Re-envisioning Foster Care Champion, Alexandria Ware, a fierce advocate and founder of Culture Creations Incorporated. A survivor of more than 50 foster care placements in Kansas, Alexandria shares how her lived experience—once marked by anger and survival—has become the foundation of her purpose-driven work. With unflinching honesty, she reflects on the ways trauma shaped her youth, the mentors and judges who offered steady guidance, and the healing practices that helped her transform pain into power. Together, Angela and Alexandria explore what it means to re-envision foster care, why cultural connection is essential, and how those most impacted by the system must be at the decision-making table.

ReEnvisioning Foster Care Champion, Dakota Roundtree Swain, teaches Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and is the Diversity & Inclusion Manager at Harvard Medical School.

Dakota has a Ph.D. in Social Policy from Brandeis University and uses their understanding of policy to create pathways that help foster care alumni identify their dreams and develop the skills they need to achieve them.

Dakota has a strong desire to help young people who feel a responsibility to change the child welfare system learn about the policies that shaped their experiences in foster care. They do this so youth can understand "the why" behind decisions made on their behalf by legislators and child welfare professionals and move toward healing.

Having been a highly engaged youth advocate during their time in foster care, Dakota is working diligently to transform child welfare so that youth who are currently experiencing the system do not feel like “merchandise on a conveyor belt” - only valued for their stories.

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ABOUT THE HOST:

INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.

She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.

Angela is the author of You Should Be Grateful: Stories Of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. She has hosted the previous two seasons of INNOVATE!, and currently works as the Executive Director of the Adoptee Mentoring Society.

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Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
Beylen Curtis - Research Assistant

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The Treehouse Foundation has been leading the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) movement since 2010. Please visit www.treehousefoundation.net for more information about the award-winning work of the Treehouse Team.

ReEnvisioning Foster Care Champion Gaelin Elmore is a former NFL player who chose to retire from football and become a full-time advocate for children and youth whose lives have been impacted by foster care. A visionary leader who experienced life in our nation’s child welfare system, Gaelin shares his wisdom, lived expertise, and award-winning ideas with child welfare professionals across the country. His frame: Belonging is a fundamental human need. Belonging helps us rise to our potential rather than fall to circumstance. Neuroscientists have found that belonging is connected to the same neuro networks that communicate hunger and thirst. It’s a scientific fact: Humans need to be connected to a group or a community of people who know us and care about us. Gaelin shares with Angela how the people in his life claimed him and helped him overcome the trauma he experienced, and how his belonging defines his advocacy and leadership.

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ABOUT THE HOST:

INNOVATE! host, Angela Tucker, is a REFCA Champion and a nationally recognized mentor, entrepreneur, educator and consultant. Angela is a transracial adoptee who, having been adopted from foster care by a white family, grew up in a city that was demographically just 1% Black.

She is the Founder of The Adopted Life, a child-welfare consulting business where she strives to center adoptee stories and bring clarity and truth to narratives about race, class and identity.

Angela is the author of You Should Be Grateful: Stories Of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption. She has hosted the previous two seasons of INNOVATE!, and currently works as the Executive Director of the Adoptee Mentoring Society.

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Angela Tucker - Host & Producer
Nicholas Ramsey - Editor & Producer
Judy Cockerton - Executive Producer
Beylen Curtis - Research Assistant

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The Treehouse Foundation has been leading the Re-Envisioning Foster Care in America (REFCA) movement since 2010. Please visit www.treehousefoundation.net for more information about the award-winning work of the Treehouse Team.