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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.
Travis (00:01.283)
Hey and welcome to another episode of the Foster Friendly Podcast. I'm your host, Travis Vongzenes, joined by my cohost Courtney Williams. Today we're super excited to be joined by a guest out in California. Her name is Jeanette Yoff. She earned her master's in clinical psychology, specializing in adoption and foster care for the past 20 years. She's also an adopted person who was raised in foster care for six years.
She's the founder of Celia Center Incorporated, a nonprofit organization in LA, supporting all members of the foster care and adoption constellation, which includes birth parents, foster youth, adoptees, foster and adoptive parents, as well as professionals working in the field, which is awesome because that's really our audience on this podcast. She's also the clinical director of YAAW Therapy Incorporated, a mental health center in LA, which provides services to families, children's, teens,
Courtney (00:46.519)
Yeah.
Travis (00:55.979)
and adults connected by foster care and adoption. Welcome to the podcast, Jeanette.
Jeanette Yoffe (01:01.575)
Thank you so much for having me. Good morning.
Courtney (01:04.662)
Good morning. Yeah, that was a mouthful, Travis. She's got a lot of things behind her name. So before we get into more of your story and sharing more about what you do for work, let's start with something a little lighthearted. So Jeanette, what's something, fun fact about you that maybe people wouldn't know just by looking at you?
Travis (01:07.575)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (01:25.464)
Well, I adopt a lot of adopt a lot of cats I I don't know. They just show up in my porch. I don't know. I guess I was a cat in another life They know
Courtney (01:26.702)
Whoa, okay. What does a lot mean?
Travis (01:27.193)
Well.
Travis (01:32.815)
That's awesome.
Courtney (01:42.155)
it.
Travis (01:42.991)
So what does a lot, so it's just rotate, you never know kind of the roster or it's just.
Jeanette Yoffe (01:47.346)
Yeah. It's like during COVID, one just showed up at our house. I adopted him. We haven't, we just got another one that just shows up at the house. I think because we have a lot of cats here, so they're drawn. They realize, those cats get fed and are well taken care of.
Travis (02:07.759)
That's hilarious. I have a funny picture in my shop that says, I'm one bad relationship from 30 cats. That's my own story. No, that's great. I love random things like that. So yeah, thanks for bringing us into your world around the cat world. getting into the start of your own story and as we kind of get into this conversation,
Courtney (02:16.664)
That is funny.
Travis (02:32.899)
So when you were 15 months old, your mom dropped you off at what she thought was a child welfare center and then thought that would be sort of a temporary landing place. Bring us into the story of your foster care and adoption journey.
Jeanette Yoffe (02:45.956)
Yes, so my mother was in New York on a work visa to be a dancer. She actually danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company and she was heavily involved with the artists community. She was also heavily involved in Argentina. She's from Buenos Aires, Argentina, part of the Ditella movement there. So getting involved with the arts, she
met my birth father, she became pregnant, she was not working as a dancer, she was now a mother, she didn't have good English, she had, you know, was a native Argentinian, and so someone at a park told her, if you need childcare, go to Jewish childcare, they'll take care of your child for a little while. Well, she's an immigrant from another country, she's thinking this is childcare.
She doesn't understand. She goes, brings me there, drops me off literally and says, here, take my child. And she was stressed. She was overwhelmed because she was pregnant with my brother at the time. And so she signed her relinquishment papers, knowing what, cause she was alone, isolated, didn't reach out to my father. I don't know why, you know, so she had some mental health challenges at the time.
Courtney (03:43.267)
Hmm.
Courtney (04:01.443)
me.
Jeanette Yoffe (04:12.45)
And so I was placed in foster care. My brother was then born. He was then placed in foster care nine months later. She had another episode, became very distressed and overwhelmed. And then she became hospitalized and then eventually deported back to Argentina. So I had a brother out there. I didn't know I had a brother. Here I am in foster care. When I was about six years old, my social worker said,
you're going to meet your brother. And I was very confused because I didn't know I had a brother. They had us meet, we had passports made because Jewish child care and the Argentinian consulate were going back and forth about placing us with relatives in Argentina. But that fell through. There was a lot of red tape and political turmoil in the country at that time. So we ended up staying in the United States, my father.
birth father relinquished his rights, he didn't feel he could care for us. And so then my brother was placed in another family, I was placed on Long Island, and I never saw him again. So they put us together thinking we were going to go. So I remembered that. And so I've always questioned, you know, where am I from? And what happened to my brother? What happened to my birth family? Because I had this...
Travis (05:31.299)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (05:36.239)
passport and I was very confused because there was no stamp in there. Where was I supposed to go? And I didn't learn all of this until I was 17. And then when my brother searched for me for five years and he finally found me and we both met on top of the Empire State Building and had reunion and he had a letter from our birth father and that's when we learned about our birth mother.
We learned her name and together we searched and found her in Argentina and had reunion. And that was incredibly, it was cathartic and also painful because we learned that she had been hospitalized for 40 years in an institution in Argentina. So she had significant mental health issues. So when I found that out, it made sense to me, but there was always a part of me because I did live with her.
Travis (06:11.631)
Wow.
Travis (06:19.395)
Hmm. Hmm.
Courtney (06:20.514)
you
Courtney (06:26.028)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (06:33.317)
for the first 15 months of my life, my mother and my father, I attached to them. I formed an attachment and that was significant. And I form an attachment to my foster family. And then I was removed from my foster family to another family to be adopted at the age of seven and a half. So I understand a lot about separation trauma, attachment, grief and loss.
Courtney (06:38.518)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (06:53.998)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (06:58.656)
And that led me to write a one-woman play called What's Your Name, Who's Your Daddy? And I did that in 1999. And that also helped me make sense of what happened to me. Just put it in a narrative because it can be very confusing and disorganizing and to go back and retell the story without putting it in its order.
because for kids through the foster care system, so much happens. There's so much shuffling that goes on and multiple placements. So it's very cathartic and that's what led me to become a therapist after that play because I realized I'm an expert in this field coming from this lived experience. So I just took that into my hands and then started working with kids and I have been so busy since.
Travis (07:25.849)
Hmm.
Travis (07:43.949)
Wow.
Travis (07:50.457)
Ha ha.
Jeanette Yoffe (07:51.734)
I became licensed in 2006 and then I became a mother myself. So it all just came full circle. And so I just feel so blessed to do this work and yeah, be here with you and sharing my story. So thank you for listening. Cause it's, it's, it's a lifelong processing. I'm still dealing with stuff and I'm an adult now and it just doesn't go away. It's a part of us. So thank you.
