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  • Power With Purpose, Leadership With Heart

    Power With Purpose, Leadership With Heart
    2026/05/02
    Resilient Voices & Beyond Podcast Season 3, Episode 57Title: Power With Purpose, Leadership With HeartThis episode does not center leadership as a title. It centers leadership as a transformation. It asks a harder question. What happens when someone who was once navigating survival steps into spaces of influence and refuses to forget where they came from.In this deeply grounded and forward moving conversation, I sit with Nathaniel Williams, a nationally recognized foster care advocate, community leader, and systems disruptor whose life reflects what it means to turn lived experience into disciplined leadership. His story does not begin in rooms of power. It begins in instability, movement, and uncertainty. Eight years in foster care. Multiple placements. Residential treatment. A system that too often defines young people by what they have endured instead of what they are capable of becoming.Nathaniel shifts that narrative.As outlined in the episode structure, this conversation moves intentionally from his lived experience into leadership identity, advocacy, and systems change . It traces the full arc. From entering foster care in 2013 to being adopted at age fourteen. From navigating disruption to graduating high school in 2023. From questioning his place in the world to becoming a voice that now shapes rooms where decisions are made about young people’s lives.This episode carries weight because it refuses to separate pain from purpose. Nathaniel names the moments that shaped him. He speaks to the role of his adoptive father in restoring stability. He speaks to the internal shift that took place when he stopped seeing himself as someone impacted by the system and started recognizing himself as someone equipped to change it.“Power with purpose. Leadership with heart.” This is not a slogan. It is a framework. It defines how Nathaniel approaches every role he holds. We examine:• What it means to move from survival into leadership without losing empathy• How lived experience sharpens leadership beyond theory and position• The responsibility that comes with being visible to youth still navigating the system• The critical role of belonging, not as a concept, but as a practice• The gaps in foster care that demand peer support, community rooted solutions, and sustained connection• The necessity of centering youth voice in policy, not as consultation but as authority• The tension between systems that move slowly and leaders who have lived the urgencyNathaniel’s leadership extends across local, state, and national levels. From founding the Foster Care Alumni of America Wyoming Chapter to serving on advisory councils and national policy bodies, he operates with clarity. Belonging is not optional. It is foundational. His work reflects that truth. His leadership builds what he needed and ensures the next generation does not have to navigate alone.This conversation also speaks directly to representation. Nathaniel does not shy away from his vision to one day become President of the United States. He names it with conviction because he understands what it represents. Not ambition for recognition. Responsibility for transformation. A future where someone shaped by the child welfare system leads the nation that governs it.That vision matters.We also engage the realities of advocacy. The resistance. The emotional weight. The expectation to carry both story and solution. Nathaniel speaks to staying grounded in purpose while operating in spaces that often question lived expertise. He does not apologize for his voice. He uses it.This episode aligns directly with the broader work of building systems that do not simply manage youth but invest in them. It reflects the core belief that young people from foster care are not problems to solve. They are leaders to support.Nathaniel Williams is the Founder of Foster Care Alumni of America Wyoming Chapter, Founder of Nathaniel Williams for the People, former President of the Wyoming Youth Advisory Council, and a national spokesperson for AdoptUSKids. He serves across multiple advisory bodies and continues to build platforms that center belonging, leadership, and collective advancement. Ways to Connect with Nathaniel Williams:Instagram: @nate2uwyomingFacebook: Nathaniel WilliamsLinkedIn: Nathaniel WilliamsLinktree: https://linktr.ee/officeofnathanielwilliamsUpcoming Work: Book and additional initiatives coming soonThis episode is not about potential. It is about proof. It is about what happens when lived experience is not minimized but mobilized. It is about leadership that does not forget the people it represents. Listen. Reflect. Then act accordingly.
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    1 時間 15 分
  • Aging Out Is Not a Graduation. It Is a Test of New Freedoms

    Aging Out Is Not a Graduation. It Is a Test of New Freedoms
    2026/04/25
    This episode confronts a truth that systems continue to avoid naming with clarity. Aging out of foster care does not mark a successful transition into adulthood. It exposes whether the relationships built around a young person were ever real, sustainable, or rooted in accountability.

