Georgia Hope Inc with Janine Porter

Jason Palmer 0:00
Foster Care nation. Listen, this is

Unknown Speaker 0:04
foster care and

Jason Palmer 0:10
string for the powerless courage for the fearful hope and healing for wounded hearts.

Hello, welcome back to foster care and unparallel journey with Jason and Amanda. Today’s guest is Janine Porter. Janine is the executive director of Georgia hope Incorporated. And Janine and I talked just a few minutes here. I had a recording and she tells me that right now they’re really focusing on something that is close to a lot of hearts. Janine is talking to people about getting more foster parents in the system, especially foster parents of teens. Janine, how are you doing today? I’m fine. foster parents for teens? Like, you got some ambition there, because that’s a place that we all struggle finding that right?

Janine Porter 1:11
Yes, we do. Yes.

Jason Palmer 1:13
If you guys are located there in Georgia, right.

Janine Porter 1:16
Yes, we’re located in Conyers, Georgia. We we’ve been here for a couple of years now. And We service all age groups. But our focus now is the teams because they are the hardest to place.

Jason Palmer 1:32
Absolutely. And I mean, people who’ve heard us know our story, right? We’ve got we’ve had kids for two decades now. Like something like that. So we’ve seen teams before. And teams are challenge, right? I mean, everybody knows teams bring their own set of challenges. Although I’ve seen some people who think that toddlers are challenges and I’m, I wonder if they’ve ever had pains at that point. Because I love toddlers.

Unknown Speaker 1:57
Yes. Because you like to play?

Jason Palmer 2:01
Yeah, yeah, at heart. I’m a toddler. We know this. But teams can be a big challenge. And we see that in our in our world over here. You guys are down in Georgia, or up here in Missouri. And I talked to people all over the nation and everywhere I talked to people have a challenge or organizations have big challenges, not only getting foster parents, but getting foster parents who are willing to take teens? And has I assume that’s been the thing that you’ve seen going on there as well.

Janine Porter 2:29
Yes, that’s been the challenge that a lot of parents want the younger children, you know, the ones that have less challenges, or at least they believe they have less challenges. But as time has gone on, even the younger children have more challenges than they’ve ever had in the past. But that’s coupled, or, you know, doubled on top of the teenagers. And they’ve been in the system a lot of times for many years. So they know this system, and they feel there are different ways in which they can you know, get around this system in addition to the challenges that already have, which makes it that much harder to work with them.

Jason Palmer 3:08
Oh, yeah, teens get smart, right? Yeah. I knew I learned that lesson as a teenager myself. I need to get smarter. Sneaky. Mm hmm. I’m just gonna say I got smart. My mom may be listening. At some point. We don’t tell stories on ourselves, right. So now you have children of your own. You said?

Janine Porter 3:30
Yes, I have. I have five children total. I have three biological children into children. I’ve adopted to foster care. I had their mom originally. And then I eventually adopted them.

Jason Palmer 3:44
Oh, wow. So you had their mom as a foster child and then adopted her children?

Janine Porter 3:49
Yes. Mm hmm.

Jason Palmer 3:51
Now that brings out some questions, you know, like, you have a connection with their with their bio mom.

Janine Porter 3:57
Not anymore. We we’ve had for years until she was probably about 2425. But it got to just a little bit more challenging with the connection that we’ve had and the connection with the children. So we had to, you know, sever ties there. We still know where she is and where she’s located. But the connection just turned out to be more challenging than we were able to handle with the children being so young. So we had to sever ties there. And they’ll just, you know, they have they’ve had their in our lives up until they were about 10 and 12. Now so probably till about since they were nine and seven. And then that’s when we started having more difficult challenges. But so they’ve always known her as mom and grandma. So, um, you know, and they know of her they we still have, you know, family photos and memories of her that we share and talk about, but she’s just not physically here with us. Wow, how

Jason Palmer 4:59
long Was she with you as a foster kid,

Janine Porter 5:03
um, I had her since she was 15, pregnant at 15, but the first child, and she stayed with me until she was about 23. She went, went to college, and she came back home, you know, sad, several of her own personal challenges, had a couple additional children. But then, as time went on, it was just it just became hard for her to deal with the fact that her children were adopted, you know, through defects. And, you know, she just, it was just hard for her to deal with those that that fact of life.

Jason Palmer 5:37
Oh, I bet, I bet that’s one of the things we talked about is, is that connection with bio parents, and then as a foster parent, I’m just gonna say it sounds like you have done an amazing job for a long time with this. And that’s trying to support bio parents.

Janine Porter 5:51
Right? Right, you know, because you want to keep them in their children’s lives. But when it gets to be, you know, a problem where you know, it’s gonna affect the children, then you have to make some decisions. Some of the other teen moms that I fostered, I still have contact with them. You know, they call me from time to time, we still have a relationship, but just not all of them work out for the best in every situation. So in addition to having a force to hear agency, I’ve lost it for over 10 years.

Jason Palmer 6:24
Wow.

Janine Porter 6:26
Are you currently still fostering? I’m not currently still fostering. But I do have a guardianship of two additional children. out of seven.

Jason Palmer 6:38
So now the crazy comes out, right?

Janine Porter 6:40
Yeah. Luckily, my oldest two are 19 and 21. So that helps.