Travis (08:14.275)
Yeah, I imagine. Yeah? Right.
Courtney (08:18.873)
Yeah. Which is a great reminder right there, just because when I hear that story, I'm like, wow, what a full circle, amazing story that's just beautiful, you know, but for you to bring it back to reality of the grief and the loss of the stuff that you're still dealing with to this day. And it's just great reminders for us as foster parents and adoptive parents to recognize those things.
Jeanette Yoffe (08:36.664)
That's right. That's right. And I'm a big advocate for open adoption, big advocate, and open foster care. In a nutshell, I've had kids grieving the loss of prior foster families like I did, and they need to see them again. They need to know it wasn't about them that they couldn't remain in that foster home. It was about the circumstances in that foster family's life at that time.
Travis (08:37.903)
Hmm.
Courtney (08:42.35)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Travis (08:45.657)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (09:04.398)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (09:05.091)
or the system and you know, they wanted permanency. So open foster care helps the child still remain connected to foster families that they've loved and still know that they're wanted. I am still in touch with my foster family. I am still in touch with them. I still see them and I tell them, you helped grow me up. You are a part of my family.
Travis (09:21.817)
That's awesome.
Jeanette Yoffe (09:30.603)
And so I had to convince them that it's okay for me to see you again. It's important for us. We're all grieving the loss of not being able to stay together. And they decided, my foster family, they were, they didn't feel equipped enough to parent a child who'd been through so much as I did. So that's why I was placed in another home. But still I was grieving the loss of my foster family.
Travis (09:35.235)
Hmm. Hmm.
Courtney (09:37.23)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (09:59.745)
Six years is a long time.
Courtney (10:02.414)
It is. Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (10:04.364)
So yeah.
Travis (10:06.297)
I was just thinking too, and thanks for bringing us into some of your story and really honored to hear that and have you on with us. I was thinking with all the podcasts episodes we've done, I don't feel like we've really delved into much around grieving former foster parents Courtney. I I feel like that's a really fascinating place to even land for a little bit. was just like, that's right.
Jeanette Yoffe (10:23.554)
you
Courtney (10:23.724)
Yeah, definitely.
Courtney (10:28.448)
Yeah, we talked about it from the foster parent side, you know, like the grief and the how we're going to handle this attachment, but then from the other side. Yeah.
Travis (10:33.55)
Yeah.
Travis (10:37.497)
Cause we had a guest on a few episodes back talking about grief, especially in adoption. And I was struck by one of her comments around how adoptive parents are forward looking, you know, the future, a new story, a new trajectory, a new life and how commonly it is for the adoptive kids, though they may be excited about that stuff, they're really looking in the rear view mirror. What am I losing? And so it was two different time orientations converge.
Jeanette Yoffe (10:38.531)
Okay. Okay.
Travis (11:06.167)
And like, wow, that's a lot to sort of navigate.
Jeanette Yoffe (11:11.872)
Yes, and kids need to make sense of what happened to them or else they will be stuck looking back. And that's what happened for me. I couldn't become a mother until I reconciled what happened to my mother. I had a lot of grief that I needed to make sense of. And once I realized I did grieve, I was grieving the loss of my foster family. And then I realized, wait, I'm also...
grieving the loss of my birth family, who I also formed an attachment to for 15 months. So grief and loss is really important. And I do tell parents just because your child is not actively talking about their grief and loss does not mean they're not actively thinking and feeling it. It's during the tween years that kids actually begin to really connect with their grief and loss. Tween years, nine to 12.
And that's typically when I see kids coming into therapy too, because they're either harboring and hiding their grief and loss, and internalized grief and loss does become anxiety and depression. And internalized anger can lead to suicidal ideation. So I'm a big advocate, I am a mental health therapist. All kids, they may be quiet, they still need somebody to talk to and adoption.
foster care competent therapist, especially if they've come from the lived experience that just takes the pressure off. Wow, yeah, I was adopted too. And I get it. And we're gonna talk about this. And we do need to be direct with kids. so, I mean, I could talk all about the interventions that I do. And one of them is the sad bag. And the sad bag is helping kids cope with their grief and loss and giving them permission to grieve.
So the sad bag is one of the interventions in my book, and it's a tear pillow using Play-Doh to release through your hands, your feelings, your grief and loss. Writing, holding a grief loss doll that represents the long lost loved one.
Jeanette Yoffe (13:30.004)
I wish I had that as a kid. A lot of the interventions I've created, I've really sat with myself and said, what did I need? I needed somebody to tell me it's okay to grieve, it's okay to cry. So I was one of those kids, I held it inside, I held it inside, because I didn't want to burden the people around me, because I could feel how intense my feelings were. And I knew that, and I would sometimes let it out, but I could see it overwhelmed the adults around me, because they didn't.
know how to deal with their own grief about my grief, they had their own unresolved grief. So the minute I saw I was overwhelming my parent, I would turn my grief off. But for me, that internalized I had tremendous anxiety. What gets repressed must be expressed and it will become either a mental health diagnosis, because it's going to come out some way.
Courtney (14:03.352)
Peace.
Jeanette Yoffe (14:28.681)
if it's not able to come out in an adaptive way through like a sad bag, you know? I'm telling kids it's okay to cry. And this is something I wish my mother did for me. I cried a lot after I was adopted. I didn't believe, I didn't know what adoption was. No one explained it to me. I thought, and I kept asking my parents, when are you going to give me away?
I didn't understand permanency. I didn't understand adoption. And that's why I created an animation for kids on my YouTube channel. What is adoption? What is foster care? I even worked with a child just last year. She didn't know she was in foster care. She thought it was her permanent family. And so I often, I wish my mother had said to me,
Courtney (15:16.961)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (15:25.589)
I'm so sorry you feel so sorry for yourself. Because that's what I was feeling. She got the feeling right. I'm so sorry you feel so sorry for yourself. You have a lot to feel sorry for, honey. You do. And I needed her to lean into. And this is hard for parents. Lean into the discomfort, the shadow of grief. Even as adults, we're not comfortable with it. And guess what? It's uncomfortable. We need to.
Travis (15:30.947)
Hmm.
Travis (15:39.065)
Hmm.
Travis (15:54.297)
Right.
Jeanette Yoffe (15:55.44)
Accept that, embrace that, it's messy, we don't have the words. And just your physical presence, just being held and being told you can cry is so powerful. It's someone's witnessing and feeling my pain with me. So I had to feel my pain all by myself for years, and it wasn't until I was 13, and unfortunately I tried to end my life.
