aquatauts for over seven years now, I have so many stories, for sure. But I think that, you know, we had
a mom who was bringing her kiddos through our program and she had quite a few kiddos in her household and so she always had her hands full but she had brought them to the pool one day and she kind of turned around to tend to another one of her kiddos and her son had fallen into the pool and when she turned back around to the pool he had actually rolled over onto his back to get his air and so essentially
you know, the skills that he had learned in the aqua tauts program, he was able to actually apply in a real life scenario where, you know, the his guardian was kind of distracted around water and he was able to save himself. And so for me, that's one that's always stuck with me a lot. But there's also just so many stories, you know, just having peace of mind for parents, I think is huge. Just knowing that their kiddos, if they're, you know,
not with them even like they go to a birthday party or something and there happens to be water there to have that peace of mind that if something happened their kid would know how to save themselves and have those skills is just so crucial for us. And then just seeing kiddos who are more shy or you know just right now I think that the world is just hard and school is hard and maybe we have kiddos that have been bullied and they come into aquatots and they
have a place where they feel safe and they feel confident and they build those relationships there. It's just so cool to see those skills, know, socially and like character traits being built too.
Travis (09:50.466)
That's very cool. Well, I was thinking like Courtney, all your years of fostering and through the years and seeing so many kids, mean, have you kind of had any challenges around that or just kind of, I'm sure new experiences. I remember for us down in South Carolina, bringing kids to the ocean for the first time, what that was like. I mean, that's a dramatic example for water, but like, what about anything for you?
Courtney Williams (10:12.153)
Yeah, I was going to even share, this is more on our adoption side, but two of our boys, our oldest boys are adopted, and they are adopted at ages 10 and 12, and they are extremely athletic. They're black. They're extremely athletic. And they came never, not knowing how to swim at all. And so we encouraged them to do swim lessons, but they refused, right? They were like these teenage boys or grew into teenage boys that were like, we don't need that. We're athletic. Well, true story, our son, he was...
We were all at the lake one day. I actually was off at the car, but he was with my brother, so his uncle was an adult and my sons are very competitive. So they're always looking for ways to compete with people. And he's like, Hey, uncle, let's go race out to the buoys again at a lake. And they, they raced and they got out there and my son was expecting that he could hold onto the buoys, like they'd hold them up and he could rest. And he got there and they were like going down. He freaked out. He has body like went into panic mode and my brother was there and then he started.
pushing my brother down. And I mean, what a blessing that there was a paddleboarder coming by at the time was able to grab them because they truly probably would have drowned. And he was so scared afterwards. at that point, I think he was 17. He said, Mom, you were right. I should have done swimming lessons. And I should take them now, even as an older kid. So I'd be curious because that has been our experience. A lot of times, it's the older kids that feel like they don't need it or they haven't had that exposure. So what does it look like for older kid? Or do you guys have classes specifically for
Travis (11:08.482)
So...
Courtney Williams (11:36.851)
What do do if it's a teenager or even an adult? My dad doesn't even know how to which is sad. What does that look like?
Travis (11:41.548)
Ha
Sarah Boyd (11:43.331)
I know, think that, know, actually, like, Learn to Swim programs are a newer thing, really. And so, like, my parents, and talking to them, they're like, no, girl, like, that wasn't a thing when we were your age, you know? So I think that's really common. We are obviously geared towards kids, but we have adult lessons. And we also, you know, kiddos over the age of 13, we usually have them more in, a private lesson setting, just so that they're not...
Travis (11:54.192)
huh.
Sarah Boyd (12:10.051)
tied in with younger kiddos just for their comfort levels. But we definitely have a lot of kids that, you know, they are 14, 15 years old and they've never learned how to swim and they have a situation like that. It's usually where they do have a scary situation that kind of, you know, sparks them to come to aquatots.
We are more than happy to provide lessons for them and adults as well. You know, we have a lot of adult lessons and they learn very quickly, you know, but it's a very important skill for them to have too. And especially once they have children to be able to kind of, you know, be the ones that can be safe around water with their kids too, we noticed. So yeah, we definitely see that a lot.
Courtney Williams (12:52.921)
Yeah, and could see my sons definitely, you know, that was part of the thing is I don't want to be in a class with my younger sibling, you know.
Sarah Boyd (12:57.507)
Yeah. Yeah. Not very comfortable.
Travis (12:57.986)
Put on the floaties! Okay, here we go.
Courtney Williams (13:01.888)
Yeah.
Courtney Williams (13:06.873)
Yeah.
Travis (13:07.616)
Yeah, we were just and it's like you can take for granted to just water like even among people that can swim well, we just said the ocean and I was like chilling on the beach and some of my sons come up and we're grabbing snacks and hanging on all of a My son, Dre, looks over and he goes, and I almost drowned out there. Asher saved my life, though. I'm like, what is going? I mean, no idea. You know, and they all know to swim really well. Now the ocean is a different ballgame, but it's just yeah, it's it's a big deal. So.
