When Family Steps In: A Kinship Care Journey of Love and Commitment With Ashley Terry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CrMWh2VLMI

Matt Darrah (00:01.694)

Hello and welcome to All Things Foster, a place for coffee, connection, and community. I'm really excited. I've got Ash here with us in the studio and I'm excited to talk to him about their story. before we get to that, Ash is actually our episode sponsor today. Falcon Ridge is owned by Ashley Terry, today's guest, and they provide managed IT services for businesses and nonprofits right here in our community, including us at Panhandle Orphan Care Network.

One of the things I appreciate most about Falcon Ridge IT is that they don't just fix problems when something breaks. They help you build a system that is reliable, secure, and actually makes your work easier. From managed IT services to cybersecurity and ongoing support, they really do come alongside organizations so that those organizations can focus on what matters most. If you're a small business or nonprofit looking for trustworthy, responsive IT support,

From people who genuinely care I'd encourage you to check out Falcon Ridge IT at falconridgeit.com Falcon Ridge IT supporting technology you can count on from people who understand the value of showing up check them out at falconridgeit.com Well Ash, thank you for coming on today. I'm excited to to talk to you For sure. Yeah. Yeah, so excited to be here. Yeah, so So so ironically Ash so Brittney

is my part-time assistant and so we'll get into it a little bit but they came up to me at the Business Connection this last year and were like, hey, you we want to get involved because they had seen the work that we do, they experienced it and stuff. So, Brittney is becoming just so incredibly valuable to

to the organization and everything. So kind of give us, kind of take us back a little bit. You guys got kinship care and then became foster and adoptive folks. So, well, let's back up before that a little bit. Who were you guys? Who was Ashley and Brittney before you guys got into kinship care?

Matt Darrah (02:24.924)

You know, before we got into kinship care, you know, of course, just like most people without children, we, you know, we lived by ourselves. You know, we we did what we did. We went to work, did all the normal things. Interestingly enough, somewhere around twenty twenty one, we had actually decided to buy an RV and live in an RV and take it around with us where we went. So we found a little spot of land and we parked it and we lived in it for.

several years actually just by ourselves and we would take it and go to Colorado or wherever and we'd come back. It was really nice to do that because then you have your whole house. Yeah, right. And that was one of the things that we to do, which we still want to do, of course, but that was kind of one of our goals at that time was just to do our thing and travel with the RV.

You know, so yeah, we've we've got a camper and man, it's just it is so much fun to go up in the mountains just hook up somewhere and you know walk out the front door and there's the mountains. No, it's pretty nice. Absolutely love it. so so had you guys ever talked about fostering adoption or anything like that before?

What ended up happening or so? Short crash course in in our history here. We you know, we got married a very young age. We got married at 19 20 years old I was in the military at the time and I got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes due to some other underlying condition I guess it that caused that in me. So I got discharged from the military for that. Brittney was actually born with congenital heart defects. So she's had a couple of heart surgeries in her life and

We originally thought, maybe we shouldn't have kids just because of these sort of issues because she had a previous pregnancy that didn't.

Matt Darrah (04:22.782)

Come through as a miscarriage for that And and it it did a big toll on her body Yeah, and it required her several years later to have another heart surgery wow And so getting pregnant is is very high risk for her and we had consulted with a couple of OBs just before all of this a few years even when we were you know living in the RV just before then and It was very risky for her to get pregnant to begin with on my side You know, I didn't want to you know knowing that type 1 diabetes traverses, you know

To males in the family type of deal You know we just kind of decided well, maybe we shouldn't do that so we did look at adopting and fostering and We were given some misinformation at the time Which it seems like a common thing now, and I look back on everything. There's a lot of people that have Misconceptions about fostering and adopting even kinship yeah, or just you know blind you know fostering and that sort of stuff I don't know if that's right turn for

But we were giving some misinformation. started making some life changes. What they said, you they told us things like, oh, hey, you've got to have like 50 grand in the bank account. You've got to you got to have some some brand new cars type of deal. Because at the time we were driving some older vehicles. Right. And we had consulted with a lady. couldn't even tell you where she was from, but she'd give us some paperwork and she's like, oh, well, your 2001 Subaru is not going to not going to bode well when you have children in the car. have to have safety things and all this stuff. So we you know, we decided, well, you know, maybe we should get a couple of

newer vehicles and all that sort of stuff. then by the time we did all that, it was like, okay, you we don't have, you know, the funds or the time or anything else to do it. So we kind of put the idea aside. And then when we were in the RV, we had kind of come to terms and say, okay, you know what, we live in an RV, we're probably not going to be able to adopt.

