Foster Parent Well
Jump into "Foster Parent Well with Nicole T Barlow," where the adventure of Christian foster and adoptive parenting gets a little easier, a lot more joyful, and deeply fulfilling. Nicole's here with a mission: to guide you in parenting with a heart full of steadfast faith, unshakable endurance, and infectious joy.
This podcast is your cozy nook in the vast world of parenting, blending laughs, learning, and lots of love. It’s where self-care meets faith-filled encouragement, and mindset shifts help you navigate the rollercoaster of fostering and adopting. For every parent out there looking to refill their emotional and spiritual tanks, Nicole's got you covered with stories, tips, and expert advice that speak directly to the soul of a Christian foster or adoptive parent.
With "Foster Parent Well," it's like sitting down with a good friend who gets it—the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Nicole dives into the unique challenges and beautiful moments of parenting children with trauma, all while reminding you that taking time for yourself isn't just nice; it's essential for providing the stable, loving home these kiddos need.
So, why not make this journey together? Join Nicole and a vibrant community of faith-driven parents, all dedicated to transforming their lives and the lives of their foster and adopted children. Tune into "Foster Parent Well with Nicole T Barlow" for your weekly dose of encouragement, laughter, and wisdom. Hit subscribe, and let's start fostering and adopting with faith, endurance, and a joy that lights up the room.
Foster Parent Well
Equipping Foster and Adoptive Parents: The Power of Ongoing Training
Ever wondered how continuous training can transform your journey as a foster or adoptive parent? Join us as we sit down with Katrina Campbell, the Director of Training at FaithBridgeU, to uncover the complexities of children's suffering and its profound impact on their behavior and emotional development. Katrina opens up about her personal journey into foster care and emphasizes the role of divine guidance in parenting. Together, we tackle the unique challenges parents face, the essential role faith plays in navigating these trials, and how these experiences have deepened our empathy and understanding of generational oppression.
We chat about the power of training and learning as Katrina and I share how approaching training with an open mindset can alleviate fear and anxiety, leading to meaningful intersections between spiritual and professional growth. We recount personal anecdotes that highlight the rewards of attending training sessions and how they provide essential tools for managing challenging behaviors. Explore the value of impactful training from those who've lived the experience and learn about the benefits of FaithBridgeU's online learning platform, offering tailored resources for foster and adoptive families. This episode promises to equip you with insights and inspiration to help you foster parent well.
FaithbridgeU: https://faithbridgeu.com/
FaithbridgeU Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/faithbridgeu/
For interest in foster care and adoption in the Atlanta, GA area, also check out Faithbridge Foster Care: https://faithbridgefostercare.org/
Connect with me on Instagram: @Fosterparentwell
@nicoletbarlow https://www.instagram.com/nicoletbarlow/
Website: https://nicoletbarlow.com/
Welcome to the Foster Parent Well podcast, where we have real candid, faith-filled conversations about all things foster care, adoption and trauma. I'm your host, nicole T Barlow. I'm a certified parent trainer, a certified health coach and an adoptive parent myself. This is a space where you can find support so that you can care for your kids with a steadfast faith, endurance and joy. I want you to foster parent well, so let's jump in. Welcome to the Foster Parent Well podcast. My name is Nicole T Barlow and I'm going to be your host.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to be talking about training as a foster and adoptive parent. We are going to be chatting with my good friend, katrina Campbell. Katrina is the director of training at FaithBridgeU. Faithbridgeu is an online learning system. It is your one-stop shop for all things training for foster and adoptive parents. They offer on-demand training and live trainings.