Unknown Speaker 6:48
They can do a few things for themselves. Yes, yes,

Jason Palmer 6:52
absolutely. So what what really drew you into working with teenagers, and trying to trying to really focus on that part of foster care,

Janine Porter 7:01
I wanted the atria that I could, you know, make a difference can kind of steer them in the right direction to you know, grow, be successful. And I knew that was the age that I can, you know, work with them, talk to them, get them to, you know, actually use some of the skills that I’m trying to teach them and some of the lessons I have for them to learn to try to actually to get them to put it into action. So that’s the age group I started out with was the teen moms. And no, I have a love for children. So I wanted to work with them in parenting their own children, providing them the love the coaching, and the ability to be productive parents.

Jason Palmer 7:42
Absolutely. I mean, when Where did fostering come from? In your own journey? Is that something that you had a connection with as a kid?

Janine Porter 7:51
I always make things tell a story. When only children were playing house, I was playing orphanage in the backyard, and I use the watch feed the children. And then my my own mother we we had she adopted my middle sister. So it kind of was there was in in my life that we as I was growing up. My oldest sister, she wind up fostering teens. So it kinda was there all along.

Jason Palmer 8:21
Wow. Yeah. It sounds like it was deep in your family there. That’s

Janine Porter 8:24
right, right beings? Yes. My mom says I’m, I’m the one that you know, tickets for this. Why? Because I’ve been fostering the longest and have the most children. So she said I took a preferred this.

Jason Palmer 8:39
And maybe that part about you have your own foster care agency? Oh, that might have something to do with it.

Unknown Speaker 8:45
Mm hmm.

Jason Palmer 8:46
So what made you want to create your own foster care? Now? Do you actually do work to DFS to place kids in other places?

Janine Porter 8:54
Yes, we have a contract with this state. And they send us referrals. We train and certify all foster parents. And once we get you know, referrals that match your home, we’ll present that to the home for them to accept the child into their home. And then we monitor the home throughout the throughout the time that children are in the home. Oh, wow.

Jason Palmer 9:13
You know, I know that we have a couple agencies in Missouri that think do something like that

Unknown Speaker 9:19
similar. Yeah.

Jason Palmer 9:21
And I know that most of the cases that the handful people I know who’ve worked with those, those groups tend to talk like they get some of the more challenging cases to work through over there. Do they tend to sound more challenging cases to you guys,

Janine Porter 9:34
we get we get we get across the spectrum. Some some of the children are easier to work with. And some of the children have more challenging behavior. So it could be just the parents or you know, no, nothing is ever easy, but it could be just the parents are needing a place to stay and are homeless, to physical abuse and trauma and neglect. So it runs the gamut

Jason Palmer 10:01
So here’s one of the things I love to ask people to have as much experience as you do. Because I know I know the story that I can tell when somebody asks us. What’s one of the stories that has really impacted you that you’ve seen where you’ve, you’ve been able to personally be involved in something that you can you’ve really helped a child really turn their life around, made a difference that that? Well, for me, right here, I got a couple kids tattooed right there. There’s a third one, right? Like, there’s a reason for that we’ve had, we’ve had way more than three kids in our house. Those three have made it onto the tattoo list, right? So what’s what’s your kind of tattoo the story, you know, what’s been a really important meaningful experience that you’ve you’ve seen,

Janine Porter 10:46
we’ve, we’ve had a lot of stories, but one story in particular, was a young lady who came into our, you know, a little girl came into our agency, who was physically and mentally abused and neglected, she was tied up, you know, by the parents in the home. When she came to us, he was emaciated. But by the time she left, she was a bubbly young lady. She was engaged in activities. And she went home actually, to a family member. Of course, not the family that, you know, she was, you know, abused by. But she was just a totally different person. When she left. She was happy, she was able to, you know, talk, she played with other children her age, and eventually she went home, she had a good foster parent that was working with her during during her time with us. She was with us a couple of years. And it was just a happy story when it was time for her to go home to a family. People that she did know. Happy stories are always the greatest, right? Yes.

Jason Palmer 11:52
Yeah, there’s not enough of them usually. What was it about her case that really made you feel connected to her?

Janine Porter 11:59
Just the fact that, um, you know, in the beginning, she was just quiet and withdrawn. And then by the end, she was loving hugging, she didn’t let her the situation that she came out of affect her, you know, her personality, her relating with two other people, that she realized that the world is not where she, you know, when the situation she was in that everyone is not like that, that there are people out there who care about her who love her. It doesn’t necessarily have to be your family, it could be your family. But there are other people out there that’s willing to show you real love, and caring and support.

Jason Palmer 12:35
And how much

Janine Porter 12:37
she came to us as seven she left left us about nine. And she would just totally different person happy. And we were surprised at the transition.

Jason Palmer 12:47
Especially at that age.

Janine Porter 12:48
Yes.

Jason Palmer 12:50
Because going to nine years old is pushing you close to that preteen stage sets. Doesn’t always breed Happy, Happy young, right?

I mean, I don’t know about you, maybe that’s just my kids. But the preteen says it’s been a challenge for us as they really step into that pre adolescent space and start dealing with all the all the biological things that happen in life at that point. And a lot of time, because our four youngest we adopted to the foster care system. So though, those guys have all seen a ton of trauma. And that’s one of the things that that really is pushed our teenage years still a little bit more of a challenging place, would you say

Amanda Palmer 13:28
challenging, stressful.