We decided we were not going to have biological kids or anything. So at that moment in time, we had just kind of said, well, you we're just not going to have kids. We're just going to live our life and kind of do what we want to do. You drive or pull our little camper around that sort of stuff. So that was that was literally right up to whenever we got that first call, whenever we got that. I was actually out of town. I was actually in Washington, D.C. on a tech conference when we had gotten the call.

Matt Darrah (06:41.952)

Oh, wow. so talk us through this. This is 2022, right? Yeah, September 22. And so what happens? You get this call out of the blue.

Yeah, so the call was out of the blue. Really what happened is that I'd been estranged from my sisters for about six or seven years up to this point. So my sisters, we were estranged. And I knew that my older sister, she had triplets. And that's kind of what caused some of our downfall at the time when they stopped talking to us and that sort of stuff. My younger sister was not pregnant at the time. So we got this call. was my older sister.

messaging Brittney basically on Facebook saying hey CPS is gonna give you a call you know Ash's you know my other sister has gotten into some stuff and and they're gonna need placement for for the boy and it was a placement where he was being removed from the home permanently type rights were gonna be terminated and everything for my sister and and and her boyfriend at the time so the next day you know I tried to call her and we did phone tag for a few

hours before the CPS caseworker, we finally started talking and she was telling me about what was going on. And mind you, I'm in Washington, D.C., you know, at a tech conference there, you know, not really at home. so I was trying to coordinate all that. Yeah. And it was a very interesting story when you get that call. And one of the things that that she had said, you know, just right off the bat, she's like, hey, I just need to know, do you want to do this or not? Like.

Is it yes or no question? If you say no, have to, know, because she said it's very quick. This is going to move very fast because we have to find placement for the boy. And, you know, it was just automatic. I would just say yes, because I can't imagine a universe where I would say no to that sort of thing. Even given anything else that we had, you know, it was just an automatic yes. So we started talking and.

Matt Darrah (08:49.778)

The day I had come back, it was a little bit late, the day I had come back from the conference, because I was there another two days, I think, after I got the call. And then we both went to go see the boy the day after I'd gotten back. And we went over there and just, you know, was kind of like it was meant to be for us to be there. know, so. And he was how old at this point? He was...

Three okay. Yeah, cuz he was he was born in 2020 So he was three at that time and his birthday is in February. So he's about to turn four. Well Yeah, so what was so maybe he was two. Yeah So, I mean what you know, you guys have have resolved like it's just gonna be us right and then and then this call just comes out of the blue I mean

Talk about whiplash, right? Yeah, and it really wasn't that much time before that we had kind of decided that we weren't going to pursue children or do any of sorts of things. We had really just come to terms with that probably that same year, just a few months prior to that, I think is when we we had kind of both decided. Obviously, I can't speak for Brittney when she really decided, but, know, it was kind of a thing where you're just kind of like, all right, you just kind of resolved that it's going to be this way and then bam. Yeah. Right. Wake up. Yeah, that's exactly.

Exactly how was. Yeah. And then living in an RV, you you start thinking about, OK, what are the logistics of having a child in an RV that's, you know, that just me and my wife live in. We got a couple of dogs at the time. know, you have to start thinking about those little logistics like, OK, does this lady know that we live in an RV? What are the things that come with that? Are we going to have to move into a house? Are we you know, how much time do we have before? You know, so there's all these questions that start running through.

