On Thursday, February 24, 2022, our social justice group was given the opportunity to meet with April Dinwoodie, who was a former marketing executive in the fashion industry but now is an activist who creates podcasts and helps influences people to help Black and Brown foster children to find loving and safe homes. April identifies as a black and biracial woman. At an early age, April was adopted into a white family. She shared her story on how she navigated life living as a black and biracial woman in a white family.
Boston, Massachusetts is where April June Dinwoodie was born. Helen June, who is her biological mother, couldn’t care for April so she was put in foster care. Also, April has no information about her biological father. After a few months, April was adopted by a white family. The name that April was given at birth by her biological mother was June. April now as a podcast called “Born in June, Raised in April.” However, April’s forever parents named her April. And by the way, April was never born in April or June. (April was born in October so she found this really funny during the interview) Then June became April’s middle name.
Coming into the Dinwoodie family was a welcoming experience for April, although she was the only adopted and Black/Bi-Racial child in the family. She felt different from her siblings of experience because of her race, but her family did not treat her differently despite her differences. April felt accepted at home, but once she got to middle school, she started to get bullied by her peers. Growing up in a predominately white environment as a Black/Bi-Racial girl was hard, and April had to protect herself. Her parents were not aware of what was happening and they did not share the same racial experiences as her. April felt stuck and didn’t know who to talk to about the bullying at school. She encountered lots of racism as she grew up, so this sparked an interest in making changes for other kids like her who were going through similar experiences. When April was in her 20s, she wanted to look for her birth mother, Helen, but Helen didn’t want to meet or see her. April was heartbroken, she said. A quote from April was, “It felt as if she had a ‘double rejection’ because her birth mother didn’t accept her when she was born and later rejected her when she was a grown adult.” This is when April started to become an activist for children of color in the foster care and adoptions systems. Since there are 200,00 children in foster care every year, April explained to us, black and brown foster children are always represented disproportionally than their white counterparts, and black and brown children stay in foster care for longer. One thing that I found really interesting during this interview with April was that she said that adoption agencies and adoptive families “claimed to not see color.” I thought this was really interesting because you do need to see color, you just have to be aware of your bias and privilege a lot of the time. And April totally agreed. April wanted to become an activist so agencies and families see the color, just in a different way. April supports programs and events that make families aware of the color in some kids. She also quoted this, explaining from her own experiences, what she wants other kids of color in the foster care and adoption systems to feel, “Parents must listen to their children and understand what is best for their future. April wants to help all Black and Brown foster parents to gain the training and understanding they need to be successful with their children.” Overall I think that April really tries to inspire people. She’s really good at her job because I thought I was inspired, but now I am even more.

Hearing April’s story is very inspiring. She is an incredible person who does so much for Black and Brown foster children. She has podcasts and a website, (https://aprildinwoodie.com/the-podcast) and works very hard every day to make a change. This was an incredible interview!

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After learning that one of our fellow classmates, Allie Samuelson, was adopted we asked if we could reach out to her parents to ask about her adoption. Then on Thursday, February 10, 2022, our social justice group met with Jenny and Kevin Samuelson. Jenny and Kevin adopted Allie and her sister, Zoe, at birth, and they shared their story about adopting two girls at birth.

Like many other women, Jenny had trouble getting pregnant and she and her husband wanted to start a family. At the time they were living in Atlanta, Georgia, at the time. In Atlanta, Jenny and Kevin lived on a block with 13 adopted children. When they thought they were interested in adopting, they asked some of their neighbors for some guidance on starting the adoption process. Soon after Jenny and Kevin reached out to an agency and created a family profile, so parents that were thinking about giving their child up for adoption could look at their information and decide if they wanted the family to care for their baby. A mother who lived in Virginia, choose Jenny and Kevin. When the mother was in labor, the day before Allie was born, they got a call that Allie’s birth mother was in labor so they had quickly flown out to Virginia. When they arrived at the hospital, Jenny and Kevin were able to be in the same room as the mother when Allie was born. Since Jenny and Kevin got such short notice before the birth of Allie, they did not have all the baby supplies they needed, and they were unprepared. Something that Jenny and Kevin mentioned was that they even had to borrow a car seat from an agency in Virginia to take Allie back from the hospital because they did not have one themselves.

Since Allie was adopted in a different state from the Jenny and Kevin they lived in, they had to follow a protacall called The Interstate Compact. The Interstate Compact is basically is a proticall that ensures that after the child is adopted, they are safe and well cared for all across states. After Allie was born, Jenny and Kevin had to stay in a hotel for a couple of days instead of going home after she was born while they awaited the Interstate compact to be approved. They discribed it as really hard to take care for a newborn baby in a hotel, then when they finally get approved they had to travel on a plane witha a new-born baby. Jenny quoted that, “everyone judges you when you bring your new-born baby on the plane and they want to tell you what and what not to do with your child, but they really don’t know your full story.” Which I thought was really interesting beucase I didn’t really think about that part of their experience as foverever parents.