Jason Palmer 13:35
That’s definitely amazing that you were able to find the place, be a place where she could feel safe enough to be a kid who’s happy and outgoing and just ready to go embrace the world instead of rejecting it. The foster care nation, we’d like to take a quick minute to step out of the podcast here and ask you guys for a little bit of support, if you could share an episode with people, friends and groups with family, anywhere where there’s somebody who would like to hear this. Also, if you’d like to join us and support our mission, a couple dollars a month would be really helpful. You can find us on patreon@patreon.com slash foster care nation now back to the show.

Janine Porter 14:21
Right. And it’s always exciting when you can see some of the teenagers that you’ve had in your life and your care and I’m in my mind at home that are now doing well. Some of them with their own families, some just furthering their education. So we’ve I’ve had a lot of young ladies that are now young adults who are going through life and you know, being able to progress.

Jason Palmer 14:46
How many kids do you think you’ve had in your house over the years?

Janine Porter 14:49
I’ve had at least I used to keep track but it’s been at least 24 children. Wow, at least 24 children.

Jason Palmer 14:57
You know, like us, we say about 20 Cuz I don’t know the exact number,

Janine Porter 15:05
right, I think I started counting at about 22.

Jason Palmer 15:10
How many years have you been been in the game?

Janine Porter 15:13
Um, for probably about 12 years. 12 years actually being a foster parent.

Jason Palmer 15:19
Wow. Makes me feel like a wimp, because we’ve been at it for 12 years. And we haven’t even thought about creating an agency

Amanda Palmer 15:26
for an agency. And I do not have near enough time for that.

Jason Palmer 15:33
Yeah. So what was it like Korea? I mean, because you have a 501 c three, organization, Georgia. Georgia hope Incorporated, right? Yes. Okay. So and I assume you guys just work inside of the state of Georgia? Yes. Okay. And so, you know, if anybody’s looking for somebody to talk to, and they happen to live in Georgia. Janine might be your person. But

Janine Porter 15:58
Right, right.

Jason Palmer 16:00
What What inspired you to create an organization like that, I mean,

Janine Porter 16:04
I used to have a group home, for boys, um, you know, same, same idea, you know, serving the same type of children also, servicing children, and we’re from DJ j, Department of Juvenile Justice. And it was a little bit more stressful, um, and it was more, more or less, it was kind of just never ending in terms of the cycle of children coming in and out. And then I felt that I just wanted to streamline it to more of a nine to five, where you have parents working on on a more personal level, with the children, as opposed to the group, you know, group of staff working with the children. So then I decided to go with the agency. So now we have parents, children and families as opposed to in group homes, and they get the individualized attention that they need. Now, group homes are still needed, because not all children, you know, thrive in the foster home. But I just like the idea of them, us being able to service them throughout throughout the day, and then parents taking over into the evening with their families.

Jason Palmer 17:12
Group Home for Boys. I mean, I think I just I think I felt a little shutter there. I mean, I’m assuming most of those probably have teen boys. Right?

Janine Porter 17:23
Right. We started at age 13. You know, they can stay as long as 21 but basically 18 Mm hmm. Wow.

Jason Palmer 17:32
What was that experience like? Because I’ve had a couple teenage boys and they are not like calm. I mean, everybody says they’re afraid of teenage girls. Let me tell you something. I’m wanting to start at the moment. He has her moments right. My boys have been the biggest challenge of my life.

Janine Porter 17:51
Well, I think the boys maybe for him from a man perspective. The boys are you know this I guess treatment and reacted in a certain way and then they react this different way to women because maybe they’re looking at the motherly figure onto the grandmother. So I we enjoy working with the boys you know, we had a few challenges. But I think on the other hand, have a working with the girls those girls I’ve challenged as a woman to be girls, that’s the biggest challenge the woman to the boys I think is less of a challenge we’re able to talk them down and you know maybe show them that motherly love so i think is just the dynamics of it.

Jason Palmer 18:33
Maybe so maybe it can I say boys

Janine Porter 18:37
house full of boys and one girl right now. I got enough testosterone around here. That’s our house too. We’ve got one girl girl boys. Yes, yes, yes.

Jason Palmer 18:48
Maybe that’s maybe that’s why there’s such a struggle. There’s just so many of them they tried to overtake us.

Amanda Palmer 18:54
Some days, they might win

Jason Palmer 18:59
you know what about those days that feels like you know, you’re gonna lose because I mean, you ain’t you’re not taking care of one kid here right? in your house and you’re dealing with with a bunch of kids in foster care and before you had a boy’s home so you had all that going on? Well, how do you handle the days where you just like alright, I think it’s time to give up. I’m just gonna walk away and I don’t know what I’ll stop walking but I’m just gonna walk a day or two. What do you do for those days?