And me personally, I was just kind like, you know, it doesn't matter. We'll figure it out. Yeah. Move into a house. We'll just move into a house. Right. Whatever we're to do. Yeah.

Matt Darrah (10:50.206)

You know, not saying that that's easy and I'm not saying, you know, we could just do it, but I'd find a way to do it at the time. And that's why I told Brittney, said, well, you know, what are we going to do to make this happen? Because if we if we weren't able to take him or if we had denied taking him, his he was definitely going to go into state foster situation for adoption. Yeah. So, yeah.

It was not good because he was in there for a month or two before he was with another family member of his. And that didn't do so well. He didn't have a good experience there at one of them. And the second one was a really good experience. So he was actually two. He had two claimants. He was in two group homes before he went to his biological grandmother's. my gosh. And she was in her. 80s.

And so since she was older.

She couldn't keep taking care of him because she was getting older. It was really hard for her to do that every day, you know, taking care of a two or three year old on top of also probably watching other children to, know, his nieces and nephews, the triplets, like I'd mentioned before. OK, so she had them also. She had them on certain days. They were not removed from from her sister, but she would still watch them. You know, I mean, you've got you know, you got him as, you know, little toddler. And then you get some other children running around for an 80 year old woman.

by herself, she lives by herself, it can be kind of difficult. So that's when the CPS workers and stuff said, we have to find another placement. So they were the ones pushing for that because she was older. Right. So how long between the time you get the initial call from CPS until he comes to you guys? So we got the call, I believe it was like September 12th or September 13th of 22. He came to be with us sometime in the beginning of December. Oh, wow. So it took that long. It did.

Matt Darrah (12:47.104)

The upside of that was it from the first day that we saw him, we had authorization to basically go visit him every day and then actually keep him overnight on the weekend. OK, so it was a gradual transition. It was a gradual transition. So that's good. Yeah. So at first we would just go visit every day and we go, you know, take care of him at nighttime. Yeah. We get up work and go over there. OK. And then.

At some point, think it was only a week or two after that, then CPS allowed us to have overnight visits on the weekends. And so we'd go pick him up on, you know, Friday night or Saturday night, and we'd keep him and then bring him back on Monday. OK, so he'd stay the weekends. then after we got all the things because that time period from September to December, we really just went through the home inspections, the interviews, study, all that stuff, the home study. And it really just took a while to get through all that sort of stuff. And I think CPS wasn't

super worried about it because we're keeping him on the weekends. So maybe that was part of that decision. But yeah, so we we did that. then December, he came to be with us fully. OK. And what's so what's that? I mean, what's that? What's that like for you guys? You know, it was life changing for us. It was definitely like you said, it was kind of a whiplash shock type of deal to have it. But, you know, we weren't new to taking care of children or anything.

I think transitioning from that role of being an uncle and an aunt to like six different children and seeing them as they grow up and taking care of them, it is a little bit different when you're now the parent. In a lot of ways, it is the same, you know, because when you're taking care of all these kids and you do this stuff, but at the same time, it's definitely.

very different. And it's hard to articulate that in words to say that. But yeah, when he came to live with us, was life changing. was a great moment. We were...

Matt Darrah (14:46.428)

We were absolutely thrilled because one of our deepest things originally was that we did want to have children. And then as I explained, we kind of came to terms that that really wasn't, you know, in the cards for us. Yeah. And that was that was kind of hard. You know, it's kind of a darker time to go through to realize, hey, you know, we're never going to be able to do this, but this is something we wanted to do. Yeah. And then one day it just happens. Yeah. Like a phone call away and then just a day or two later, you know, then you have this little boy living with you or not living with you. But, know, you're seeing him and you know, hey, know that.

Working towards this yeah, yeah, and then basically from that first call the the entire goal was to adopt him. Yeah That was the goal from the very first call that we had with the CPS worker on him. So yeah

got one of the biggest challenges at that time was actually living in the RV, which is very interesting because, you know, the difference between kinship and and adoption or foster adoption is if you're solely doing a kinship placement, they don't they don't really care, you know, as long as he's got his own space and, know, he's happy. That's what they want. Yeah. But once you move into that realm and you say, OK, we're not just going to do kinship now, we're going to do fostering, which where you're to do adoption. But then you have to transition through the fostering to the adopt.