    In this deeply intentional and unflinching conversation, I sit with Aiden Abruzzino, a foster care connected advocate and lived experience leader who challenges the very foundation of how systems define permanency, belonging, and support. Together, we move beyond surface level narratives and confront the harm caused by conditional commitment.

    Too often, adults step into the lives of youth in care using the language of family, mentorship, and permanence. Then the system ends, and so do they. This episode names that pattern for what it is. Relational harm. It is not a misunderstanding. It is not a gap. It is a failure of responsibility.

    As outlined in the episode framework, this conversation centers on relational accountability and examines the emotional and developmental consequences of broken commitments, the difference between intention and sustained presence, and what ethical responsibility demands when you choose to enter a young person’s life.

    Aiden brings both lived experience and professional discipline into this space. They speak to the reality of aging out without consistent support, the erosion of trust that follows repeated relational withdrawal, and the internal recalibration youth must make when the people who promised to stay disappear. They name the truth that many avoid. Independence without connection is not freedom. It is isolation dressed up as success.

    This episode also interrogates systems. It challenges policymakers, practitioners, and communities to move beyond performative care. It calls for a redefinition of permanency that extends beyond placement and paperwork into lifelong relational commitment. It demands that adults understand the weight of the roles they step into and the consequences of stepping out.

    We examine:

    • The harm of conditional commitment and relational inconsistency
    • The psychological and emotional impact of broken promises on youth
    • The difference between intention and true relational accountability
    • The ethical responsibility of adults beyond age eighteen
    • The role of chosen family and community rooted permanence
    • The systemic failure to provide sustained aftercare and relational continuity
    • The necessity of lived experience leadership in shaping policy and practice

    Aiden also speaks powerfully to identity, particularly for LGBTQIA plus youth navigating systems that often fail to affirm both safety and selfhood. They challenge communities to create spaces where young people are not tolerated but fully seen, valued, and protected.

    This conversation directly supports the Resilient Voices & Beyond Fellowship Capstone Project by creating a protected space for truth telling, centering lived expertise as authority, and modeling a healing centered dialogue that refuses exploitation while demanding accountability.

    Aiden Abruzzino is a community builder and systems change advocate committed to redefining belonging through chosen family and collective care. As the creator of The Family We Find, they are actively building what systems failed to provide. Real connection. Real accountability. Real permanence.

    Ways to Connect with Aiden Abruzzino:

    https://linktr.ee/Aidenpssa

    This episode is not comfortable. It is necessary. It does not ask for sympathy. It demands responsibility.

    If you have ever stepped into the life of a young person in care, this conversation is for you. If you have ever experienced the silence that follows broken promises, this conversation is for you. And if you claim to be part of a system that serves youth, this conversation holds a mirror you cannot ignore.
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    57 分
  • After the Storm Is When the Flowers Bloom

    After the Storm Is When the Flowers Bloom
    2026/04/18
    This episode stands as a living testament to what it means to survive, to rebuild, and to reclaim identity beyond what systems, statistics, and suffering attempted to define. In this deeply reflective and unfiltered conversation, I sit with Jennifer Tai, MSW, ASW, PPSC, whose life embodies both the weight of trauma and the discipline of healing.

    Jennifer does not offer a polished narrative. She offers truth. She walks us through her lived experience in foster care, the instability that shaped her early identity, and the internal battles that continued long after she exited the system. She names grief, abuse, loss, and the quiet realities that rarely make it into policy conversations but live in the bodies and minds of those impacted every single day.

    This conversation moves beyond storytelling into formation. Jennifer articulates how community, higher education, and intentional support systems became anchors in her healing journey. She challenges the deficit-based narratives placed on foster youth and confronts the harm embedded in low expectations, systemic gaps, and performative support structures.