Speaker 1:As a foster parent, most likely you are going to be required to have training hours every single year, and as an adoptive parent, we might not be required to have those training hours, but we still need those training resources. Faithbridgeu has been a huge asset for me and a great place for me to go to get the resources that I need when I am parenting my own kids. I am an adoptive parent of a sibling group of five that I adopted from foster care, so I don't need training hours anymore, but that continuous learning is so important. I think you're really going to enjoy my conversation with Katrina. She is very wise. She has been pouring into me both spiritually and through my foster care journey for many, many years and she has been such a gift to me. I know this conversation is going to be a gift to you as well. To me. I know this conversation is going to be a gift to you as well. Welcome everybody. Welcome to the show. Katrina Campbell, we are so happy to have you here today.
Speaker 2:Thank you, nicole, I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into the foster care and adoption world to begin with. You know in 2009,.
Speaker 2:This was exposed to me the need and how important it is for the church to step in. So Chuck and I just stepped right into foster care and even started working in this space. Okay, awesome and tell us a little bit about your role now because you're not fostering now, correct for and for them to consider foster care and adoption or afterwards. And the need, not just for hours but also really to learn, because you start to get really desperate in such a tough ministry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it definitely. I mean, we definitely see those challenges and feel them as foster and adoptive parents, where we get to places where we don't know what to do or where to turn. So what, in working with foster and adoptive parents, what are some common struggles that you see them experiencing on their journey, you know?
Speaker 2:Nicole, I think we don't understand the complexity of suffering that the children that we serve face, and with that becomes all of the difficulties in their behavior and in their emotional struggle to even move forward as a child. You know, you hear the saying they get stuck. But I don't think we realize how much the impact of suffering has on children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how do you think that that impacts us as parents that are trying to help kids? Right, we're stepping into these spaces. We want to be a help, but how do we do that? How do we take on some of their struggle for ourselves?
Speaker 2:Well, if you could just look at the lens of how Jesus sees it, it does change us. It changes the way we think and the lens of even how we read the Bible and how we infiltrate that into our lives. I would have told you that I understood, you know hardship and all those things until I went into foster care and suffering moved in with me.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I would say I had some times in my own life that I suffered, but not to the degree that I saw when children came into my home, but not to the degree that I saw when children came into my home. And then I started noticing. I had a tendency to look at just what was coming out of a child, not the deep root of it all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. That's such a good perspective. So how can we stay in a place where we are serving our kids like Jesus served right? How do we stay encouraged? How do we stay doing the work that we've been called to do for the long haul?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the triggers that we face. If we can get in that rhythm of stopping and going. Jesus, what should I do right now? Just asking that question, with the help of the Holy Spirit. In every single moment, we face fear of not knowing what to do as a parent, and I would say and I know that you feel the same way, but my faith grew in such a way in foster care because there were things that there were not books out there to say this is how you parent a foster child or a foster teen I had to literally stop and go. Okay, lord, what do I do? You know, in so many times, and when I did, the answers that were revealed to me in my spirit were so simple. But yet, if I hadn't asked the question, I think I would have been trying to solve and fix things that didn't have to be that hard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and don't I mean, don't you think that part of the reason? I know I felt this in my own journey but that the Lord has brought me into this ministry not just for the sake of the kids, but for the sake of my own faith, so that I practice? I have to practice, walking in dependence and reliance on Him for every step of the way.
Speaker 2:Yes, and even empathy, nicole, I would have again. I would have said I had empathy for others. But seeing people suffer and even oppression that word I don't think I understood until I stepped into foster care and watched the generational oppression in the parents' lives and then in the children's lives, and most of the time even beyond their parents, and how it's hard to overcome that and it just gave me a deeper desire to learn through scriptures and through knowledge. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And I do think that knowledge, both spiritual knowledge and our faith, and intellectual knowledge, the research and the science that's been done, all of that can be so beneficial to helping us right, not only feel more confident, but to be assured that we're walking in the way that God has called us to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think the difference too. A dear friend of mine used this application in some teens and I've really taken it through life. But you know, people talk about knowledge and wisdom is the head and the heart, and she said in a simple term knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit, Wisdom is knowing. You may think you know something, but until you can apply it in practical ways, then you're not really living out the word, You're not living out knowledge. And so I was really tested on knowledge versus wisdom in foster care.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think that is so huge because I think, how many times do we go through life and we read the word right, and we think we understand it, but we are not really having to live that way, right? A lot of us live in a little bit of a suburban bubble where we're surrounded by people that are more like us than not, and so we walk in a way that doesn't necessarily understand what it feels like to suffer or to sacrifice or to lay down our life or take up our cross. Right, like we can read those things, but until you actually experience it, you don't really know what it means.