Yeah, once you transition from the kinship into the fostering There's a lot more things you have to do it as a couple more things that they want Yeah, the rules change for sure Yeah, and and we were a little misled at the time because they had originally said oh, no, it's fine You can live in your RV and I asked them like a hundred times I said hey, are you sure because it seems weird that you're saying it's fine and we've always been in the impression that it's not right to have a house and

So we kind of got some information there. So at first they said, yes, it would be totally fine. And after they had already taken some time, a few months of time to go through and look at it, then they decided, hey, no, you can't do that. And then that started a whole nother chapter of things in this adoption process, which was transitioning from where we were living, where we had set up, where we had decided, hey, this is our home. Yeah. And then also that was also another life changing thing, because then we have to say, OK, you know, you've got to.

Matt Darrah (16:56.092)

get rid of all that, you gotta do something else now. With the adoption, the kinship and the fostering and the adoption along with that, then we had to change everything else about our lives. What we were living and what we were doing, that sort of stuff.

The first few days, like he's, you're not back and forth anymore. He's there, he's with you guys. What's those first few days, right? Is it, what was hard about that? What was, you know, was it scary? Was it like exciting? What's it like? I think in, you know,

In our experience, I don't think it was scary at all. I it was great. I think it was very exciting. I remember one of those nights in those first days or so, you know, I laying in bed, we were trying to go to sleep. then, you know, I told Brittney, said...

We've got a we've got a child living in our living room. have a son we have who's sleeping in there basically at that time, you know, because like I said, from from the first moment that we got the call, it was OK, we're going to adopt him. And so there was never a question about that. It was always that's the goal. Yeah. And I remember just kind of being in awe saying, you know, about how that comes about, you know, and it's it's one of the only things that it's one of those things that

is divine. know what mean? God's really the only one that could flip the switch to make that sort of thing happen, especially for us in the position that we were. And it wasn't just us either, you know, it was him, know, he finally, he clicked and he's like, you know, I've got a family and I've got a mom and a dad and I've got this stable life and

Matt Darrah (18:43.134)

You know, I don't have to worry anymore. You could really tell that that he just loved that part of it. Yeah, you know he could he loved that. Um, I thought it was one of the first things it was funny because he called me grandpa And Brittney likes to joke around with me and she says grandpa still It was one of the first things that he said and and I think the first day or two he called Brittney mom And it was just the greatest thing and then just a few days later, you know, he called

me dad after I was grandpa. It's an age difference here. But you know, again, like I said, I just remember laying in bed that one of those nights just thinking, we have a kid, like we have a boy living with us that we're taking care of and we're going to adopt him and it's going to be great. And just in awe about that and how it happened and how the pieces fall together to make it work. So what?

What support mechanisms were there for you guys? Well, at the time, support mechanisms were really just the family. know, Brittney's family has been very supportive of us through many chapters of our lives together. You know, my family was very supportive as well. My parents at the time lived in Phoenix.

And they were very supportive of course, you know, they lived in Phoenix. Yeah, can't do a whole lot. But here locally, you know, Brittney's family was very supportive of us. The CPS worker that we had, she was very, very supportive for us, too. And then at that point, it was a changing point between my family and my sister's family. So we're half siblings. They we share the same father, but we have different moms. Yeah. And so that was also a change in dynamic of my

family too, you know, in that moment, because like I said, that we'd been estranged for seven, almost seven years at that time. Yeah. And now that we're adopting the boy, you know, they decided to come back and, know, they're, you know, they want to be a part of it. They want to stay a part of his life. And they were very respectful about it. And they said, you know, we've had some issues and we, you know, make sure that you that you're OK with us being here because we'd like to be here. And, know, without a doubt, is. I guess obviously it's totally fine. You know, like we want.