    Her voice carries both clinical precision and lived authority. As a mental health therapist and foster care alum, she bridges two worlds that often remain disconnected. She brings clarity to trauma-informed care, identity development, and the long-term implications of aging out without sustained support. She speaks to the reality that resilience, while often celebrated, is frequently misunderstood and over-assigned to those who deserved protection, not pressure.

    The title of this episode is not symbolic. It is earned. After the storm is when the flowers bloom. Not because the storm was necessary, but because growth refused to be denied.

    This episode addresses:

    • The intersection of foster care experience and identity formation
    • The long-term impact of trauma, grief, and systemic instability
    • The truth about resilience versus survival
    • The role of higher education as both opportunity and burden for system-impacted youth
    • Mental health realities behind visible success
    • The necessity of chosen family, mentorship, and community
    • The ongoing nature of healing and the discipline it requires
    • The systemic failures surrounding aging out and lack of extended support Jennifer speaks directly to those still in the storm.

    She affirms that your current reality does not hold authority over your future trajectory. She grounds hope in lived evidence, not empty language.

    About the Guest:
    Jennifer Tai is a clinical social worker, mental health therapist, and former foster youth who integrates lived experience with clinical practice to support foster youth and alumni. Her work centers on trauma-informed care, identity development, and systemic advocacy within higher education and mental health systems. She currently serves at San José State University Counseling and Psychological Services and as a mental health liaison for the Guardian Scholars Program. She also provides trauma-focused therapy in private practice and contributes nationally through advocacy, public speaking, and authorship.

    Ways to Connect with Jennifer Tai:

    Instagram: @totallyjenni4ever
    LinkedIn: Jennifer Tai
    Facebook: Jennifer Tai
    Bio and Work: https://bio.site/JenniferTai

    This episode is not background noise. It is a mirror, a confrontation, and a call to rebuild what systems failed to sustain.

    If this conversation stirred something in you, sit with it. Reflect. Then move toward what healing requires.
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    51 分
  • Healing while curating dreams and breaking generational trauma.

    Healing while curating dreams and breaking generational trauma.
    2026/02/28
    Resilient Voices and Beyond Podcast, Season Three, Episode 54. Healing while curating dreams and breaking generational trauma. Guest, Julissa Grozozski Torres, YPA, NYCPS, CRPA, Founder and CEO of Triumph OVA Struggles Advocacy and Consulting LLC.

    This episode holds space for healing centered conversations and storytelling inside my Foster Healing Fellowship capstone work, and it honors the truth that survival skills keep people alive, and healing skills set people free. Julissa walks listeners through a life shaped by early loss, foster care, adoption, religious control, abuse, psychiatric institutionalization, chronic illness, and the long fight to reclaim identity with intention. She names what it costs to grow up inside systems that label behaviors but ignore pain, and she names what it takes to rebuild a self when other people spent years defining it for you.

    Julissa breaks down the moment she chose her own name at twelve, and she frames that decision as an act of self definition when life offered her few choices. She speaks with precision about how religious restriction narrowed her sense of self, and how adulthood demanded an intentional return to joy, interests, and personal agency. She also connects lived experience to leadership, and she draws a straight line from survival to service, including how peer work, advocacy, and consulting form a mission rather than a slogan.

    We confront the systems themselves, foster care, psychiatric institutions, and schools, and we talk plainly about what helped and what harmed. Julissa also speaks on diagnosis, misdiagnosis, neurodivergence, and the exhaustion of living inside an identity built around symptoms, then fighting for clarity that fits reality. She names cycle breaking motherhood as active work, not a slogan, and she describes the daily labor of building a home where children experience emotional safety, support, structure, and freedom to simply exist as kids.

    This conversation also tells the truth about boundaries, grief, and letting go. Julissa speaks on the hard decision to release relationships that kept her trapped in old harm patterns, and she names the difference between forgiveness and access. We close with a grounded charge for anyone who feels buried under labels, trauma, and fatigue, take ownership of your life in small steps, protect your healing, and refuse the lie that your past defines your ceiling.