Janine Porter 19:26
A lot of people ask me Hey, you know, how do you do it? You know, how do you get through? One thing I say to them all I always always say this. I don’t think about it. I just do because you know what you have to do you know, I do my planning. I do my scheduling. We got schedules all up around the house of you know, so they can know what what’s going on each and every day. And we plan out the summer we plan I plan out a calendar so we have that a lot of times around the home. But also I don’t think too deeply on it. I know what we have to do the children know what what’s expected of the expected of them and And then we kind of just do it, we, we do a lot of outdoor activities and traveling and vacationing so we can get away can get out, they can experience other things. You know, they have just as much technology as they do out outside equipment in terms of bikes and scooters and skateboards. So I think we just kind of keep I keep them busy as possible. Um, and there are consequences to your behaviors. So it’s a little bit of everything associated with it. And we talk a lot we focus a lot when it in X, a lot of questions, tell me what’s going on? Because, you know, one of us was to go here. Go crazy. That’s what it is. But um, yeah, so it’s just a lot of combination of talking in in order for me to not get overwhelmed. I know what’s expected of me. So I don’t think about it that much. I just do a lot of support to help you. I do I, you know, I have the older children are here, so they do help out. I have a network of friends. I have some family that’s here locally. Like we just we keep busy. We keep busy. And Ma’am, Melissa, Anna, relax, we relax. So am I everyone knows their chores. And we have pets. So they have responsibilities. So we just try to keep everybody active?

Jason Palmer 21:33
Yeah, that seems to be something that’s usually helpful when we can stay on top of us keeping them active. Sports is a godsend for at least one of our kids, maybe. Yeah. And just it seems to help them so much to get out and just go burn that energy. There’s there’s something in those teenage years where just finding a way to keep them active seems to help them help them not do the stupid stuff that we may or may not have done as teenagers ourselves,

Janine Porter 22:00
right?

Jason Palmer 22:02
I mean, I’m sure you didn’t, I didn’t, but Amanda, we are she

Unknown Speaker 22:06
was one of those kids, the black sheep.

Unknown Speaker 22:11
Take it Yeah.

Jason Palmer 22:14
Again, my mom listens to this podcast, sometimes I can’t tell stories on myself, I’ll be in trouble.

Amanda Palmer 22:20
You’re a little too old to be in that kind of trouble.

Jason Palmer 22:23
So, you know, you talk about this, this, you know, deal with these kids. And I noticed when I did look at your website, and one of the things that talks about on there a lot is mental health, and health, you know, with kids with teenagers in today’s world, especially when you’re talking about kids in foster care, kids who have seen trauma who’ve been through God knows what I mean, boys, we’ve heard him and rough, real rough stuff. I mean, everything from domestic abuse and, and physical violence to death and murder and drugs and drug exposure and all these different things. So how does how do you work through the the mental health challenges with some of these kids?

Janine Porter 23:02
Well, in terms of the agency coming through the agency, we we use this actually start with every single child coming into the agency at ages eight and above will go see, you know, go with go through therapy and psychiatry, the psychiatry’s just to rule out any trauma people have just coming into foster care, you know, alone is trauma, you know, you’re leaving your family, friends, everything you’ve ever known you’ve ever known. Now we’re starting at a younger age as their youngest six, and we let the therapist rule out needing the services because you need to talk to somebody about how you feel about leaving your family, leaving your pets leaving your room leaving your belongings. So we kind of started out there. And then we let the therapists get involved in, you know, diagnosing, and Lord did the psychologist diagnosing and, you know, administering medicine, if necessary. Our caseworkers are all skilled in the social work field, they have their particular degrees. So they know how to, you know, recommend and refer the children two different services that they would need. And they meet with them, you know, several times on a monthly basis to help them work through some of those situations.

Jason Palmer 24:22
So you guys have your own in house therapist.

Janine Porter 24:25
We don’t have our well we have. We have social workers on staff, those that are our caseworkers, we have LPC on staff, but we outsource for the actual therapy services that the children receive.

Jason Palmer 24:36
I see I see because therapy is a big part of this. If you’re ever trying to work your way through it, I mean, these kids need somebody to help them I mean, how many adults you know that you think that you need to talk to somebody?

Unknown Speaker 24:52
Right,

Jason Palmer 24:52
I’m gonna name no names, but I know something.

Unknown Speaker 24:56
Right, right. Mom listens. Remember that? Yeah.

Jason Palmer 25:02
And you know, actually we’ve had this conversation we had somebody, a friend of the family, I guess what we’ll just loose call it that, who got upset one day when, you know, she asked me, she said, Well, do you think I need to talk to somebody? And I know, I know, a big piece of her story. And her childhood had some real heavy trauma and and I said, Well, yeah, yeah, I think you should see somebody she looks at me almost offended that she says, What do you think I’m crazy? Awesome. Girl, you know me, you know,

Unknown Speaker 25:29
we got a guy.

Jason Palmer 25:32
Right? So I go sees if I’m saying you’re crazy, and just maybe not just as crazy as I am. It’s very nothing wrong with it. But there’s that stigma behind it. Especially in certain communities where that can be really, you know, whether it’s ethnic or national communities. I have a friend of mine who has a his wife is a of an Asian descent. I’m not certain exactly what off top my head, but I know that where she comes from. He’s mentioned it like, she refuses to go see a therapist, because it’s looked down on so much in her community, where she comes from. And that’s been a real challenge. Have you had any issues with that from bio parents of kids are starting to see therapist, were they up against that? Other foster care nation, if you’d like to find yourself in a group of like minded people how to read Facebook, and you can find us@facebook.com slash groups slash foster care, you j, we’ve got a group over there where we talk about foster care, we talk about adoption. And we talked about all the things related, if your podcast player allows it, you can also reach out hit that subscribe button. So you get notified every week, when we put up uploads every Tuesday and new episode comes out, we’d love to see you next week. Now back to the show.