Courtney Williams (13:26.103)
Yeah.
Sarah Boyd (13:31.459)
Totally.
Mm -hmm, definitely. Yeah.
Courtney Williams (13:34.584)
Yeah.
Travis (13:37.622)
Well, Sarah, like just thinking more on in terms of your impact, what does it mean for you kind of personally and then just the aqua thoughts team to be able to make a difference for kids in foster care, you know, into this experience of learning to swim and be safe.
Sarah Boyd (13:51.105)
Yeah, definitely. I think that overall we, you know, me and my team, we just feel very honored. I think that we just always talk about one of our biggest goals is to just be as accessible as possible, you know, and whether that is with kiddos in foster care or kiddos with developmental disabilities, we have a lot of, and so we just want every single child to be able to have the opportunity. And we just know that
there are financial things, there are situations at home that prevent that sometimes. And so if we can allow ourselves to be as visible as possible and as accessible as possible, that just means a lot to us. So we just feel overall very honored because we want to go outside of just our surrounding communities and be able to bring in as many kids as we can.
Courtney Williams (14:44.193)
Yeah, that's great. You know, and as a foster mom, one thing that we always try to do, it's this, it's this fine balance, you know, we're working with a biological family and we never want a biological mom or dad, it's typically a mom, that just yesterday I had a meeting with our current placements mom and she looked at the team that was sitting there and she said, there was one point in this journey where I stopped and thought, Bobby and Courtney can do this better. They're better equipped parents. They've got
bigger house. They got all this stuff and she said, and I just was like, I give up. Like they can do this better. And then she said there became a point where I realized, no, like that is not my mindset. My child belongs with me and I need to work on the things I need to work on. And I was able to just encourage her. And this could be one those things that sometimes, you know, kids come into our care and they might get these experiences that they don't always get. So, but I think it's also an encouragement to tell, like as a foster family, to be able to tell them, Hey, this is something that we were able to help them learn how to swim.
And we encourage you or just some way that you could work on that or, you know, take them to the community center. Oftentimes, again, we found community centers or other places that will give a discount that will follow them, that will follow them into, you when they do return home. And again, we don't want parents to ever feel like they're less than or, you know, they weren't good enough to get their kids swimming lessons, you know. So just that mind shift of how we can really wrap around the families as foster parents, as businesses to recognize, you know, sometimes they just feel so guilty and they feel bad and
Sarah Boyd (15:50.082)
Right.
Courtney Williams (16:10.521)
I have parents that are working, the current mom, she's working multiple jobs to try to afford daily living, more or less adding on swim lessons.
Sarah Boyd (16:21.635)
Absolutely, and I think sometimes that becomes second or third thought because you're just truly trying to live each day, you know, and just trying to make ends meet. And so it's just cool that they can have an experience. And like you said, because their biological parents aren't good enough, but it just gives them an opportunity to have that experience that maybe they wouldn't have. And I just think that's really beautiful. It's so cool.
Travis (16:21.762)
Hmm.
Courtney Williams (16:47.927)
And most parents will look at us at some point, when their kids are in our care and say, thank you for the opportunity to, and it has been many times, to learn how to swim or to take them swimming, take them to the ocean, those experiences that we can give. And yeah, so we appreciate businesses like you because it helps us as foster families. When we go from two kids at breakfast to five kids at the dinner table, it's expensive. It is expensive to have.
a lot of kids in the home or even a couple kids in the home nowadays, right? So, yeah.
Sarah Boyd (17:18.56)
Yes, it's so true, yes.
Travis (17:21.794)
I was gonna say to Courtney, what you sparked in me of just saying that, and that story, it's like, it's kind of this cool reminder with this episode about, you know, shoring up water safety and stuff that really foster care is this place. when we imagine it to have everybody get better or grow and heal and like for the parents to be working on the things that they're working on to get their kids back. And, but for the kids who are in care in a difficult time, like
you know, here's a great opportunity to where they're getting maybe a new skill that they can bring home. So I think we look at foster care holistically when it's really like in a healthy way, allowing people to become their best in this timeframe. I guess it's also difficult.
Courtney Williams (18:04.823)
Yeah, yeah. So Aqua Tots is just a great example of a business that's applying what you're already doing and serving foster families and really serving the kids and the families. It's not just about the foster families like we're talking, it's the whole family that we're serving. That is the heartbeat of foster -friendly, these foster -friendly communities where people recognize the hardships of foster care, they recognize the loss of foster care, they recognize sometimes the loss of opportunities. And really, we, again,
can't say enough, we want to see families be reunited and be reunited at a better place than when they came into our care. And that could be learning how to swim, right? So what's your message to other businesses? You know, we have restaurants and salons and car places. I mean, it's really a community. what would be your message to other businesses about why they should consider becoming a foster friendly business?