Travis (16:15.855)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (16:25.088)
And that's when I entered therapy at age 13. So that's why I say like, just because they appear like everything is okay, there could be a little twitch and a little nonverbal cue you see. They get up, they're a little more emotional. They're more sensitive. They have a lot of shame. They need to talk to somebody. It's bottled up in there. That's another one of my interventions. It's shaking up a can of soda.
Travis (16:33.497)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (16:37.839)
Hmm.
Courtney (16:48.726)
Yeah.
Travis (16:48.932)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (16:54.429)
and writing all the things that are bottled up and then letting it release itself. It's just the metaphors, the catharsis, and the release and the externalization. We need a lot of that. So that's why I wrote my book. It's just all about interventions that the child can project their feelings on and they have something tangible to work with in their room that they have.
Travis (17:08.271)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (17:21.675)
A question box, there's so much ambiguous loss. I had so many questions. Wait, why am I not with my birth family? Wait, why was I in foster care for six years? you were going back and forth with the Argentinian consulate? I didn't know that. That's why I was lingering in the system. They were actually trying to do family reunification, which I greatly appreciate. And so the question box allows kids to just project
Courtney (17:38.338)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (17:51.335)
all the questions and I tell kids, guess what? We're not gonna deal with any answers. We're just gonna get the questions out. Because you must have a lot of questions about what's been happening for you. And then we choose one question at a time to give them age appropriate. And it's a stalling tactic for parents because you will get the questions and then you're like, I don't know what to do. And then you have a week.
Courtney (18:13.758)
Yeah.
Travis (18:13.923)
Hmm.
huh.
Jeanette Yoffe (18:21.375)
So the question is time stamped and we tell the child, question. Well, the big people now have a week to go do the research and find the answer to this question for you. And disclaimer, if we don't find the answer, we will keep that question in the question box until we do. And that's called an emotional container, an emotional and psychological container.
And again, I wish I had that as a kid because it impacted my learning. I had dyslexia. I had so much going on. I had trouble concentrating in school because it was all in my head. So I needed places to project, get these thoughts and feelings and sensations out of my body, out of my mind and reconcile. Make sense of, you know, we just expect these kids to get over it.
Courtney (19:13.923)
Thank
Travis (19:18.893)
Right.
Courtney (19:18.915)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (19:19.142)
We don't get over it. We need someone to help us process through it. And this is a lifelong process. I mean, some of my interventions I even do for myself. And it's okay. And I'm really big on taking the shame out of therapy. Even as parents, I'm a parent too, a lot came up for me. When my son was 15 months old, I thought I was gonna lose him.
Travis (19:25.049)
Hmm.
Courtney (19:28.706)
Hmm.
Courtney (19:39.683)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (19:49.392)
It was, wow, very cathartic for me. And then I ended up as an adult, as a new mother, I went back into therapy to process it. So even your parents listening, if you're having feelings, that's okay. Grief is challenging, it's hard, it's uncomfortable. But the more you master your own grief, the deeper you go within your own grief, the deeper you will be able to go within your child's grief and help them.
Travis (19:57.998)
Yeah.
Travis (20:06.233)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (20:21.368)
soften because we don't fully heal. It's always a part of us. It will shrink in its intensity, frequency and duration of grief as you give it attention, as you hold it with your child. So I can talk for hours. I do a lot of trainings and you know I'm just very passionate to really help the next generation.
Travis (20:26.393)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (20:40.546)
Yeah, it's great. Yeah.
Courtney (20:49.006)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (20:49.128)
because I know how much I suffered alone.
Courtney (20:52.376)
Yeah. And I like just recognizing, giving them the voice and the ability to ask the questions, the question box. We've got a placement in our home right now whose mom died a little over a year ago and we're his second placement and his therapist and I met a couple of weeks ago and he said, what are you guys doing at home? Because I just see a change in him since he's been in your home. And I was sitting there thinking like, I don't think we're really doing anything, but I realized our two of our adopted kiddos recently lost their mom.
Jeanette Yoffe (21:04.221)
Wow.
Courtney (21:22.348)
And within the first week of him coming to our home, we heard a conversation that they had together on a nine-year-old, seven-year-old, five-year-old having this conversation about losing their moms. And I wanted so badly to just like jump in, know, and interject, but I was letting them have this conversation. And I feel like he needed that. He needed that to feel like he wasn't the only one who was lost to mom at his age and has been a healing journey. I realized, mean, hopefully we're doing some things right in our home, but I don't think it's, I think it really was him having that connection.
Travis (21:22.617)
Hmm.
Travis (21:31.567)
Wow.
Jeanette Yoffe (21:42.191)
That's Wow.
Courtney (21:50.489)
And we hear them talking about their birth moms together all the time. And it's just like this beautiful little thing that we're watching this like nine, seven, five year old walk through together. And we bring up the conversation too, you know, well now, but it's just been a really interesting thing to watch for that age to be able to process together. And I see like these, these weights being released from him and I see his joy, you know, smiles come that we don't see very often and other things when he has that ability to talk. So.
Travis (21:54.137)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (21:57.18)
that's beautiful. I love that.
Travis (21:59.513)
haha
Courtney (22:20.046)
I think you've done.
Travis (22:21.967)
That was very cool.
Courtney (22:23.245)
Yes.
Jeanette Yoffe (22:23.311)
And there's a phrase, what's shareable becomes more bearable. And they're validating each other. and they have each other? That's fantastic. We need adoptees, foster youth. We need each other. We need to know. We become kinship and we really support each other. Because we don't have to explain. We don't have to do what's called adoptee-splaining. We already know.
Courtney (22:27.39)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (22:27.61)
Mmm. I like that.
Travis (22:37.337)
Yeah, yeah. Hmm. Hmm.
Travis (22:46.96)
Yes. Yes.
Courtney (22:48.718)
Yeah, that's even a great reminder too, to get them those connections. So you did talk about your book. I have your book right here. I ordered it. I was telling Travis before we started recording that it is like, I mean, I have not even been able to dive into it yet because it is like mind blowing what you have put together. It's called the Traumatized and At-Risk Youth Toolbox and it's got over 160
Jeanette Yoffe (22:53.936)
Right, yeah. Wow, powerful. thank you.
Travis (22:58.319)
Ha ha.
Courtney (23:17.304)
things that you can do. We are a therapeutic foster home. I mean, who is it really like, when you see the book, when you wrote the book, who are you writing it for? What's kind of your goal behind writing this book?