After getting home safely, Allie settled in very well with Jenny and Kevin. Jenny and Kevin clearly imformed Allie about her birth parents and answered any questions she would have around the topic. Later, Jenny and Kevin adopted Zoe, Allies sister through the same process. Jenny and Kevin are still in contact with family members from Allie’s and Zoe’s biological families. Allie even has seven biological siblings, one of them is her sister who Jenny and Kevin are in close contact with and they visit and see quite often. After hearing about these amazing experiences about Jenny and Kevin adopting Allie, we were all fascinated beucase it really gave us insight on how the adoption system work.

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On Wednesday, February 9, 2022, our social justice group had the opportunity to meet with two amazing LREI parents, Alessandra Brunialti and Paul Yager, parents of Carmen Yager, an 8th grader. Alessandra and Paul were able to foster then adopted both Carmen and her brother, Neo, through an organization called Sheltering Arms. After learning about Sheltering Arms from Alessandra and Paul, and researching online after the interview, we learned that organization strives and tries to find all children safe and good homes. They also work closely with their communities to address any social inequity in their.

Alessandra and Paul adopted both Carmen and Neo through the state. First, Carmen and Neo were first fostered. In order to foster, Alessandra and Paul had to become licensed by the state of New York. The process took nine months and some of the steps that were included to get licensed were background checks, home inspections, references from others. They even had to send their fingerprints to the FBI. Alessandra and Paul had to renew their license every year as well. We asked Alessandra and Paul if the process was annoying, hard, and complicated. Their response was that they were actually glad, “The process was hard because that means that these kids are going into really good families and that’s all we want. So we powered through and got two amazing children.” Carmen started being fostered by Alessandra and Paul when she was three months old and then Alessandra and Paul adopted her parents on June __, 2010. And that is now celebrated as her homecoming. Homecoming basically celebrates the anniversary when a child gets officially adopted. Carmen quotes it as “Her second birthday”

Before getting Carmen and Neo, Alessandra and Paul got very little information on them both. They got to know the child’s sex, religion, and whether or not they have disabilities or medical concerns beforehand and that is it. AsC armen and Neo grew up, Alessandra and Paul gave them more information about their birth parents. According to Alessandra and Paul, being honest and accurate is the best way to be when telling your foster kids about their biological parents because you never want to reverse information in the future or develop trust issues.

It was so amazing to talk to Alessandra and Paul about their experience being foster parents and then becoming adoptive parents. Personally, I learned so much about the system just from them, and know im excited to learn about more experiences.

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On Monday, February 7th, 2022, our Social Justice group met with some amazing staff at New Alternatives for Children (NAC). The people we interviewed included Arlene Goldsmith (Executive Director), Bobbi Nathanson (Director of Volunteers, Student Internships, & Community Relations), Carola Haberly (Senior Director of Prevention Services), Carla Riccobono (Senior Director of Foster Care & Adoption Services), and Paris Robins (Foster Parent Recruitment Supervisor). NAC (New Alternatives for Children) is a great organization that helps kids with special needs and disabilities find homes in the child welfare system. The organization mostly helps kids that may have, but are not limited to autism, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, cerebral palsy, asthma palsy, brittle bone disease, and many more. NAC’s initial goal is to reunite families, but sometimes that does not happen. All NAC wants is to find these wonderful kids’ homes with parents that will help them thrive.

NAC has two locations in New York. One is in the Bronx in and they have one in Manhattan in the south midtown area. Arlene Goldsmith, the executive director at NAC. Founded the company in 1981. She has been helping children find homes for 80 years! A really important quote that was super powerful that Arlene said was, “a child’s history does not define their destiny.” This quote spoke to me because it really represents how the foster care system can’t change kids’ past but they can try to create a better future for them. Some of the other staff at NAC that we talked to have been there for quite a while as well. Paris Robins who is the Foster Parent Recruitment Supervisor at NAC told us some of the things they look for in foster parents.

After an hour interview with NAC, I learned so much about NAC and what they do. We also expanded our knowledge of the child welfare system in New York City. NAC also gave us an idea to do a school supplies drive to donate so kids can have school supplies until the end of the year.

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Yesterday I presented with my Social Justice group about our topic. We deeply researched the basics and some of the foundations of the child welfare systems in New York. We found some really interesting facts and statistics about the number of children in foster care or even involved welfare systems. Our group worked really well together and I thought that the presentation went really smoothly.

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