Joanna

Whether you are making your way to foster parenting or making your way through it, we’re here to help you navigate. The Foster Journey is designed to be your companion as you consider foster care and prepare to be a great foster parent. With wisdom and humor, it walks you through both the initial decision to become a foster parent and provides a road map through the certification process. This guide is a collection of insights from many who have gone before you and asks critical questions to help you along the way.

Joanna is passionate about kids being placed with families who will provide a safe and loving environment and wants to see new families be recruited, empowered, and equipped to provide for children in foster care. She hopes to help families understand the challenges that children in foster care face.

Joanna now uses her voice and her story to speak to the situations that children in foster care may be facing, but to encourage others to provide space for children to continue healing and growing. She is a founding Board Member of “Orphans and You Matter”, a nonprofit that looks to support and to provide for children who have been orphaned globally. She also works for a Olive Crest as a Program Supervisor for a Transitional Housing Program for foster teens. She works with teenagers who are in high school.

Joanna is a California native who lives in Long Beach with her husband, step-daughter, and two cats. She loves to be creative and spends her time painting, drawing, do-it-yourself projects, or hair and make-up for a wedding. Joanna hopes to write a memoir about her story and eventually publish her story.

Kayla and her husband, Ryan, have 6 children, 4 adopted from foster care. They spent 10 years as foster parents and have learned many of the things they share with families and churches in the trenches. They are co-founders of One Big Happy Home and are considered experts on childhood trauma. Together they have developed training materials and programs for churches, schools, and parents educating them on trauma and its impacts including their online training for churches; Becoming Trauma-Informed: Helping Kids Feel Safe at Church. Kayla is a Trauma-Competent Caregiver and the Executive Directory of Tapestry, a non-profit that supports and equips local churches and families with the tools and resources needed to help the families they serve. The Norths have trained and mentored hundreds of ministry leaders and trainers in the United States and Canada. They are both TBRI Practitioners and speak at churches, conferences, and retreats nationwide. You can hear them on The Empowered Parent Podcast and read their writing on Empowered to Connect, and at One Big Happy Home. Ryan and Kayla live in Dallas, TX with their 6 children and 2 dogs, Snowcone and Elvis.