Janine Porter 26:47
Um, we’ve had I’ve had it more or less with, because in terms of the children that we have in here, they are required to do it as part of the program or as part of them being defects care. So the parents don’t have that much say so when it but some of the the teenage children I’ve had as foster children, when they get a certain age where they can make some of their own decisions, they may not have always, they may, they may have been reluctant or just refuse altogether, to get some of the mental health services that they needed. And you know, as a result, they’re still dealing with some of those challenges. Whereas heavy continued through the whole process, maybe they will be able to better deal with some of the things that they’re going through to this day. And you know, not saying that the mental health is the end all be all or whatever the phrase is, but it could have provided them with the skills they need to better handle some of the situations that they’re going through now.

Jason Palmer 27:44
Absolutely. I think that’s one of the one of the misconceptions about mental health care, is that you’re not going to see somebody who’s going to heal you, they’re not going to cure. You know, if you have depression, they’re not going to like wave a magic wand. And suddenly you never have to deal with it again. But they do help you see things and build tools and skill sets to be able to move forward in your life without the same the same emotional anchors holding you down, that you would have had to deal with. So I feel like the mental health side of it’s really important for for most of these kids, you know, we’ve we have any kids who have who haven’t been?

Unknown Speaker 28:19
No, I think that at some point, we typically end up utilizing that, you know, whether it be play therapy or just going and seeing somebody.

Jason Palmer 28:29
Yeah, so far we’ve used different aspects. Yeah, so far, I think I’m little Frankie might be the only one who hasn’t that’s just the age.

Unknown Speaker 28:37
Yeah. And that, you know,

Jason Palmer 28:39
he’s, he’s gonna need some help. He went through some trauma as a kid. He’s five years old. And we were actually we were just talking about it recently about finding ways to help them through as he starts to do the kindergarten thing and trying to do virtual, do online schooling with a kid who’s, I mean, you’ve seen hyperactive kids. Right? Right. Right. They’re lazy compared to this boy.

Janine Porter 29:05
Yeah, and sometimes you don’t think that, you know, you think his other ways of handling it. But sometimes you still have to get that evaluation to get more clarity for your own self, to see that maybe this is what we do need, whether it’s just a therapy or whether it’s a combination of medication or you know, the two together

Jason Palmer 29:25
the therapists giving you the tools to deal with what they’re dealing with as well. Right,

Janine Porter 29:30
right. Cuz I know one of my children. For years I was in denial, you know, one of my foster children and adopted I was in denial. We’re gonna we’re gonna get through this. He can use his own skills. We just got to you know, work together and you know, suppose so for years and the teachers are telling me and I’m like, I should know this. I’m this is what I do. When for years, I was in denial with, you know, my own child. But then when I did get this services and the medication I was like, I should do this. It was a long time ago. But um, you know, so you know, even if you do know, you know, everything that’s out there, sometimes you’re in denial yourself. But I’m, I’m glad we did. And now he’s able to work through some things easier. You know, give, go through the process,

Jason Palmer 30:19
if you could talk to those to those parents, you know that the 10 year ago version of Jeanine Who? Love was just enough, right? I love them enough. And it’ll be okay. I’ve heard that I’ve been told that. And what would you say to that to that parent who thinks that, hey, I’m just gonna love them, and we’re gonna work our way through it without any extra help.

Janine Porter 30:40
I would say, you know, one thing you could do is privately go through an evaluation process, you don’t have to go through with the schools. Because a lot of times, you’re worried about the labels that you’re going to get once you put them in a school system, and they teach you that they label files on for the rest of their lives. But I would suggest, you know, go go privately, take your job privately, it’s a one on one situation where they’re giving you the information, once you get the information, then you can decide what’s best for you and your family. If they provide you with medication, try it, you know, try it, see what happens. See, if it makes a difference, you can always not, you know, decide that’s not that’s not what you want to do and try something more herbal or, you know, but I think you should always try it just to see, you know, if it makes a difference, because at the end of the day, if it does work, it’s helping the child it’s helping you to for your own sanity, but it’s helping the child, it’s helping the child because if they can’t concentrate, they’re always getting in trouble. They’re getting frustrated. They’re you know, they can’t even control what’s going on in their own brains to even know what what they’re doing wrong. So it’s a win win for everybody.

Jason Palmer 31:52
Excited my ego, right?

Janine Porter 31:54
Right, right. But I think it calms them down and allows the child to say, Okay, I’m not the worst kid in the class. So I’m not the problem child, it has been explained to me that I just need to my brain to slow down. And a lot of times, that’s, you know, what it may be, or if the, if it’s ADHD, if it’s something else, I you know, I’m not the problem child, I just, it just things has happened in my life, that was not my fault. So, you know, it just depends on what it is. But I think it can help.