    Connect with Julissa Grozozski Torres. Instagram, triumph_ova_struggles. LinkedIn, Julissa Grozozski Torres. Website, triumphovastruggles.org.
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    1 時間 4 分
  • It Can Be Done

    It Can Be Done
    2025/12/06
    🎙️ Episode 53 — “It Can Be Done”
    Guest: Hery “Eddie” Acosta | Author, Speaker, Youth Advocate
    Podcast: Resilient Voices & Beyond – A Healing-Centered Conversation
    Foster Healing Fellowship Capstone Series

    Episode Description:

    In this gripping and hope-filled episode titled “It Can Be Done,” host Michael D. Davis-Thomas sits down with author, speaker, and youth advocate Hery “Eddie” Acosta, whose life story is both testimony and blueprint. This is more than an interview—it’s a healing-centered conversation that exposes the cost of trauma, honors the grind of growth, and celebrates the sacred act of becoming whole.

    Eddie doesn’t sugarcoat survival. From being locked in a closet as a child to navigating cycles of generational pain, Eddie shares how he went from being misunderstood in classrooms to mentoring hundreds of teens every week through his groundbreaking work in Oregon. With 13+ years of hands-on experience in youth programs, Eddie is now the visionary behind Ohana Teen Night, where over 300 teens find refuge, belonging, and possibility every Friday night.

    Together, Michael and Eddie explore:
    • Childhood trauma, behavioral stigma, and how schools often punish pain
    • Mindset shifts from “why me?” to “watch me”
    • The messy, nonlinear process of healing—and what real breakthrough looks like
    • The burden of navigating trauma in Black and Brown communities
    • What it means to become a diamond in the rough—and why pressure doesn’t always break us
    • The spiritual, emotional, and cultural power of having a therapist of color
    • Building youth programming that feels more like family than a facility
    This episode is part of Michael’s Foster Healing Leadership Fellowship Capstone: Resilient Voices & Beyond: Healing-Centered Conversations and Storytelling, and it holds true to its mission—honoring lived experience as sacred knowledge and creating space for authentic, heart-to-heart reflection.

    Whether you’re a young person currently in the struggle, a professional seeking to serve better, or someone carrying unspoken wounds of your own—Eddie’s story will remind you: It can be done.

    📚 Grab Eddie’s Book:
    Eddie in the Rough – Becoming a Diamond

    🌐 Connect with Eddie:
    Website: speechesbyeddie.com
    Instagram: @speeches_by_eddie | @neweddieacosta
    Facebook: Eddie Acosta 🎧 Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube, and all major platforms.

    📢 Support this Healing-Centered Work:
    Venmo: @MDDTSpeaks | CashApp: $MDDTSpeaksInc | PayPal: MDDT1
    Email: mddtspeaks@gmail.com for donations, sponsorships, or collaboration.
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    1 時間 7 分
  • " She believed she could, so she did ”

    " She believed she could, so she did ”
    2025/09/11
    🎙️ Episode 52 — “She Believed She Could, So She Did”

    Guest: Faith M. Keen | DHHS Intern • FSM Contractor • LEx Policy Advocate • TLE Member • BSW
    Candidate • Future MSW
    Podcast: Resilient Voices & Beyond Podcast — Season 3
    Host: Michael D. Davis-Thomas Episode Description:

    In this powerful and soul-baring conversation, host Michael D. Davis-Thomas is joined by rising advocate, policy shaper, and lived experience leader Faith M. Keen, for an episode that feels more like a mirror than a mic. Titled “She Believed She Could, So She Did,” this dialogue is a tender, tenacious, and truth-filled journey through the harsh realities of childhood adversity—and the radical self-determination it takes to rise from it.