Matt Darrah (21:03.488)

him to have as much family as he can, you know, because when you're in that position as, you know, a child that's had his parents' rights taken away and he doesn't fully understand it, and in a lot of ways he does, he's a very smart boy, and a lot of these children are really smart and they do that because of the traumatic experiences they get put through, I think. I've seen it, I feel like I've seen it a lot with these children, so the boy is just a spectacle for that, he's very intelligent.

and he needs that support system and he...

You know, he can articulate that, you know, his family was changed and all these sorts of things. But, you know, he's got a family now that loves him and takes care of him and all the rest of his family, because we don't want him to have that feeling later on that, you know, we just took him from them. And, you know, that's not something I don't think anybody wants to live with, even if you're not an adopted child. You know, there's biological children that have that same types of feeling with parents that split up, you know, things like that. So I never wanted that to be an

I absolutely I said to support, you know be here for support and they they've all been very supportive ever since so So you had you had family that was supportive was there was there other people other? Groups was there other things that were support mechanisms or things that you kind of wish you'd had at that time We were blind going into every business. We had no idea how any this worked. We never even dealt with you know

Lawyers or police cases or judges or any of sort of stuff. So it was all very new to us. So at the time Being naive as we were we had no support really from a lot of things from outside of our family, right? You know organizations like yours we didn't know about we didn't know about a lot of the other resources that places have for that, know, because when you get the call you do basically say yes, and then the CPS workers like here you go is what you got to do or kind of come to your house and psychoanalyze your brain make sure you're okay and all that sort

Matt Darrah (23:04.192)

And they're more focused on all of that more than they are. Okay, what do you need? Yeah

And luckily for us, know, we're you know, we had just kind of gone out. We got him some stuff. We made him a place. We took a lot of his belongings with him. But we just just tried to make it as much of a home as possible for him and center that home feeling for him and sort of the rest of the family. But as far as outside goes, yeah, we had no idea that places even existed. Yeah, we had just by happenstance run into the adoption agency. It wasn't somebody we looked up or even had that

One of the ladies that worked for the adoption agency lived right across the street from his from his grandmother and That's kind of an interesting story because I got him a little drone one of the few days It was just a little little drone that we were flying around and ended up in a tree So we went over there to see if we could and I told him what we got a knock on the door Let's get it out sir that lady ended up working for the adoption agency that we went with at the time So it's not like we just went out and found one or research or asked anybody and we just said really you work

adoption agency, well you're hired let's get it done. You know, because we had no other resources. So yeah at that time in the beginning it was you know and and we didn't really think about it. We actually treated it like well you know if you go to the hospital and you have a baby and you bring it home what are your

You know what support systems do you have there? Well, you've got your family you and yeah, whatever you provide You know, there's not a lot of extra I mean, obviously there are things right but I mean when you're in put in that position It's like okay. Yeah, baby take it home. Take care of it. Let's do it Yeah, I mean so we didn't even really think to start looking for organizations to help us because we just said we have this boy We got to take care of him. Mm-hmm. That's that you know, So what was what what?

Matt Darrah (24:57.528)

What do you think, thinking back on this particular situation, what do you think was the hardest part of that whole set of circumstances? Determination of parents' rights. It was kinship, and it's my sister going through that. And me personally, I think about it. And you got two very polarized feelings about it.

On one side, you've got this feeling, you know, this is somebody who is having their parental rights completely stripped by the state. Somebody who's made some bad decisions. They're in a place where they're going to be for a while. You got a boy who's going to lose his his biological mother basically for forever and father.

On the other side of that, and you know, she's my sister, you know, like that's a big thing. On the other side of that, when you sit through these court hearings and you hear about all the things that happen, you just get filled with disgust. And you're just like, how can anybody let that happen? How can anybody do that to a child? you just get, yes, you get full of rage and disgust and it just makes you sick to your stomach and you just think.

How how how could this have happened like what in? In what world would you have allowed something like that? Why would how could you have done that? Yeah, and you read about stuff that happens all the time But then when it happens and and it's you know that close, you know, it's like my half sister my sister. Yeah It's it's rough and like I said, that's why I said it's it's too

polarizing feelings because you can't, there's no way to justify one or the other. You're basically like a magnet. You've got both of these feelings at the exact same time.

