Episode 63: Redefining Normal with Alexis and Justin Black – Part 2
November 9, 2020
Episode 63: Redefining Normal with Alexis and Justin Black – Part 2
This week we welcome Alexis and Justin Black back to the Fostering Change podcast.
Alexis and Justin are newlyweds who both grew up in foster care. In their first novel, Redefining Normal: How Two Foster Kids Beat the Odds and Discovered Healing, Happiness, and Love, Alexis and Justin reveal how they overcame traumatic childhoods and developed a healthy relationship.
Listen as they share some details about writing the book and how they hope it will help others. Alexis also talks about being adopted at the age of 26 and why it was so important that her foster parents become her legal parents years after she “aged out” of the foster care system.
Click here to buy Redefining Normal on Amazon – it’s #1 in new releases in Marriage & Long-Term Relationships!
Click here to listen to our first interview with Justin and Alexis.
Alexis Lenderman is a proud foster care alumna as well as a recent graduate of Western Michigan University where she earned a BBA in Entrepreneurship, a BA in Global & International Studies, a certificate in Nonprofit Leadership and a minor in Political Science. In 2016, she founded The Scholarship Expert business that consists of The Scholarship Blueprint book and workbooks along with an online course to assist students in graduating college debt free. Lenderman is a foster care advocate as she’s completed an internship at the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, and as a National Youth and Transition Database Reviewer and helps fundraise for programs supporting foster youth such as Hope Pkgs. Lenderman loves to travel and sleep on her down time. She’s studied abroad eight times during her undergraduate career to countries such as Hong Kong, South Korea, and South Africa. Alexis aspires to be a positive example for foster youth.
Justin Black is a recent graduate of Western Michigan University, where he studied public relations and African studies. He started Rising Over Societal Expectations (ROSE) Empowerment Group with a vision to close the information gap for today’s generation of Black and Brown youth after his experiences as a Black male in the foster care system. He has also developed policy recommendations while working with the National Black Child Development Institute resulting in a publication titled The State of the Black Child Report Card: Washington State. Black studied urban and community development as well as political and economic philosophy in countries such as Rwanda, Uganda, Senegal, and South Korea. In his spare time, Justin loves watching sports and enjoys hot wings. He aspires to challenge and expand the ideologies of how to build prosperous communities through interdependence and entrepreneurship.
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