    Faith doesn't just speak her truth—she lives it. From a chaotic upbringing marked by instability, addiction, and displacement, to finding belonging through advocacy, higher education, and a fierce belief in the power of lived experience, Faith’s journey is a living testimony of what resilience looks like when nurtured in community and courage.

    Together, Michael and Faith dive into:
    • The emotional toll of caring for others when no one cared for you
    • Reframing trauma as purpose without glamorizing the pain
    • The role of policy advocacy in restoring dignity to foster youth
    • The nuance of self-care in a space that demands our pain for progress
    • Navigating healing while still showing up as “the strong one”
    • The balance between being a voice for the voiceless and being heard yourself

    As she shares deeply personal stories—from driving her mother while under the influence to being adopted by extended family who didn’t always understand her worth—Faith unpacks the layers of survival and silence, of grief and grit, that so many foster youth carry but rarely have safe space to process. She and Michael explore how systems often force youth to perform wellness while still bleeding, and how real change must include not just policies—but peace.

    Faith’s work with Fostering Success Michigan, Michigan’s Team with Lived Expertise (TLE), and her continued advocacy through public speaking and youth engagement is helping reshape how the state and nation see system-impacted youth—not as broken, but as brilliant. Her upcoming pursuit of an MSW at the University of Michigan is yet another step in becoming the change she needed as a child.

    This episode isn’t about triumphalism. It’s about truth. It’s about community. And it’s about choosing healing—even when no one taught you how.

    📣 Because believing in yourself isn’t cliché when you’ve survived systems designed to make you forget how.

    🔗 Connect with Faith M. Keen
    📸 Instagram: @keen.faith.210
    📘 Facebook / 🔗 LinkedIn: Faith Keen

    🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube, and all major streaming platforms.

    📢 Support the Podcast
    Venmo: @MDDTSpeaks | CashApp: $MDDTSpeaksInc | PayPal: MDDT1
    Email: mddtspeaks@gmail.com for sponsorships, collaborations, and donor inquiries.
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    1 時間 5 分
  • "Still waters run deep"

    "Still waters run deep"
    2025/08/01
    🎙️ Episode 51 — “Still Waters Run Deep”

    Guest: Sylvia Monica Parrott | National Foster Care Advocate, Public Speaker, Lived Experience Leader

    Podcast: Resilient Voices & Beyond Podcast — Season 3

    Episode Description:

    Still waters don’t mean still souls. In this soul-stirring episode of Resilient Voices & Beyond, host Michael D. Davis-Thomas sits down with the quiet force that is Sylvia Monica Parrott—a woman whose strength is not in how loudly she speaks, but in how deeply she feels, how faithfully she leads, and how consistently she shows up for a system she survived. "Still Waters Run Deep" isn’t just the title of this conversation—it’s a prophetic description of the life Sylvia has lived and the legacy she’s building.

    From entering Rhode Island’s foster care system at the age of five to navigating abusive placements, isolation, and reentry at 17, Sylvia’s story is anything but surface-level. She shares with unwavering clarity the silent storms of trauma, abandonment, sexual violence, and mental health struggles—alongside the quiet rebellions of mentorship, faith, advocacy, and healing that helped her rise. This episode is not a tale of pity or performative triumph; it is a sacred reckoning with the reality that not every survivor roars—but every survivor matters.

    Together, Michael and Sylvia explore:
    • The emotional toll of being system-impacted from early childhood
    • The invisibility of introverted advocates in noisy advocacy spaces
    • The crisis of mental health in group homes and transitional housing
    • The trauma of institutionalization and the weight of being “too strong for too long”
    • The spiritual grounding and self-forgiveness it takes to lead from a wounded place
    • How Sylvia is quietly, persistently, disrupting the status quo without needing to shout
    From testifying before legislators to co-authoring op-eds, from guiding youth at Foster Forward’s Drop-In Center to speaking on national stages, Sylvia is redefining what leadership looks like for foster alumni. Her work is not driven by ego—but by empathy. Not polished performance—but prophetic presence.

