The Imprint Weekly

On this week’s episode we are joined by Marc Schindler of Georgetown’s Center for Youth Justice, to discuss the Forgotten Children’s Initiative, which was born of research that he led about the history of the Maryland House of Reformation & Instruction for Colored Children between 1877-1939. As part of that research, it was discovered that more than 300 children are buried in an unmarked cemetery near where the House of Reforma...

On this week’s episode we start by discussing the new update to Who Cares, which is The Imprint’s project on foster care capacity data around the country, and how it connects to the Trump administration’s central child welfare goal for the president’s second term. We also review some recent Trump administration actions related to LGBTQ youth in foster care, and what some recent research on juvenile detention and congregate care sug...

On this week’s episode we talk to Naomi Goldstein, who for nearly two decades led the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). We discussed the way that the federal government decides what to research and how it gets the job done. And why she thinks the Trump administration’s recent decision to decentralize research at ACF is a mistake. 

Naomi Goldstein was the deputy assista...

On this week’s episode we talk to Marsha Levick, co-founder of the Juvenile Law Center, who stepped down last year after serving for decades as the organization’s chief legal officer. We discussed the origins of the center and how it survived, how to write a good amicus brief, the Kids for Cash scandal and more. 

Marsha Levick is a co-founder and former chief legal officer for the Juvenile Law Center. She is currently the Phyllis W....

InnerViews is trying something new. In this special episode, we bring you the audio from Youth Voices Rising’s powerful webinar, Love Shouldn’t Hurt. Panelists with lived child welfare experience reflect on how trauma, housing instability, and system involvement can shape beliefs about love and safety. This honest conversation explores survival-based relationships, healing, and what it takes to build emotionally safe connections. L...

On this Headlines edition of The Imprint Weekly Podcast, we start with a discussion of three medication-assisted treatments for substance use that the Trump administration has cleared for federal child welfare funding.

Also discussed on this episode: new national data on abuse and neglect investigations, Georgia’s budget woes, and two alarming indicators of the workforce crisis in youth justice. 

Reading Room

Top Trump Health Official...

On this week’s episode we talk to Don Wells, the Chief Empowerment Officer at Just In Time, which is a San Diego based organization working to support and mentor older foster youth on their path to adulthood. 

President Trump signed an executive order on foster care at the end of 2025 which instructed his Department of Health and Human Services on some priorities for federal policy around improved data and evaluation, more support f...

In this restorative Season 3 premiere of InnerViews, host Ivory Bennett reunites with Dr. Alison Davis for a soulful conversation on renewal, emotional safety, and intentional becoming. Together, they reflect on the lessons of the past season, explore what no longer serves them, and name what deserves to be carried forward. This episode invites listeners to pause, breathe, and consider how healing, boundaries, and self-compassion c...

Last week, the Baltimore Sun’s Jean Marbella reported on a lawsuit filed on behalf of youth in the state’s foster care system who had been left in hospital wards with no plan for a return to the community. 

While the lawsuit focuses on events in the past two years, this has been a problem for far longer than that in Maryland. In 2022, we were joined by Erin Dorrien and Carrie Etheridge to discuss this exact issue of kids getting stu...

In our first podcast of 2026, we discuss new data on the administration’s goal of A Home for Every Child, a new leader for the U.S. Children’s Bureau, Trump’s freezing of safety net funds in five states, and more. 

Reading Room

Why We Are Putting the PIP on a PIP 

https://imprintnews.org/opinion/why-we-are-putting-the-pip-on-a-pip/269784

How States Stack Up on Trump’s “A Home for Every Child” Agenda

https://bit.ly/4qmHcLo

Trump Administr...

As always, we were fortunate to have some amazing guests join us this year on The Imprint Weekly Podcast. In this episode we feature clips of 12 great interviews from 2025. 

If you enjoy this podcast, or the great work our reporters do at The Imprint and
Fostering Families Today, and the work that our Youth Voices Rising team does,
please consider making a donation. And if you do so this month, during
Newsmatch, your don...

We will post our annual “Best of The Imprint Weekly Podcast” show next, but this is the last new episode of 2025. Frequent guest Marina Nitze, a child welfare and tech expert, joined to discuss the flurry of federal activity on child welfare since the end of the federal shutdown. 

Marina Nitze is a crisis engineer helping organizations solve mission-critical challenges, with a particular focus on improving America’s child welfare sy...

On this week's episode, Imprint reporter Michael Fitzgerald was in Washington last week to interview Alex Adams, who was confirmed in October to serve as the Assistant Secretary for Family Support at the Administration for Children and Families.

Fitzgerald asked Adams about a wide range of subjects. They discussed the administration’s goal of “A Home for Every Child” and how Adams plans to achieve that; how and why he plans to ...

On this week’s podcast Maddy Day of Maddy Day and Associates joins to talk about what it takes to provide stability on college campuses for youth who have experienced aging out of foster care, homelessness or both. She is helping to coordinate a Congressional briefing planned for 2026 on the subject. 

It’s Newsmatch season! Please consider donating to support this podcast and the incredible work that our Imprint reporters do every d...

President Trump’s White House event announcing an executive order on foster care got a lot of attention. But it is not the only indicator of what the administration might have in mind for policy making in child welfare during his second term. We dive into the specifics of the executive order and several other interesting announcements from Trump’s team, then step back and try to describe the big picture. 

It’s Newsmatch season! Plea...

In this powerful season finale, Ivory reflects on a transformative year—motherhood through kinship adoption, buying her first home, navigating love, and preparing for preventive surgeries after testing BRCA2+. Joined by spiritual healer and author Lorna J. Hines, she explores faith, ancestry, and healing beyond appearance. This conversation offers gentle truth: you can struggle and still be sacred. You can ache and still be anointe...

Barry Cooper is founder of the BRO Experience, a Brooklyn-based organization that uses cognitive behavioral therapy at the center of its approach to mental health support for young men of color. He is among this year’s winners of the David Prize, which each year goes to five New Yorkers with an extraordinary idea for change.

Cooper joined us to discuss his own adolescence growing up in the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn...

On today’s episode we discuss some of the recent Imprint reporting on how the federal shutdown is impacting youth and family programs like food stamps and Head Start, and one state where the shutdown has prompted gatekeeping of child welfare services. We also review the child welfare priorities hinted at in a 

Journalist and author Nell Bernstein joins to discuss her new book In Our Future We Are Free: The Dismantling of the Youth P...

Latonia Rolbiecki, a Minnesota mother of three, died last month at the age of 48. Several years ago, Rolbiecki was the subject of an Imprint series about her fight to adopt her grandson after he was taken into foster care at birth. 

Rolbiecki lost that legal battle, and her grandson was adopted by non-relative foster parents.  On this week’s episode we reflect back on the series, “Latonia vs. Chisago County,” and what her experience...