Jeanette Yoffe (23:20.188)
Aww.
Jeanette Yoffe (23:27.952)
Well, it's the 20 years of work that I've done. In 2009, I made a little book, starting with my sad bag, my anger bag, and my stress bag, for therapists. Because therapists, I began training therapists, and they were like, what do I do when I have a foster youth or adopted child in front of me? They were overwhelmed. So I started tailoring these interventions. And so then I would do.
Travis (23:50.959)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (23:55.75)
trainings for therapists, social workers, and then it brids to parents because we were understanding that we want to teach parents to be therapeutic in and of themselves for their child. You're with your child 24-7. A therapist is only there one hour a week, if any, right? So I wanted to have tangible things that the parent can take home from the therapy and DIY do yourself.
Travis (24:07.225)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (24:13.219)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (24:22.999)
You can make an anger bag with your child and make an anger bag for yourself. Modeling, we all have anger, angry parts. So it's also for educators, any trusted adult working with any child who's experienced really any trauma. I go through different types of trauma, foster care, domestic violence, homelessness, death, traumatic death, abuse, sexual abuse.
physical abuse and really it's a simple way that I break it down. know, there's a section for just teaching how to help a child feel safe in their body. That's number one. We have to just first help kids feel safe. Then phase two, teach them coping skills. Then phase three, then you can begin to talk about their story.
Travis (25:16.711)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (25:21.572)
their narrative. they don't feel safe in their bodies and they don't have tools and resources because feelings are going to come up, they're not going to be able to process their trauma. So, and you want to do it a little dose at a time. Bruce Perry talks about that a little bit at a time that they can tolerate and then that window of stress tolerance will build and they can go deeper and deeper and deeper. But we have to create this foundation. And then I specifically
have interventions for whatever that child, whatever happened to them. We can specifically go into that experience. And then I have attachment interventions and resiliency, like helping kids just feel proud and see their strengths and know that they're resilient and they've encountered something that has only made them stronger. oh, so we wanna...
Travis (26:12.856)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (26:15.524)
We want to connect and balance. There's vulnerabilities and you also gain strengths from this experience. So it's really, you know, it's an inspirational book. Parents can also see and go, you know what? I think I want to do this intervention for me. So it really is, we all have some element of trauma or something that was unresolved in our past. So it's, you know,
Travis (26:22.329)
Hmm.
Travis (26:32.611)
Yeah.
Courtney (26:33.101)
Yes.
Jeanette Yoffe (26:44.346)
for all age groups, really. I had a women's group and I did the self-forgiveness poll with women and everyone was crying, sharing. And I thought, this is a little intervention that I did with a child who blamed himself for his father being arrested because he wouldn't put his seatbelt on in the car. And the father reached back and punched him to get him to sit down, just as a squad car.
Courtney (26:53.336)
Thank
Travis (26:53.78)
huh.
Courtney (27:00.27)
Hmm.
Travis (27:05.167)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (27:12.237)
was driving past and he was pulled over and arrested. And this little boy had so much guilt. And I said, let's do the self-forgiveness poll because it's not your fault. And I could see how much he loved his birth father. And let's wonder about your father. And I wonder if he didn't know what else to do in that moment, but use his hands. I wonder if that happened to him.
Travis (27:24.207)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (27:41.356)
And maybe he needed a therapist to talk to, right? To take the shame and the blame that, you know, that this, could tell this child loved his father. So, so yeah, the book, thank you. It's just really been a work from my heart and the work professionally that I've done with kids and what's been effective, what works and, you know, cause we need tools.
Travis (27:47.523)
Yeah.
Travis (27:52.943)
Hmm.
Courtney (28:06.445)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (28:06.582)
For therapists, for social workers, what do I do when I have a child asking me a question and then parents feel obligated to answer it and they give too much information and now we've overwhelmed and can cause retraumatization and they're not ready for all the information. I've really, it's step by step by step. You will get there from here.
Travis (28:06.607)
That's right.
Travis (28:20.303)
Hmm.
Courtney (28:31.968)
Yeah. And I love that. I know you said it's for everybody, that, you know, different types of trauma, but a lot of the focus in there is foster care, which you don't find in any other book like this. Like I have, have behind me, I've got a whole shelf of books that are just about foster care and adoption and trauma. But, you know, other great books that I've have used, but this one, when you have the verbiage and the things to say specifically about foster care, it is just like, my mind is like, my goodness, this is what I need.
Travis (28:33.452)
Ha
Jeanette Yoffe (28:41.975)
Yes, exactly.
Jeanette Yoffe (28:55.843)
That's right.
Jeanette Yoffe (29:00.525)
Yes, you have the language.
Courtney (29:01.07)
Even so about the court process. mean, you have things about courts in here and judges. Like, yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (29:04.663)
That's right. well, I remember when I was, my father told, I was seven and a half when we went to the court building. We drove to the court building. Nobody told me, nobody told me and explained to me what was happening. I would not get out of the car. I held onto the car for dear life. Do you know why? I thought they were giving me away again. It was this huge building.
Travis (29:06.415)
Cheers.
Travis (29:10.318)
Yeah.
Travis (29:31.759)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (29:34.999)
And they kept telling me, you're getting adopted, you're getting adopted. But no one's explaining to me what adoption is. I don't know what adoption is. That's a big abstract word for a child. So I do a lot of front loading. It's called front loading. You tell them the beginning, middle, and end of things. So like the court video, it explains what court is, what happens, who you meet, what...
The judge will ask you what the plans are. Like, I needed that as a kid. I was terrified, my father said. I would not leave the car. Because I thought, I mean, it became another trauma for me. So it's like these little things we don't realize, front loading, explaining to a child before an.
Travis (30:10.745)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (30:31.681)
Especially if you go to the Christmas party at the adoption agency, I'm telling you, the kids think, wait, why are we going to the adoption agency? I've had kids like that and they also will not get out of the car. And it's the Christmas party and the parents really confused, but the child is having an internal experience. He has an association with that adoption agency. All right? I've been here multiple times. I know what this is. So I need to know.
Courtney (30:34.926)
Okay.
Travis (30:53.475)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (31:01.791)
I need reassurance. We're all going to the Christmas party. We're all getting our gifts. We're all going to have a great lunch. We're all going to get back in the car. We're all going to get back home and just chill out. Right? They need to see the beginning, middle, and end and coming back full circle.
