The F Word: America’s Foster Care Crisis | Episode 1 | Ella Bat Ami & Lily Colby on The Night Everything Changes

What really happens to a child during the first hours and first night in foster care?

For many children, entering foster care means suddenly leaving behind everything familiar: home, family, belongings, routines, and any sense of knowing what comes next. For some, that first night also brings another devastating loss: separation from their brothers and sisters.

In Episode 1 of The F Word: America’s Foster Care Crisis, Rob Scheer speaks with two women whose lived experiences reveal what that moment can actually feel like.

Ella Bat Ami entered foster care as a teenager and experienced repeated placement instability, including nights spent sleeping in Department of Children’s Services offices. She shares what she remembers about entering the system, what made certain placements feel safe while others felt temporary and what young people need from the adults entrusted with their care.

Ella has since transformed her experiences into advocacy. She helped author Tennessee’s Foster Youth Bill of Rights and founded Fostering Excellence to help young people in foster care navigate the path to college.

Learn more about Tennessee’s Foster Youth Bill of Rights

Then, attorney and former foster youth Lily Colby explores another trauma that can begin the very same night: sibling separation.

Lily entered foster care multiple times and was repeatedly separated from her brothers. She later became a kinship caregiver, foster parent, and child advocacy attorney, giving her a unique perspective on the foster care system.

Today, Lily is the founder of the National Network for Fostering Sibling Connections, working to ensure that brothers and sisters do not lose one another simply because they enter foster care.

Learn more about the National Network for Fostering Sibling Connections

Together, Ella and Lily challenge us to look beyond the administrative language of “removal” and “placement” and understand what those words actually mean to a child.

Because entering foster care isn’t simply a change of address. It can be the night everything changes.

THIS WEEK’S “F WORD” QUESTIONS

Ella is asked: Did foster care save you, did it fail you, or is the honest answer both?

Lily is asked: If we know sibling separation creates lasting trauma, why isn’t keeping brothers and sisters together treated with the same urgency as removing them from danger in the first place?

WORDS THAT STAY WITH US

“Everyone looks at us as ‘fosters,’ but we’re still just kids.” Ella Bat Ami

“You deserve to have loving people in your life, and you are not alone.” Lily Colby

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Ella Bat Ami

Foster Care Advocate | Author, Tennessee Foster Youth Bill of Rights

Founder, Fostering Excellence

Instagram: @emphatically.ella

Lily Colby Attorney

Founder, National Network for Fostering Sibling Connections

Website

Instagram: @lilyeaglecolby

NEXT ON THE F WORD

Episode 2: Who Decides?

We enter the family court system and examine reunification pressures, judicial inconsistency, poverty versus neglect and one of the most consequential questions in foster care: Who ultimately speaks for the child?

Subscribe to Comfort Cases and follow along with The F Word: America’s Foster Care Crisis, a five-part series examining the realities of America’s foster care system through the voices of former foster youth, foster parents, attorneys, advocates, researchers, and child welfare leaders.

To find out more about Comfort Cases, please visit our website: www.comfortcases.org.

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To listen to previous episodes of Fostering Change and Comfort Cases: Unpacked, please visit: www.comfortcases.org/podcast or your favorite podcast outlets.