Jason Palmer 32:22
You know, she talked about that I think about one of our little ones who, you know, he’s been through his fair share of trauma and the number of times that I have seen him try something and not succeed the first time. And his first reaction is I’m stupid, I’m so stupid. And, and that’s that internal voice where he’s, he’s internalized, and just like you’re talking about there. And I do honestly believe if we could slow his brain to a manageable pace, he could, he would be really successful, a lot of things he’s trying to do. But he’s just not capable that you have at this point, you know, he’s losing development cycle he’s in and we’re, we’re looking at getting him some help and working through that. But those are the things that kids tell themselves,

Janine Porter 33:06
right. And I remind my own child that, you know, we’re not going to let this medication control you, you’re going to learn how to control your own behavior, this is just the healthy assistance that you need to until you can get to that point, because you’re still learning, you’re learning how to, you know, make your brain slow down, you’re learning how to, you know, learning these different fields, and tools. So eventually, you can wean yourself off and have your own control. And, you know, whether that happens or not, we, you know, we still have that hope.

Jason Palmer 33:40
Did you struggle when you first started with this feeling like if you needed that kind of help from someone else, that you were a failure as a parent?

Janine Porter 33:49
Um, yes, because in my case, I had two children since birth, and I’m and I was saying to myself, you know, what did I do wrong, you know, then I raised these children the same way I raised, you know, my other children. And so you you look at yourself, like, what happened here, you know, where where Did something go wrong? And then of course, you’re you know, you have people that remind you, you know, you know, their DNA is different their situation is different, you know, their grantee that you had them since birth, you know, they are my biological mom was a part of your life and now she’s not so you know, so they said, it’s different, you know, they reminded me is different things and it makes here it’s not just your DNA and then on top of that, some of our own kids go astray and they were like, what happened here, but um, you know, so you know, so I did look at myself and I said, what was what did I do wrong? I did have that issue going on that I had to do with and then I just had to realize all children are different.

Jason Palmer 34:48
What was the biggest thing that made you realize that

Unknown Speaker 34:53
um,

Janine Porter 34:56
I guess that you know, all children are different. Basically, all children are different. You know, maybe they were all raised together, but they have their own personalities. And they in some of it is could be DNA. You know, some of it could be different DNA, but they’re just all children differently. They react to doing things differently. They have different experiences of how they see life. And so I just had to say, Well, okay, this is this child, when there’s not the same as this other job that I raised five years old to this point, but, you know, you’re sad to realize everybody’s different. And everybody has to deal with their things differently. Their issues, their, their, the things that they go through.

Jason Palmer 35:44
Absolutely, absolutely. And I gotta ask one question, because I’m, I’m in a group with a lot of dads from across the country and across the world, honestly. And I know some guys from Georgia, you don’t sound like you’re from Georgia.

Janine Porter 36:04
I’m from New York. I’m originally from New York. I’ve been in Georgia for 20 years, but I’m from New York.

Jason Palmer 36:10
I thought I heard some northeast and I was trying to figure that out. What brought you to Georgia from New York?

Janine Porter 36:17
Well, I went to school, I Tuskegee and we kind of kind of hung out of him Atlanta, and I enjoyed the weather and enjoyed the whole Atlanta experience. And I said, This is what I want to you know, raise my children have my family, and so got married and moved to Georgia.

Jason Palmer 36:34
Are you still in the Atlanta area?

Janine Porter 36:36
Um, yes. Yes. You are. And you know, outskirts in the suburbs, but yes, Mm hmm.

Jason Palmer 36:41
Well, I’m just gonna say your experience of Atlanta. My must be different. But then again, my experience of Atlanta is only the traffic.

Janine Porter 36:48
Well, yeah, but I love it and where I would I basically work not, what, 1520 minutes away from from the job, so I don’t have to go on the highway to get to the office and I don’t have to beat the traffic fight the traffic. I don’t have to wake up extra early to get anywhere. So

more convenient.

Jason Palmer 37:08
Yeah, I have a couple experiences with Atlanta. And the last one, I drove to Atlanta while it was snowing. So, y’all, I’m just gonna say we love south, but y’all ain’t got any clue about

Janine Porter 37:22
snow. vedo Hey,

give me now. Yeah.

Jason Palmer 37:29
That was an experience. I thought you wanted because you did not say I didn’t hear Georgia in your voice anyways. So you know, there had to be a secret in there somewhere.

Unknown Speaker 37:38
Right. Right.

Jason Palmer 37:39
So are you married?

Janine Porter 37:42
Not anymore. I’m divorced. So I’m now single and just raising these children. Wow, that’s

Jason Palmer 37:48
great for a single mom.

Janine Porter 37:50
Yeah, we make it work. We use our network.

Jason Palmer 37:57
A lot. I hear a lot of people talk about single moms and how rough to have it. I just look at somebody like you who’s who’s not like making it as a single mom, right? Like, you’re, you’re kicking the snot out of something over here. You’re making things happen. You’re doing things you got some stuff together. What what kind of helps you get into that position where you’re, you’re running your nonprofit, you’re helping out kids, you were running a group home here, you’re running a foster care agency all as a single mom, like where did you get that and in your put into you from? I mean, somebody had to have put that in your soul.

Janine Porter 38:32
Well, determination that New York hustle mentality, my family, my, my sister, she has, you know, we have a family business at home. So it’s kind of again ingrained. This is all I know, my my lesson used to be What are you watching TV for? It’s nothing, you know, you’re not gonna learn anything from TV. This started let’s do some business, you know. So, you know, TVs was always a waste of time, it was like, let’s figure out how we gonna make some business happen. So, um, and it just, I guess that New York hustle mentality and determination, I teach my children you know, you want to be able to choose your life and not let your life choose you. So, you know, I go by that I live back live that way. So, in order to keep making, being able to make my own choices, I gotta keep it going.