Travis (31:21.199)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (31:22.942)
I find that as a big piece. If you have a child, what's hysterical, if you have really big behavior, you must recognize it probably has something to do with something that's historical. That's another one of my phrases. I have a lot of phrases. What's hysterical? That's trauma. There's always the question, is this adoption foster related? Yes, if it's hysterical, it's coming out for a reason. It needs our attention.
Travis (31:37.593)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (31:51.585)
to lean into it. Yes, it's uncomfortable. Not only for you, it's uncomfortable for the child. It's so, I often felt like my body was on a subway constantly and I could never get off. I was like, I'm just trying to find a sense of relief here from just the, you know, what happened, the multiple placements. So that's why I really focus on the beginning of my book.
Teaching kids skill sets to just feel safe in their bodies. Just feel safe. A grounding cord, a body scan. Tapping in a protective figure or a loving figure. Tapping in a peaceful place. And that's really the goal of any mental health intervention. Providing that person with a sense of relief.
Travis (32:27.567)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (32:50.804)
So yeah, there's a lot of things to do. And I have many trainings. I have a YouTube channel. It's called Genetically Speaking. It's my name. And so there's a lot of videos on there for parents to just dip your toe in. It's a 15 minute video, how to help your child with grief. And just sit back in your time.
Travis (32:52.441)
Yeah.
Travis (33:05.623)
Nice.
Jeanette Yoffe (33:20.406)
And whatever you're feeling, let yourself feel it too because you want to release your own stress from your body about this. And talk to a therapist who has lived experience. It will help you make sense of why this is important. You'll actually bond more with your child when your child feels felt by you. It creates what every parent wants.
Travis (33:30.084)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (33:49.761)
connection, that intimacy. And it really does come down to the grief and recognizing all of these kids. And you can quote me on that, our grieving, the loss of their families. And it's just being curious, like which foster family did you feel really connected to? Did you feel that which foster family are you missing? And not making promises. So there's a step I
Travis (33:54.873)
Yeah.
Travis (34:00.921)
Hmm, yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (34:19.892)
literally draw steps on a piece of paper and go, okay, all the adults in that child's life, if the child wants to see that foster family again, all the parents need to get on the same page about that. What's the story we're telling them about why they couldn't remain in that foster home? Are you willing to make a commitment and see this child? Could be once a year or twice a year. Are you willing to make that commitment?
and the child will have questions. Are you willing to answer them? And we'll have a question box prepared and ready so that everyone can answer it the same way, age appropriate, and not feel obligated in the moment to answer. So you see how these tools help with this process and then it helps that child lessen and soften their grief.
To see your foster family again is such a relief to know that you're still loved, you're still wanted, and you're still valuable. And it wasn't about you, because kids take it personal, especially in foster care. It was my fault. It was because I did this, or I did this, because I was bad. I was all wrong. That's why. I mean, this is what happens. They blame themselves.
Travis (35:21.357)
Yeah. Yeah.
Travis (35:27.577)
Yeah.
Travis (35:43.545)
Hmm. Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (35:46.599)
So that's why open foster care can really help a child go, it wasn't about you. It was about the circumstances. And they can have what's called objectivity and make sense of the past and then be able to get in the present and focus on the future.
Courtney (36:05.475)
Hmm.
Travis (36:07.215)
Yeah, that's man. I mean, just, this is just such a wealth of everything. You're I'm just hanging on every word and, uh, experientially as a former foster parent, adoptive dad of two boys. Um, it's really hitting close to home of just thinking through that stuff, the transitions, the things they hold even subconsciously in body and memory. Um, really powerful, um, moving this along. Cause we could just camp out at any these for so long. know, um, even on any of these topics, um, get.
Jeanette Yoffe (36:21.267)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (36:27.167)
That's right.
Yes, yes, I know. We could talk forever. I know.
Travis (36:36.345)
Get us into some of your work with children's books. You set that up maybe a little bit, but tell us more about those books and kind of what's behind that for them.
Jeanette Yoffe (36:45.319)
Yes, so I created the animation, What is Adoption? And after I did that, I said, I want to make this into a children's book so children physically have it in their hands. And that for me, it helps them see that there's many reasons why any child would be placed for adoption. Because that's the biggest question is, why was I adopted?
is the biggest question for kids and we're scared of explaining, right? Because it can be scary. And that's another training, how to tell your child their foster care and adoption story. It's a five-part training on my YouTube channel. And so yeah, it's about, it's again, it's a form of front loading. I'm going to explain to you what adoption is and age appropriate, six to nine.
Parents, whenever you get a children's book about adoption, you need to read it first and go, okay. Even I purchase books and go, mm, this doesn't feel right. And it could have been written by, I don't know, someone who's not even adoption competent. And yet they're writing a book about adoption. I need to ensure that it's done well and it's clear and it's honest, it's transparent.
Courtney (37:45.238)
Yes.
Jeanette Yoffe (38:06.74)
So it explains the process. There's many reasons why a child would be adopted and you're going to have lots of questions about being adopted. So you might want to make a question box. So I teach in the book and it's helping kids understand and you may have grief and that's okay. It's okay to grieve the loss of your birth family. That's part of your healing process. So and I teach kids how to
Travis (38:32.686)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (38:35.034)
in the video and in the book, things you can do with your grief and loss. And then I point out how many celebrities there are that were also adopted doing amazing things in the world. So it's, what is adoption and what is foster care? And they're both animations and children's books. And yeah, so.
Travis (38:40.143)
Hmm.
Travis (38:58.372)
Yeah.
Courtney (38:58.862)
Great resources. I have the same motto. That's why I bought your books. Because I'm like, I'm not going to have her on the podcast and not check out, make sure that we would promote these things. And I do. I have a ton of books. I was a teacher for many years. I love children's books, but I order books all the time. And sometimes my biggest beef with a lot of foster care books is they have an ending. And so if I'm reading that to a kiddo that's in care and they have the ending of a certain way, they think that ending is going to be their ending. And so
Travis (39:02.84)
Pfft.
Jeanette Yoffe (39:03.483)
Aww.
That's right.
Courtney (39:27.574)
I've even talked to other authors before, like, love your book, but I can't read this to my foster child, and this is why. And so I like the books that are more, that have those open-ended, the questions, honesty, the things that they can, for their story, because it is going to be so different, and we don't want them to be making assumptions or getting tied to something that then is going to cause more grief and loss when it doesn't go a certain way. Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (39:37.171)
honest.
Travis (39:38.019)
Honest.
