How to Hold Joy and Grief at the Same Time as Foster Parents (feat. Grant and Michaele Leathers)

One of the first lessons you learn as a foster parent is that you can never assume how a placement will end.Most parents enter each placement knowing that reunification is the primary goal of foster care whenever it’s safe and possible. But that doesn’t make the journey any easier. They must learn to love a child wholeheartedly while also holding space for the possibility of one day saying goodbye.There may not be a book that covers every challenge you’ll encounter as a foster parent, but that’s what makes conversations with parents like my latest guests so important.Grant and Michaele Leathers have been foster parents for five years and have walked through many placements that ended with a variety of outcomes. They have been married for 9 years, and they truly see it as a privilege to be a small part in the stories of the families they work with.In this conversation, Grant and Michaele share some of the good and hard parts of fostering, why it’s essential to find your village of support, how to manage parenting in spite of uncertainty, and much more.Find the show notes and links to anything we discussed here: https://riversideproject.org/podcast/grant-michaele-leathers-51/