Speaker 2:And I'll tell you a good example of that Going on mission trips really shook my faith, I mean to understanding scripture, not just flat but for me. But when foster care, which is mission work, moved in with me 24-7, that's when I'm like I can't just go on the mission field and then leave after seven to 14 days, and it's like it's just in your face. And that's when I started to see. I mean I even remember getting physically sick because I was trying to do it in my own strength and then my body just started breaking down because I was worn out and I had to start relying on my faith so much more. So, when you hear people go, I don't know how people do it without their faith in Christ.
Speaker 2:I literally don't realize. I don't think people realize how valuable and important and vital it is to hold on to our faith when we do this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's true too. When I hear people say I could never do that, I think what people don't understand is that we can't either, that the way that we are doing it is through Christ. We don't have the strength to carry this out on a regular basis. We don't have the capacity to love a child and then see them reunify with their family and to celebrate that right, like all of those hardships that we may face as foster and adoptive parents. We don't have the strength for that, for those things either.
Speaker 2:But I think what's surprising is when you don't have this strength, but when you cry out to the Lord, all of a sudden you're strengthened or your hope is restored, or you literally can come out of prayer and God gave you some revelation and you're so excited, but nothing changed. But your hope was restored in your faith.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, absolutely Well. And you know, I think our faith grows as we have to rely on the Lord right for those moments of strength or comfort or whatever hope. But then also we see His faithfulness time and time again to provide where we couldn't have done it. I mean, I remember when we went through reunification the first time, with our first placement, the boys had been with us for two and a half years.
Speaker 1:It was a really I mean, you know, you saw us during that time Like it was a really, really rough period for us. And I remember calling my agency case manager and I said you're going to have to go with me to drop these boys off because I am physically not going to be able to leave them. But in that moment the Lord's strength took over. There was so much grace, right, like there was so much grace for me and for them and for all of us in that moment that it's not that it wasn't hard I don't want to say that it wasn't hard because it was but I would not have been able to go through with that in my own strength. And so, seeing those moments right and people always say I don't know how you do things like that Well, I didn't know how I was going to do it either, but the Lord was faithful to provide in those moments, and we see that every single time. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:I remember, you know our men think they can hold it together for their wives, right, you know, like I've got this and this is I can help manage any emotions that my wife may have. But I remember one time it was a sibling group of three that was really, really tough. And Chuck looked at me one day and just said this is so hard. But then, with like tears in his eyes, he said but it's worth it. And I don't know, there was something in me that moved me to see my husband compelled to feel that hard and not want to give up and see how God used us to make a difference in the children's lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's just such a gift, it's such a blessing to have this opportunity to work in partnership with the Lord and to know that he's going to supply everything that we need, and there's an intimacy that grows with God. In those moments, too, I think we grow closer to God, and I don't know how you get that outside of hardship. That has not been my experience. Right that you get that. You experience that same level of intimacy and dependency without the hardship or the struggle.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even I remember my biological daughter said to me one day I mean really kind of had a meltdown and I thought, oh my goodness, what in the world? And the words out of her mouth were I cannot believe how selfish I am. Yeah, and I'm like, oh, and I said me too. It was like this moment of relating like this is so hard, but what I feel is the hardest is having to sacrifice things that are selfish in a way. Does that make sense? But for even my teen to say that I was like, yeah, I'm the same way, but it helped me to realize that was some of my struggle too is my selfishness.