Travis (39:49.039)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (39:51.133)
That's right, like the Hallmark book, right? Everything's going to be okay, and that's false. And that's us talking them out of their feelings. really, what gets repressed will be expressed, and it's not gonna be in a happy way either. It's gonna come out like a volcano. Those feelings. One of my interventions, erupt your feelings, and we actually make a volcano.
Travis (39:54.191)
Yeah, hey, right. Yep.
Travis (40:12.121)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Travis (40:20.249)
Nice.
Jeanette Yoffe (40:20.907)
and put our feelings in there. yeah, I have a lot of boy boy interventions.
Travis (40:24.175)
I love it. I think I need that one myself, over this holiday season. think I'm going to work.
Courtney (40:27.884)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (40:32.999)
Bottled up is a good one. That's a good one to do as a family. Everybody gets their own big soda bottle. You need the Mentos and you put, has to have aspartame. Everybody writes on the bottle what they're holding inside and then what they want to let go in 2025. It's a great New Year's actually intervention. And everybody puts it in the street and you all get to let it rip. Yeah. Yeah. And it's fun. That's like.
Travis (40:36.481)
Okay.
Courtney (40:40.711)
yeah.
Travis (40:49.295)
That is cool, I love that.
Courtney (40:49.918)
Yeah, that is a good idea.
Courtney (40:55.168)
Yeah.
Travis (40:55.375)
Yeah, it's like ceremonial too, that's so cool.
Travis (41:02.179)
Yeah. Yep.
Jeanette Yoffe (41:02.458)
That's the interventions are just direct. It's clear. We're not shaming anybody. We all have, we're normalizing. We all feel this way. And as parents, it's modeling. We all flip our lids. And that's a video that was one of my first videos on my YouTube channel, the hand model of the brain. Cause I'm thinking, how do I explain brain, our brains and why we do what we do?
But this is actually Dan Siegel's work, The Hand Model of the Brain. And I approached him and I said, I love your video, but it's for adults. And I work with kids. Can I take what you're doing and make it into a kid-friendly video? He was like, totally. He gave me the baton. He gave me permission. And he laughed when I showed him the video. He's like, that's cute. And so, thank you.
Courtney (41:33.23)
Yeah.
Travis (41:33.558)
Mmm. yeah.
Travis (41:48.416)
Awesome!
Travis (41:53.753)
Ha ha.
Courtney (41:55.731)
It really is great though. And a great way because like I said to give kids.
Travis (41:57.773)
huh huh.
Jeanette Yoffe (42:01.194)
Yes, what is going on in your brain? And we flip our lids and we all act out from our animal part, that reptilian part, and how do we communicate to others how we're feeling and what we need. And so I'll tell parents to go around the house and go, you know what, honey, I'm about to flip my lid and I need. And really a lot of parenting is modeling. When you're modeling and teaching,
Travis (42:21.455)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (42:30.223)
That's teaching and that's discipline. You're showing a child that this is what we do with our big feelings and we all have them and we have feelings and there's needs and teaching kids the five A's. Five A's are we all have five needs. We all need appreciation. We all need acknowledgement. We all need autonomy, alone time. We all need affection and we all need attention, listening. And that's really part of
Travis (42:58.287)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (42:59.442)
the emotional and psychological needs and we all have a right to ask for what we need and there's a difference between needs and wants and so yeah, so and like make parenting fun because it will have challenges. We all know this. So make it fun and playful and you know, I am a big advocate for attachment parenting.
Courtney (43:27.982)
Yeah. What do you mean by that? Thinking of foster care, what do mean by that?
Travis (43:28.111)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (43:30.027)
And so yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (43:34.404)
Yeah, so attachment parenting, the relationship comes first. And so I teach Daniel Hughes's attachment-focused parenting, and he talks about connection before correction. You must have connection with your child. And that's connecting to them through PACE, P-A-C-E. Have you heard of that? It's the acronym, and you don't have to do it in this order.
Courtney (43:56.686)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (44:01.838)
But P, any big behavior that you see, just do something playful. Playfulness can sometimes shift a stuck child. And I've seen it, I've tried it. I don't teach what I haven't, you know, don't preach what I haven't done and worked out for myself. It shifts kids. Kids get stuck. And so doing something playful can help. I like to also teach parents pace.
Travis (44:08.269)
Hmm.
Travis (44:11.919)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Travis (44:21.199)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (44:28.731)
for you to pace yourself like putting the oxygen mask on, do something playful with yourself. Don't be so hard on yourself. You're gonna have your hard days and then, and your good days. A is always accept the child is doing the best that they can. Even the maladaptive behaviors, they're not doing it on purpose. They're not trying to push your buttons.
Travis (44:31.801)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (44:54.339)
They're having an overwhelming internal experience that they don't know what else to do with their feelings in that moment. So separate the child from their behavior. love your child always and convey that verbally and non-verbally. Even when they do something wrong, you're not putting the emphasis on their wrong. You're putting the emphasis on throwing your cell phone against the mirror. That's not okay, right?
Travis (45:00.355)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (45:05.177)
Yeah.
Courtney (45:24.034)
Yes.
Jeanette Yoffe (45:24.129)
You're okay. Throwing that against that's not a we. And a lot of attachment is about we. It's not you're gonna work on this. It's we're gonna work on this. The relationship, the co-regulation. So A is that accepting your child is doing the best you can because we do project a lot of, you can get caught in a negative feedback loop where you're just looking at your child like they're just, you're so frustrated with them.
Travis (45:33.965)
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (45:53.519)
And when they pick that up, they're going to hide their motives. They don't feel safe. If they feel criticized and blamed and shamed, they're not going to open up. And guess what? Your role as a parent is going to be even harder. So it's in your best interest to accept your child is doing the best you can. You may not like their behavior, but separate them from their behavior. And A, accept yourself.
Travis (46:08.882)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (46:21.208)
You may look in the mirror and go, you know what, I flipped my lid this morning. Again, go to your child and repair. It's so powerful. And taking responsibility over your own reactivity, which Brian Post talks about. mean...
Travis (46:24.281)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (46:38.148)
I've done it as a mother. I said, you know what? I flipped my lip this morning and I'm really sorry about that. I'm not shaming myself. I'm putting the emphasis on the behavior and I'm going to work on that because I know that scared you and I'm sorry about that. And kids will be like, you talking to me? It shows you value the relationship. You value that person.
Travis (46:57.976)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (47:07.438)
You value, they are so worthy and valuable that you will take the blame and take responsibility. And that's so powerful for youth to recognize, wow, I really matter to my parent that they're willing to be vulnerable. And it shows kids how to be vulnerable. And I'm gonna tell you, kids will a few weeks later go, mom, I'm really sorry that I flipped my lid.