Jason Palmer 39:23
That’s incredible. That’s incredible. Because most of us are just just trying to make it through the week with what we got on our plate. And, you know, you you guys are out there, like inviting extra kids with trauma into your world, and then turn that around and, and that’s, that’s a big thing for most people to wrap their mind around when we’re so busy trying to figure out how to get through the day sometimes. I ain’t even thinking about adding extra to my plate most days. Wow, I am thinking about how to do that. But then I laugh and I go, Yeah, when you’re going to do that, right? We got time for that. And so what you get what you’re doing that that’s it out there, you know, you’ve got these kids, and you’ve dealt with all these different mental health issues. have you dealt with any of the bigger mental health stuff there with through your your, either the boys home or the foster care agency things like red? And then or odd and then the kind of the more difficult struggles?

Janine Porter 40:21
Um, I have I have, and I think I’m the one that hit home is the is the one I’m the one I raised that in my house was one of my children. She was a handful and we had a lot of physical altercation, then, you know, suicidal thoughts suicidal acting out. So a lot of the more difficult behaviors we had to deal with, and you find out, you know, a lot of it is just the attention seeking is not I would really want to hurt myself or kill myself is just, you know, what can I do to get the attention that I’m seeking, and it’s just cry, a cry for help is just a cry for help. And you know, as much as you want to, you know, you give the children everything you can give them, but they just, you know, sometimes they just want more, or they don’t know how to say what I really want is to have the life that quote, unquote, everyone else has with their parents. And that’s something that may or may not ever get. So as a result, some of those acting out behaviors and self harming behaviors come into play or the depression, or they, you know, and again, they start thinking about their own lives and how they got into this situation. And then they’re like, Well, you know, what about me? Why, why am I here? Why is this my situation, and then you see a lot of that those additional behaviors come through, you know, defiance, and like I said, there’s suicidal thoughts and suicidal acts actually acting out. And then running away, sometimes where you run into, you know, where is there to go. So, we’ve, we’ve had some of those experiences. And, and then, you know, you have on throughout the agency, you know, in different forms, you have a lot of that, but we get them the assistance that they need, we have people that can come by and talk to them, we have the mobile crisis unit that can come by, you know, on an emergency basis, our staff are all experienced. So, you know, we make sure we are putting those our staff in places, you know, prior to them getting the the additional therapy they need, and we just try to wrap, you know, wrap their services around them, and let them know that we’re here, you know, when we’re here as long as we can be, but you have to be willing to accept the help.

Jason Palmer 42:47
When you really first got going in this as a foster parent, what were some of the resources you found to help you help these kids through those tough spots.

Janine Porter 42:57
Um, a lot of the counseling that definitely kept the counseling, some of the girls groups or the mentoring groups that were available, putting them in just keeping them in activities and clubs, whether it was a school club, or just a community girls group, again, with the boys, the sports, just keeping them involved. So they had a peer group that they can talk to, if it was parenting if the children were teen moms, putting them into the parenting group parenting classes. So they had like minded individuals that you know, were in the same situation in one form or another they they may have been in. When we have our agency. Well, prior to COVID, we, when we have our agency staff meetings, we have all the children come to the to the facility to so sometimes these may be the only friends that our children have children that are in other foster care homes in situations. So that again, gives them the peer groups that they need, so they can talk to things.

Jason Palmer 44:08
That sounds great. I have a couple questions. I’ll try and ask people a lot of times if you had a magic wand, this use wave and change one thing in a foster care system. What would you change first?

Janine Porter 44:26
And the foster care system?

Unknown Speaker 44:29
Um

Janine Porter 44:34
Oh boy. What would I change in the foster care system? Like so many of you will want to change? Um, I don’t even know it could be something sometimes I say it might be the mindset of some of the higher up officials. I mean, some of the decisions that they make, you know, regarding the children that, are you sure that this is the best decision that you can make for these children, maybe with some of the high level officials, and maybe whether it’s just the judges or directors or you know, you know, come down to where these children are to see, you know, what they are experiencing where they are, where you know, where they may be going or getting into, as opposed to just, you know, sending them off. Some, I think some of the decisions that have been made have not always been the best decisions for the children. And we’ve seen it as the children have returned into care. You may only ask for one but another one might be letting more parents feel that it’s enough to do this for just a passion and a love of it alone, not just the you know, financial reimbursement that you can get, because, you know, you say, Well, why would I do this? If it was, you know, if I didn’t get anything for it, let them really feel that in their soul in their heart, that you know, if you could do this for free, would you do this for free? And if so, then put put all of the all of you into it, all of your heart, your soul into these children. And you know, they have they remember that it’s trauma that they have to have to go through. It’s not that they’re just bad children, or they mean today, or they’re bad today. This is what their life has been for them. This is not just, I’m cursing you out today, because I’m mad is because this may be all I know. You know, I may have never had a kind word. So just change in some of the hearts of I guess from higher up all the way down to the to the foster parents letting them know that it’s more than just, you know, bad children that you’re dealing with. And that you have to look look look at what you make with look at decisions that you’re making.