    Michael, moved by Sylvia’s radical vulnerability, speaks candidly about the podcast’s journey, the cost of advocacy, and the urgent need for community-funded sustainability. As they close the episode, Sylvia offers words of truth to anyone feeling broken, burned out, or silenced in their struggle: “Don’t doubt yourself. You have so much to offer the world.”

    This episode is a mirror for those who’ve learned to lead while still healing—and a mandate to make space for the still waters among us.

    🕊️ Listen deeply. Share widely. Honor the stillness that runs deep.

    🔗 Connect with Sylvia Monica Parrott
    Instagram: @sylviamonica_
    LinkedIn: Sylvia M. Parrott

    🎧 Available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube, and all major platforms.

    📣 Support the Podcast
    Your donations help keep the mic on for truth-tellers like Sylvia.
    Venmo: @MDDTSpeaks | CashApp: $MDDTSpeaksInc | PayPal: MDDT1
    Email: mddtspeaks@gmail.com for sponsorship and partnership inquiries.
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    57 分
  • Your story is the message. Your story is your legacy

    Your story is the message. Your story is your legacy
    2025/07/30
    🎙️ Episode 50 — “Your Story Is the Message. Your Story Is Your Legacy”

    Featuring: Tamara L. Dillard | Author, Clinical Social Worker, Therapist, Foster Care Advocate, Foster Alumni

    Podcast: Resilient Voices & Beyond Podcast — Season 3
    Host: Michael D. Davis-Thomas

    In this milestone 50th episode and the Season 3 of the Resilient Voices & Beyond Podcast, host Michael D. Davis-Thomas sits down once more with powerhouse advocate and returning guest, Tamara L. Dillard, to discuss her emotionally searing and transformative debut memoir, “Letters to the Village.” This isn’t just a conversation—it’s a reckoning.

    With honesty that cuts and compassion that heals, Tamara invites us into the sacred corridors of her lived experience in Kentucky’s foster care system—where pain and policy intersect, where community was both absent and found, and where healing arrived not as a gift but as a decision. Her memoir, structured as a series of unfiltered letters to the helpers, hurters, and bystanders in her life, challenges us to consider: What kind of villager have you been? What kind will you choose to become?

    Together, Tamara and Michael explore what it means to write from wounds, not for pity but for purpose. They unpack the emotional labor of storytelling while managing PTSD, and they speak to the burden—and blessing—of advocacy as foster care survivors. Michael reflects on the bystander effect within systems and communities, while Tamara calls for intentional, systemic, and personal accountability. It’s a bold, layered conversation about trauma, memory, forgiveness, authorship, and the audacity of telling your truth when silence would be easier.

    Tamara’s voice is prophetic, measured, and fierce. Her writing process wasn’t linear—it was sacred warfare. She shares how “Letters to the Village” nearly broke her but ultimately rebuilt her—chapter by chapter, truth by truth.

    In closing, Michael reflects on the growth of Resilient Voices & Beyond through its third season, emphasizing the continued need for listener support, community sponsorship, and sustainability as he carries this labor of love forward. This Episode isn’t the ending—it’s an altar call for justice, truth-telling, and restorative storytelling.

    Because your story is the message. And your story—yes, yours—is your legacy.
    📚 Read “Letters to the Village” — Available now.
    📢 Support this podcast through donations, sharing, and ongoing engagement.

    Ways to Support

    • Venmo: @MDDTSpeaks
    • Cash App: $MDDTSpeaks
    • PayPal: MDDT
    • Book: Resilient Faith (available on Amazon)
    • Podcast: Resilient Voices & Beyond (available on all platforms)

    🎧 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, YouTube, and all major streaming platforms.

    🔗 Connect with Tamara Dillard:
    📘 Facebook: Tamara LeeAnn Dillard
    📸 Instagram: @missdillardsroom
    🎵 TikTok: @missdillardsroom
    💼 LinkedIn: Tamara (Vest) Dillard
    続きを読む 一部表示
    53 分