Speaker 1:Well, and I mean I think so many people are scared to enter this ministry because of its effects on our kids. But I mean you know that realization that she had, most teens don't get to experience that. Get to experience that I mean most most teens like the Lord is not they're not relying on the Lord enough to give them that perspective Right and so what?
Speaker 1:what a blessing to be able to walk with your teenager in that way and to relate to them, to connect with them in that moment, but also to really disciple our kids into what it looks like to follow Christ and to rely on Him for everything.
Speaker 2:So true, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, we've talked about some of the struggles and and some of the things that could bring fear or anxiety or apprehension right. How can trainings relieve some of that in us?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm gonna say this from professionally and personally. Um, I do remember going to trainings at times because I had to. I mean, I remember We've all done it.
Speaker 2:Yes, and what I find so interesting is our number one training. Number one on-demand training that we have is called challenging behaviors. Of course it's our number one. It has nothing to do with content, no offense against the expert or the material, but it's because we all struggle with challenging behaviors.
Speaker 2:But what I would say when it comes to training and I mean it's changed me personally as just a human being, but, going Lord, I want to be a learner all the days of my life and even if it's not something that I would choose, help me find one thing out of it. But I even say, like, find things that are connected with your spiritual application as well as professional application, and those have been the ones. When they collide both, it goes deep, and I remember it more in training, and so do families. So I hear families go.
Speaker 2:I didn't even want to come to this training. I was hoping one of my children would get sick or I was ready to give up. I mean, I could list countless quotes that I have heard over the years and they said but when I left the training I was a different person and I felt like I could do it and I understood why I was doing it. So training really does. If we just open our minds like, let me learn, not, I have to do this, but let me learn, you will come out of it. Just really in all of our God too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how do we do that? Right Like, how do we become a learner? How do we desire when our lives are so busy? Right Like, we have so many demands on our time all day long. I mean, as as a mom of six kids, right Five of whom come from a lot of previous trauma, our days are filled. Now Not as much. I mean, my kids are a little bit older, we're moving some out of the house, but still our days are so full. Sometimes, stepping outside of that and making to look at that as a blessing that's meant to make me better for what I'm doing every day, versus it's just a chore because I have to get my 15 hours a year, whatever.
Speaker 2:Yes, Paradigm shift. God says if you serve me, you will be blessed. I'm just using this one example. You don't have time to give, but yet when you give your time it's given back to you more. That is impossible to explain and any logical mindset would say you're foolish, that's not logical. That's not logical, it's not practical, it's impossible.
Speaker 2:But when we test and challenge our faith by going, I'm exhausted, I will probably fall asleep in the train, you know, like all the things. But if you change it to say I'm going to test what God's word says and I'm going to press into this and go, god, just give me one thing, just one thing out of this training, then all of a sudden our minds are open to not just learn from a person but learn from the Lord, and he will never let us down. Because I've gone to trainings, I would say to you, like, is this a waste of my time down Because I've gone to trainings? I would say to you, like, is this a waste of my time? If I had that attitude, I will not walk out with anything. But if I go, god, you better show me something in this training. I literally walk out with something huge, nicole, not just for parenting but for me personally.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, absolutely. Well, what kind of trainings do you enjoy the most? Like what are the trainings that are the most?
Speaker 2:impactful for you? Um, comissional, uh, ministry for your marriage, or like it's things that, no, no, you know. Or um, rethinking the, the way you parent. I don't want to rethink, I'm just barely getting getting by. Um, or rhythms, uh, you know, uh, peaceful rhythms in parenting, you know peaceful rhythms in parenting, you know that just sounds so cliche. Or, yeah, right, you don't live in my home. I mean, how many times do you hear foster parents or adoptive parents say that? But the training that I know even just Faith Bridge U offers, it's people who have lived it, who are living it. So when they're coming at those statements, they're coming from all of those understandings of what foster families and adoptive families are living, and it's not easy, it is not easy. So my point in saying that is choose topics that maybe you're not even interested in or it seems a little too cliche-ish. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yep, I love that you mentioned too about trainings from people who have lived it, because I do think that that makes a difference. I do think that that makes a difference, because people that understand the depths of the hard professionals may have head knowledge right.