Travis (47:16.995)
Yep. Yeah.
Courtney (47:17.71)
Hmm.
Travis (47:34.329)
Mm-hmm.
Courtney (47:34.732)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (47:35.92)
because you've shown them the way. You've paved that path. So then C is be curious, always be curious. And you really need to watch your tone of voice. And in attachment parenting, it's raising. You can tell the difference between asking a question where you're expecting an answer. And you're like, I wanna know why you did this, right?
That is not going to be in your best interest because the child's going to feel criticized. They can already tell by your tone that you're angry with them. And a lot of these kids mistake anger as abandonment. feel, they see when parents angry, they feel like they can be potentially abandoned. They're unlovable. There's something wrong about them. See, they don't like me.
Travis (48:08.953)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (48:29.891)
So there's a high sensitivity to any perceived sense of rejection. So now listen, we're human, we're parents, we get angry sometimes, but we need to just keep it in check and take responsibility where we're placing the anger. So C is just be curious with your tone. And it takes practice when you see something broken in the living room. Rather than saying what happened here, right, with your tone, it's...
Travis (48:38.543)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Courtney (48:50.605)
Yeah.
Courtney (48:54.542)
Thank you.
Travis (48:55.054)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (48:59.715)
Let me be attachment focused. Let me use pace and go, what's happening here, honey? I see that there's a lot of stuff on the floor. You're more likely to get the whole story. If you question and ask why and are angry, the child will hide their motives because they're gonna feel that you're gonna criticize them. it could have been, know, kids make mistakes all the time.
So, and I was one of those kids and we will blame and shame ourselves, you betcha. So if we see you blaming us, there's a double blame going on. We can get really hard on ourselves and then feel worse about ourselves. So be curious and your tone will change and it's actually a high C note. And that's because it's safe for the listener. It actually brings the listener in and
Daniel Hughes talks about storytelling. When you're giving information, tell it like a story. You see how my tone just changed? It actually, it invites the child into the story and they're actually more able to take in the story and be receptive to what you're telling them. And then E is have empathy. Have empathy for yourself, have empathy for your child. This is hard, name it, detain it. This is hard and we're doing it. This is hard and...
Travis (50:16.121)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (50:29.058)
we're gonna get through this, right? You're the thermostat, you're the model. And yeah, it takes a lot of strength. And I can see that both of you really, I commend you both. You have a podcast, you're learning, you're reading books. I just thank you for being foster and adoptive parents and showing up and learning and leaning in and being there for kids. I know it's hard. So I have empathy for parents so much.
Travis (50:50.947)
Yeah. Yeah.
Travis (50:57.423)
Thanks for all that. And for what you just said, mean, and I would just say for me, my biggest thing in the tool belt for me is probably repair and attunement because I'm very gut reactive. I can tend to sort of just jump in and make an assessment and this is what happened. And then that can escalate behaviors and we get defensive and all of a sudden now it's a, it's a brawl, you know, just a verbal thing. so like for me, yeah, just being able to.
Courtney (50:58.764)
Yeah.
Travis (51:20.943)
Yeah. And then what you said about empathy. That's great. So yeah, I'm going to have to re-listen this podcast because this is really a training to be honest. It's a conversation and training. So you have so much good information. yeah, I can tell. So as we wind this to the sort of the home stretch, you have a quote where you say that every child in foster care carries a story written in survival. Our job is to help them rewrite it with safety, stability and love. Beautiful quote.
Courtney (51:28.012)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (51:28.259)
Courtney (51:31.286)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (51:31.381)
what I do.
Travis (51:48.729)
How can families then keep this in mind in their sort of day-to-day living? You've kind of talked about that song, but how can they help children also feel safe, stable, and loved in light of some of those principles?
Jeanette Yoffe (51:59.649)
Well, I think you just said it, Travis. You know, there's a negative stigma. I'm going to say this about foster youth. Don't assume negative motives. Don't assume... The minute you assume a negative motive, you make it prominent. It's the way it goes. Because the brain is so... It's highly... Children are highly impressionable. So if you're projecting, you're being disrespectful, you've just planted the seed.
You're disrespectful. Oh, what's wrong with you? Thanks, mom. Thanks, dad. There is something wrong with me. Thanks for like, oh, and this is my one-woman play. You can hear it. It's on audible. I do the child's voice. Something's all wrong. It'll be the inner, what goes on in there. We're already hard on ourselves. And I know parents are hard on themselves too. It's okay to show your vulnerability.
Courtney (52:43.928)
Yes.
Jeanette Yoffe (52:59.732)
So I think when it comes to their story, we want to tell them what happened to them in age appropriate ways so that they can make sense of what happened to them so they're not blaming themselves. It was not about you. And you're not that powerful. Like I've had to tell kids because they really believe it was my fault. If I put my seatbelt on in the back of that car, my dad wouldn't have been able
This would have happened another time. Like, it's not about you. So we want to take the emphasis off of them and just like we did with the behavior and put it on the circumstances. In your mother's life at that time, this is what was going on for her. And I had an eight-year-old who we learned that her mother, her birth mother's mother had died.
And then before she was born and she had depression and becoming a mother brought up more of her grief and loss. And it's not that she wouldn't, she couldn't be a parent to any baby born on your birthday. She had a lot of big feelings that she needed to take care of. Others helping kids, just giving them phrases.
You know, some parents are not ready to be parents. They're too young to be parents. I mean, and then just going out the story and explaining like, do you know how many diapers get changed for infants every day? They have like 10 diaper changes in one day, right? They need a mommy all day long. And if she doesn't have someone there helping her, whether it's a daycare or a significant other.
Travis (54:28.335)
Hmm.
Courtney (54:37.006)
you
Jeanette Yoffe (54:52.404)
It's not that she won't, she can't do it all by herself. And just because a mommy looks like a mommy on the outside doesn't mean she's a mommy on the inside. She may still need growing up. Not everybody who makes babies can be a parent to that baby. So there's just, it's, and I'm going to tell you with kids, they will recycle information. So you may find that, wait, I told her this three years ago. Why is she asking me again?
Travis (55:06.735)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (55:22.72)
they're recycling it because their brain is developing from concrete thinking to abstract thinking. So they will, through development, have new questions. And the big questions come in adolescence, and that's when we really need to tell them their story with honesty and transparency and feeling their story with them. And for kids, we want to answer their questions. So they feel a sense of mastery.
of what happened to them because they feel if we don't give them their story, they're going to continue to feel victimized by that story. We need to retell them the story so they can make sense of the story and not blame themselves for the story because it's not their fault. And then we really need to be careful not to point a finger at birth parents, even if they've done horrendous things. And I know, I know, I've...