Sarah Boyd (18:58.923)
Yeah, absolutely. I think that a lot of businesses or business owners that I know, like everyone really truly does have a similar mission and it's to make our communities and our world better. And so I think, you know, especially because my heart is really for kids, you know, but I think that every single child deserves the same opportunities, like regardless of what situation they're in.
And I think they deserve the same skills, the same experiences. And so if we can give those families or those kiddos in foster care just a better opportunity to be able to partake in those things, I think that every business should do it. And I also think that it's so easy. Like I think for Aquatots, we were just like, okay, we definitely want to do this, but we've been a part of a lot of things that.
felt very difficult to get involved in. I think just the Foster Friendly Up was so easy for us. And that really is something I think that matters too. Just an ease of being able to be there and to decide kind of what you're going to offer. And to be able to do it almost instantly is just such cool experience for us too. So more on the nitty gritty side, it's just easy. But also, it's just important, I think, for all of us.
because all of us understand struggle. All of us understand being through, literally going through hard times. And I think that in general, everyone wants to just make a difference in what they're doing. And this is just a really good platform to do so. So, yeah.
Courtney Williams (20:37.689)
And we do too have businesses and you can attest to it like you just did that it really takes like two minutes to fill out the app to be on the app. It's quick, it's easy, it's not like this cumbersome process. Maybe the hardest thing is to figure out where your discount is going to be, but other than that, it's a pretty easy thing to do.
Sarah Boyd (20:43.181)
Yeah.
Yes.
Travis (20:46.156)
Mm
Sarah Boyd (20:50.422)
I'm homeless.
Yeah.
Travis (20:54.379)
No.
Travis (20:57.942)
Yeah. What a, what a great, kind of an advertisement for it, Sarah. That was a really well said. And, I think to your point too, that I loved is that, what Aqua Tots is doing here as a foster friendly business is they're not changing who they are. I mean, I think that's the, that's the key part here that you're kind of saying is a easy to get on the app, but also like you're doing, this is what you're doing. just, I think if we can just look at what we're doing,
And how I think it's probably not as much of a leap as we might think in the business world of applying that to foster families.
Sarah Boyd (21:34.659)
Absolutely, and I think like for us, you know, we do stuff all the time. We extend scholarships or, you know, give a little discount if someone's not able to make ends meet for that month or whatever. And so I definitely do think it's just, it's just an extension of what a lot of businesses are already doing in like a more formal way.
Courtney Williams (21:56.449)
I I sent out an email this summer to businesses around me in Durango, Colorado. We live in a very adventurous area and I got some response, but obviously I'm going to reach out more in person. But just my heartbeat to the email I sent was, get these kids into my care that have never been rafting, that have never been to the hot springs, they've never been skiing. Like the things that we have around us that most families have done. And like you said, we just want them to have opportunities, not of like living this lavish lifestyle, but
they go to school and kids are talking about these things like, I've never done that or, you know, we don't want them to feel that way. We want them to feel like their peers, like they're one of them and they don't have to feel even more ostracized with their experiences because they're in foster care, which they do already.
Sarah Boyd (22:40.984)
Right, and like Travis was saying, know, self -esteem issues, although I think that's an issue all the way around, but you know, I think that that helps at least a little bit, which is feeling like I can relate to my peers and I am like them, you know.
Travis (22:46.998)
Mm
Travis (22:55.616)
Yep. Well said for sure. Well, if you are a business out there listening, explore becoming a foster friendly business partner, you can visit americaskidsbelong .org to see where we're currently available. And then if you're a foster parent, check out our website to find out states and locations where the foster friendly app exists. There's also national offers to check out, even if the foster friendly app isn't currently in your state or location.
closing words by anyone else.
Travis (23:29.58)
Ha
Sarah Boyd (23:30.187)
I was just going say thank you guys so much for having me on and I think it's really awesome what you guys are doing truly. And we just feel really, just like I said, honored to be able to be a small part of it. So thank you guys.
Courtney Williams (23:30.275)
Yeah.
Courtney Williams (23:45.207)
Yeah, thank you. And I just want to encourage anybody that's like every single person that's listening to this right now, stop and think, where do I work? Is there any sort of little tie that could support the fostering community of where we could be on the app or I could go to my, you don't own the business or manager, go to your manager owner and ask them like, Hey, I heard about this. And have you ever considered, you know, what foster care is and what these kids go through and how we could be a support? No, pretty much any business there is for the most part.
there's something that you can do or that you could give to support foster families and kids in care.
Travis (24:22.038)
Yep. Well said. Well, great to have you on today, Sarah.
Sarah Boyd (24:25.699)
Thank you guys so much, I really appreciate it.
Courtney Williams (24:26.563)
Thank you.
Travis (24:28.994)
All right, we'll see you.