Speaker 1:But, just like you were saying with the wisdom, it's hard to have that wisdom to impart to other people if you don't know what it feels like in the day to day. And I I mean there are so many good trainers and professionals that really have lived this. They have lived this life, they have lived some hard stuff and and I think a lot of those people have so much depth, not just on the knowledge end but on the spiritual depth of it and what they have to impart to people that can really be helpful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know what I think too. It's like when you're in a room of people that have fostered and adopted. There are things a trainer may say that people on the outside would maybe gasp, but on the inside, with people who are all in the same hard ministry, are laughing.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I mean laughter releases endorphins that we actually need and you think this is not funny and it's like, well, it's funny because we've lived it and so there's just something so refreshing to go. You're not alone, this is not just you, this is because this is hard, and just experiencing all of the trauma that children and families have faced it's in your face. So then when other people laugh, you're laughing because it's like, yeah, I thought that, yeah, I've done that, or that's so true, yeah, I've done that, or uh, that's so true. So that's refreshing. Just when people are coming from a place where they literally have lived it, it will make the whole room laugh, the whole room.
Speaker 1:I agree. I, you know, I went to go see the movie instant family when it came out with a group of foster and adoptive moms and there was a point in the movie where all of us were dying laughing and the rest of the theater was appalled that we were laughing, because whatever was said or whatever from an outsider's perspective did not look funny. But from the inside it was hilarious because you understood exactly where they were, they were coming from.
Speaker 2:And the emotion behind it, right, I mean, yes, your emotions are literally like a roller coaster. Your emotions why? Because these kids' emotions are like a roller coaster and it's the same, but again it's something that's a tragedy to the world or or appalling to the world. You're laughing because you are faced with it and, no, you could gasp. You had to deal with it, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, yes, yeah, well, and if we don't laugh sometimes throughout this, I mean it just the idea. I look at my life and I go some of the things that have happened or that we've experienced or we've seen or whatever, are like I can't believe this is my life, and both the good and the hard right. Like I can't believe that this is my life, that I am doing these hard things not through my own strength, but that I am doing these hard things but on the other end of it, I can't believe that this is my life and I get to do these hard things.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you even realize like I'm thinking of some particular courses in Faith Bridge U and I'm like what you adopted 11 kids, or you know like what and you really actually become inspired that you're a part of something that people are doing that God is pleased with, you know, and not because it looks good, but because it's something that few people will even take on, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, well, and it makes you feel not alone, right, like you're in a community of others. You're not. Sometimes it can feel like we're living on an island by ourselves, because we're in our homes doing this hard work without people around us on a daily basis, always. And so you know, sometimes trainings where you see somebody who's living it, where they're talking about their hard experiences, can just help you feel seen and understood and like you're a part of. You know, like you said, you're a part of something bigger.
Speaker 2:Yes, so true.
Speaker 1:Well, explain to us a little bit about FaithBridgeU. What is it and what type of trainings do you offer?
Speaker 2:Yes, FaithBridgeU is a learning system where it's all offered basically online, and so we will have live trainings, we have even panels on there, and some are interactive, like support group connection groups, while others are more expert driven. Even if they have lived it, it's more content driven. And then we have on-demand courses, and so what those are, let's say, you know, I may be exhausted, but maybe I can lounge on the couch and watch something and really find that in my peaceful moment at 10 o'clock at night, I can learn, because I don't have all these things coming at me and I have just truly been inspired. Because I'm a part of staffing on Faith Bridge U, there's times I have to watch the same training more than once and what I can tell you, nicole, like even watching it more than once, I have learned second time around or third time around, and I'm really encouraged because I'm like, yes, this will encourage others.