Courtney (56:11.438)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (56:17.753)
Mm-hmm.
Travis (56:21.551)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (56:22.031)
I'm telling the stories I work in child welfare as a foster care social worker are horrendous. But kids, that's their birth parent. And if we put blame and shame on their birth parent at that, they're all bad and you're in a better place now and don't think about them, they abused you, that child is going to internalize, well, if they're bad, then I'm bad because they're a part of me.
Travis (56:32.751)
All
Travis (56:37.113)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (56:51.423)
So we really need to be careful. Just like we were separating the child from their behavior, we're separating the birth parent from their behavior, right? Parenting is hard and, you know, if you don't have the resources and support or education, you know, you may become a parent and use drugs in order to cope and you lose everything.
Travis (56:52.825)
Right.
Travis (57:02.543)
Hmm.
Travis (57:13.913)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (57:16.551)
Or you may have unmet mental health needs. You never received therapy that you needed growing up because you lived in the projects. mean, you didn't have, their family didn't have the resources. So I don't want to blame birth parents. We can separate them from what they did, what the choices they made, the circumstances in their life that led them to not be able to be that child's parent. So.
It's really helping the child piece out their story so they can make sense and not blame themselves. Because we want to help kids move from survival to you can thrive now. You can do something with what happened to you. And that's really what I've done in my life now. I've really taken all of this that's happened to me.
Travis (57:56.473)
Yeah.
Travis (58:03.235)
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (58:12.85)
And now I can do something about it. I'm no longer a victim of the system or what happened. I understand why my parents did what they did. It wasn't about me. So that I can build myself up, rebuild myself inside, help my little girl self heal, take care of her and know that I am going to be okay. And there is support out there. you know, I think that's really.
why it's so important to tell them their story. And yes, they are survivors and they're no longer victims.
Courtney (58:51.822)
Yeah. This has been a great interview. And Jeanette, I thank you for the work that you do and just for sharing your story. I'm sure that it's still hard, but the work that you're doing really is meaningful and impactful. And I hope foster families get a lot of this and listen, like Travis said, listen to this over and over and over again, because I feel like you have so many great nuggets to share, tips and tools. And I highly suggest people get your book, The Traumatized and At-Risk Youth Toolbox.
Jeanette Yoffe (58:57.034)
thank you so much.
Travis (58:59.151)
Mm-hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (59:13.754)
thank you.
Courtney (59:20.332)
focusing on attachment and ways that we can give kids voice and give them the words to use. And also the tips that we can do as parents, caregivers, therapists, whoever you are in the circle of this. As we close this out, Janette, I'd love for you to just answer this sentence. What kids in foster care really need is...
Jeanette Yoffe (59:42.505)
You know, I was thinking about this last night, to know that they exist, that they exist, that they matter. And I say that because my own birth father will not have reunion with me. And I'm an adult. And look what I do in my life. It makes me feel like I don't exist. I don't matter. Birth parents, you are so important to your child.
Travis (59:49.057)
Hmm.
Travis (59:58.521)
Wow. Wow.
Hmm.
Jeanette Yoffe (01:00:09.085)
Foster parents, you are so important, even if that child's been in your home for three months. We need to know we exist, we matter. We're not just passing through. We're not just, you know, we're human beings. We need to know that we exist. Someone wants to be in our life. Like, even just getting on a child's level and not having any agenda going, I'm just here to listen and pay attention and see you.
Travis (01:00:23.257)
Right.
Travis (01:00:28.495)
Hmm.
Travis (01:00:35.3)
I know.
Jeanette Yoffe (01:00:37.875)
to be seen, heard, and received and witnessed. Again, it's like, you're looking at me? I'm valuable enough for you to give me your attention? Thank you. Because we tend to skip over and talk them out of their feelings, because we're uncomfortable with their feelings, when really they just want someone to sit with them and go, you matter.
Travis (01:00:52.687)
Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (01:01:07.394)
Mattering is so important for foster youth. So yeah.
Travis (01:01:12.847)
Well, can't end it on a more kind of powerful note that kind of brings it all together. And I think about belonging as a huge mantra for America's Kids Belong. It's in our title, you know, that whole thing of just belonging, you matter, you're here. Thank you for, we've said this before, but thank you again, sis, for your tremendous work, your redemptive work, your heart, your passion, your lived experience, your vulnerability.
Courtney (01:01:12.91)
That's great.
Jeanette Yoffe (01:01:24.998)
Yes, that's right.
Travis (01:01:40.035)
and just the gift that you are to give to this space to help some of the others. So in light of that, we'll have links for this stuff, but what is the best way to find you and your work? Is it, have a website or what would, what should we share?
Jeanette Yoffe (01:01:53.782)
Yeah, JeanetteYoff.com. It has links to Yoff Therapy. you're in the state of California and you're looking for an adoption competent therapist, it has my YouTube channel on Jeanette Yoff and then it has my nonprofit organization, Celia Center, which I named after my birth mother Celia. And we have support groups on Zoom for adoptive and foster parents, adult adoptees.
and arts festivals. Just because I love the arts and really connecting arts and foster care and adoption is special and unique. you know, there's a lot, it's hard to put it into words and it's much easier to put it into art and transform it that way. And it's very healing. So it's all there.
Travis (01:02:41.945)
Yeah, we'll have links to that website. So thanks for sharing.
Courtney (01:02:46.102)
Yes, thanks for joining us today.
Jeanette Yoffe (01:02:47.314)
Thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm so blessed. I just feel so blessed to do this work. you know, we're a community. We need each other, you know, and I really have respect for parents, you know, for foster youth. And we're in this together and we're models for each other. And there's so much to do. And, you know, as you can see, I've just when you see a loophole, that's what always happens to me. go,
Travis (01:02:56.953)
Mm-hmm. Yup. Indeed.
Travis (01:03:15.811)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeanette Yoffe (01:03:17.032)
This is a loophole. This is something that hasn't been addressed. We need to talk about it. Let's bring attention. Let's lean into that. And we can all do it, you know, in our communities. So yeah.
Travis (01:03:21.337)
Yeah.
Travis (01:03:28.515)
Well said. Well said. All right. Thanks again.
Jeanette Yoffe (01:03:34.45)
Thank you.