The Good People Showed Up : Wayfind Co. Podcast E2
HALL IS HOME FOR KIDS, y’all. They are showing up for kids in foster care in North Georgia.
In the state of Georgia, there are about 11,500 children in foster care. For Hall County specifically (which is outside of the metro area in North Georgia and is probably the most populous county that isn’t Gwinnett) we have 289 children in foster care right now out of Hall County DFCS / Hall County Juvenile Court.
We have a foster care shortage in Hall County and so, more than half of that number are children who are placed somewhere else in the state. Now, it could just be as close as Forsyth County or Dawson County, but we also have kiddos placed as far away as Savannah, depending on what their needs are.
The child welfare system when it started, was designed to exclusively protect children with no effort to recognize the fact that families have a right to be together. Fortunately over many, many, many decades folks have come to realize that that’s really not the best path to grow successful and stable adults. And so now the system is designed to reunify families, if it is safe to do so.
Our friend, Child Welfare Attorney + co-founder of Hall is Home for Kids, Ari Mathe shares major obstacles that the system faces, gives us perspective of what the parent’s might be experiencing, + helps us imagine what the children might be going through.
Ari and friends are working tirelessly to make sure all of Hall County’s foster kids are well loved on this Christmas! She walks us through all the different roles that our community must have if we’re going to see families reunify. And, she points us in the direction of how we can use our gifts to make life just a little more jolly for these kiddos in hard places.
Check out Wayfind‘s second podcast and let us know what you learned, what stood out to you, or something that maybe you changed your mind on.
Timestamps
I. Intro (00:00-4:03)
II. Local Stats (4:04-16:17)
III. Story: Hall is Home (16:18-34:20)
IV. Sit With It (34:21-38:01)
V. Taste the Story (38:02-43:12)
VI. Outro (43:12-44:50)
Groups + Orgs Mentioned
Show Music
“Special (Instrumental)” by Smile High featuring Antwaun Stanley
“Jumping From Jaded Heights” by Kings Kaleidoscope
Show Produced + Edited + Narrated by Deanna West and Lindsey Migliori