Speaker 2:Yes, I wish I had had that in the beginning years, that when I started, and so it is wonderful to have not only just connection support groups but also live trainings and also interactive trainings, and then the on-demand library where I can just sit back and relax and maybe take something in, and when I have less distractions on me and there's even trailers where you can just get a glimpse of the course, the on-demand courses, and go, oh, I maybe wouldn't have chosen that, but watching the trailer. How many times do we do that on just even the TV we watch?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know that that has helped me. I don't have training hours. We're not an active foster family. Our kids are adopted through foster care but so I don't have to have ongoing training. But I've gone on there and I've watched a lot of the on-demand trainings and a lot of them I found through. To give you A, b and C. It's really connecting with other people, even on the on-demand trainings, but it's connecting with other people who really understand the life that we live. Absolutely Well, what kind, what final tips can you give parents as they seek out training that is really more impactful for them than them just going through the motions?
Speaker 2:Yes, you know, I would say probably some of the greatest tips is and I really mentioned it before but go into life learning, a life of learning. And it's not because I have watched sometimes people foster, then go into adoption, like yourself, and then close the door of learning and then they struggle even greater through the different cycles of the children growing up. And I remember one of the it's one of the on-demand trainings, but they were talking about there's different seasons of lives in everyone's lives.
Speaker 2:So don't think that you're not going to have that with even children you adopt. So I'm going to say live a life of learning period. Secondly, whatever we face that is hard, know that God is speaking to us personally, not just about the situation. And if you do that in training, you will start to see what is. What would God want me to learn in this training? So it's taking on that. What is God saying to me personally, not just circumstantially. And then, lastly, knowing that God wired even himself in community from the beginning, in community from the beginning, and that we cannot do life alone and I do feel like that sometimes, when we're overwhelmed, we tend to isolate. And, as what I would tell you, I've learned more sitting around or even getting coffee at break from other people, even in trainings, than I have from the people themselves. So community is probably one of the most key things that you can take away from training.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing those. I think each one of those is so, so important, I do think, for adoptive parents. A lot of times, once the adoption is finalized, we're like, oh well, we don't have to do these trainings anymore, we are not required to do A, b and C, right, like it's kind of like we can disconnect and wash our hands of it. But I mean, I talked on the podcast last week like my kids now are going through different seasons. We have kids that are entering adulthood, we have kids that are entering adolescence, right, and those things from their past come up in different ways in those different seasons, and so we constantly have to be learning how to navigate each season with our kids and how to support them through the different things that they're doing. So I love that idea of being a lifelong learner and again, I you know I always love the spiritual component, the faith component, really learning to listen and depend on God each step of the way. Yeah, so, katrina, I appreciate you so much. Where can people go to find FaithBridgeU?
Speaker 2:FaithBridgeUcom. It is that simple. If you were to type it in, it would populate, it would take you to our page and you could even look at trailers. Look at what we have to offer. And there's not even any commitment like, oh, if I look at this trailer, then I have to watch this, or if I see what they have to offer, what's coming up on live, I have to commit to it. No, you can just see it all right there on faithbridgeucom.
Speaker 1:I love that. Thank you so much. Well, thank you for being here. We really appreciate you. I really appreciate you and your investment in my own path, my own journey and my own life, but I appreciate your investment in the foster care community too.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. It was an honor to be here.
Speaker 1:I will leave a link in the show notes for Faith Bridge U. You can check it out for yourself. I know you're going to love it as much as I do. Let me pray for us as we close out, dear Heavenly Father. Lord, we are so thankful for your grace and your kindness and your faithfulness. You show up over and over and over again and you prove yourself faithful time after time. Thank you for the strength that you give us each and every day. Help us to lean into that and depend on you for each step of our journey in foster care and adoption. Lord, thank you for these resources for these individuals that have gone before us and have been willing to share what they have gained along the way. Lord, we love you. We trust you In Jesus' name. Thank you.