Jason Palmer 47:02
Yeah, I haven’t met too many bad kids when I’ve met a lot of kids, but the bad places my bad boy, right? I definitely agree with that. The next question I had for you is what’s something you wish that people knew about your journey that you think they they just assume make assumptions and they’re just flat wrong in their assumptions?

Unknown Speaker 47:23
Um,

Janine Porter 47:25
you know, I’ve been said, You know, I hear a lot of people say, Oh, you’re Superwoman, you’re Superwoman. Man. My belief You know, it is difficult sometimes and and you’re you know, the children have a lot of challenges, but you’re just working through with it through it and you just have to stay upbeat and you can’t think the opposite you can’t go towards a negative you always have to be positive because you know, if you start thinking too deep and too hard about all the problems that struggle struggles and stress and the challenges

you can go there you have to say I know I have a friend who says oh, you always got to say the glass is half full. Oh yes. Because what else should I think you know, the glass has to always be half full. Because otherwise my my fall into a stressful depression you know, so you just have to say a beat and yes, it is a struggle sometimes this challenge, but this is what I enjoy doing. And so I’m gonna do it to the best of my ability and be happy about it. This is the choice I’ve made.

Jason Palmer 48:35
Excellent, excellent. We talked a few minutes ago about about support you have around you. When you look when you look back across your entire journey, what kinds of things really look like support for you in the moment you needed it most?

Janine Porter 48:49
I think the biggest support has just been the encouragement um, that you get from your friends and family it’s not always them stepping in to help because you know sometimes you can just hire a babysitter or hire someone else is more or less the encouragement and the just the support and this letting people know Okay, you got this it’ll be all right. You doing this you know, the more the the encouragement and then some sometimes the praise You know, you are doing a good job you are helping these children I think it’s just that that verbal in that you know, supportive shoulder to talk to and lean on and encourage Okay, it’s

Jason Palmer 49:35
always nice when somebody validates the fact that you’re doing something that’s not wrong. Because if I have teenagers you’ve been told you’re doing it wrong and you don’t know right? Oh yeah. Old to without just a given. I don’t know I think I had every every room every time we interview any but I started to look I mean, I think I got more gray hair than anybody else. And I’m thinking I’m still hiding a little bit. I ain’t dyed it yet. But those those little wisdom markers, that’s what I think it is. But now, we appreciate you sharing your story on here today. Now I know you, Georgia hope is your website is ga hope dot orgy right?

Janine Porter 50:21
Um, it’s www.ga hope inc.org. So what’s the full spell out the word ga?

Unknown Speaker 50:29
Okay, what

Janine Porter 50:29
you’re hoping that org?

Jason Palmer 50:32
All right, well, GA hope let me write that down. Because I think I had clicked on the wrong website there. And I want to make sure that we link that up, it may

Janine Porter 50:40
have taken you to it, but it’s, you spelled the word Georgia. So Georgia hope inc.org

Jason Palmer 50:46
I see. I want to make sure that we can, we can link that up in the show notes, especially for any of your listeners in the south who happen to live in Georgia who maybe are looking for a place to do some some good in the world and, and bring their talents and their skills and or maybe gain some talents and skills could God knows when we started this? I don’t think we we know enough. But did any of us

Unknown Speaker 51:10
know? Well, yeah.

Jason Palmer 51:13
That’s right on the one who’s stupid this week. We we just had a whole blow up interchange with one of our teams the other day. And so yeah, it’s kind of little, just little inside baseball there. Yeah, apparently this week. I’m the one who’s stupid. So it’s all good. Yeah. gain some some an opportunity to talk to you and look at working with you guys. Georgia hope inc.org is how they could get to you. Do you have any other any other social media or anything like that?

Janine Porter 51:43
You can reach out to us on Facebook, George hoping on Facebook. Those are the two main areas that we can connect through socially. Okay, website and the Facebook page.

Unknown Speaker 51:58
Yeah, we’re located

Janine Porter 51:58
in Conyers, Georgia. If you Google SEO will pop up.

Jason Palmer 52:03
Right up? Ah, well, I appreciate you bringing bringing your passion in here today and sharing this with people around the country and around the world. It’s just another little piece of inside baseball. I was looking at the analytics that the podcast host gives us and I didn’t know we had people listened in Morocco.

Janine Porter 52:24
Wow. or

Jason Palmer 52:27
Russia?

Yeah, Kenny, that dense. It’s bouncing all over the world. And so hopefully it inspires somebody somewhere even if it’s not in Georgia, maybe it’s a Moscow. I don’t know. I don’t really care so somebody can take something from us. That’s what we’re really looking to do here today. So we appreciate you taking your time and given that to us and allowing us to share your message across the planet really. Okay, you’re

Janine Porter 52:53
welcome. Thank you for taking the time.

Jason Palmer 52:57
Okay, foster care nation. Thank you for listening to Jeanine story. Now take her knowledge and wisdom to heart so you can create love and healing in your family and your community. Be sure to come back next week. We have new episodes every Tuesday. If you would like to share your story as a guest, you can reach us at foster care uj@gmail.com you can connect with other like minded people on facebook@facebook.com slash groups slash foster care uj. And don’t forget we have a Patreon where you can support our mission for as little as $5 a month. It’s a patreon.com slash foster care nation. The links to everything are in the show notes or on your podcast player or at foster care nation calm. And as always,

Unknown Speaker 53:38
you are some super awesome I thank you. Thank you. Thank thanks