Matt Darrah (26:57.7)

And it makes it really hard and it doesn't just make it hard in that moment. You gotta think about it. mean, we still have years to come of whatever may happen with this dynamic. So it's not even just in that moment, it goes on for years and we still, even after that, we've had some other things come up.

that made us have to make these same type of choices again in these decisions and sit through the same types of cases and listen to the judges and the lawyers and all that sort of stuff when they terminate rights and all that. So like I said, that's how I get it. And that was the hardest part was going through that and just hearing about everything that happened with the case and knowing that it was my sister.

So, that is just, yeah, you have to hold, you're talking about these complex emotions, right? Because on the one hand, you're like, you know, a lot of people wanna talk about how beautiful adoption is. And there are aspects of it that are absolutely beautiful, but there's also heartbreak, right? And so you have to kind of hold,

these like I like your your example of them of the magnet like you you've got to hold these two very different emotions because you you know you're like okay I'm not gonna let that happen right but it's also that's his mom his biological mom and so like you know it is it's that is a very complex set of emotions to to try to to try to to try to

work through and so. through the process you guys ended up getting foster licensed, right? Yes we did actually. It took us a lot longer than we had originally anticipated. Most of that came from the agencies. think it was really it was kind of a.

Matt Darrah (29:05.246)

I don't want to call it misinformation with it, but you know, we'd say, okay, well, you've got to do this, this and this. We'd be like, okay, we'll get this, this and this done. Well, then after that, they'd come back and say, okay, well, you missed these things.

And then, you know, we did that like this whole leapfrog deal with all of these trainings or these things that we had to keep up with paperwork and all the filings that have to happen and all the interviews that you have to do. Because there's quite a few of all of that. And so, yeah, eventually we did get we did get it was almost. It was almost a year later.

Yeah, and during all that, of course, like I said, we had to move into a house. Yeah, we had to get all set up in house. We had to the house up to code. We had to go back through the home studies again. Then we had to do all the trainings. We had to do all of it. And it was it was.

It was not easy to do all of it. But we did it and we tried to do it as fast as we could. And the timeline ended up being about a year. I think we adopted it in October of 24. So it was almost, I guess it would have been almost two years because we had gone through 23 and then the end of 20.

Four. Four. had adopted him in October of 24. So yeah, I guess it was two years now I'm thinking about it. My brain is... So it's a whole... And then once you... So then once you... The difference between the kinship side versus the foster side, right? The paperwork that you have to do that you didn't have to do, this and that, and oh my...

Matt Darrah (30:44.926)

Gosh, the biggest one is the trainings because you go into kinship. Interestingly enough, you don't have to take any trainings. Yeah.

I think the only requirements we had was that had to have a fire extinguisher during the home study. They checked for fire extinguisher, smoke detector, carbon monoxide detector, like physically in the home, which was in our RV. Of then they're making sure there's food in the fridge and stuff like that. basic Right, basic things. And then the only other thing I think we had to do is get CPR certified. When we switched and we made that turn from going kinship into fostering, that's when they lay on all the trainings and then they say, oh, hey, by the way,

the state's gonna send somebody out, we don't know when, somebody's gonna show up from the state and they're gonna wanna poke and prod at everything. And then at that time, then you've got all this stuff with medication logs and child status reports. Double locks and meds and all that. And see, it's a weird dynamic because in kinship, that stuff is really not there. Yeah, it's not. so you have to do that. And I think, to be fair,

It does make sense for that because when you do a kinship it does it's like a last minute thing You're like, okay this child has to be placed with somebody we want to put them with family But it needs to be quick and you know don't have a lot of people that can just go through and be like in a day you say I've got everything done Yeah, so the kinship it does make sense on that the fostering deal when you move into that I understand the reason for all the rules and all the things I think some of it's a little extreme in my personal opinion. It's a little little interesting for some of that stuff. But again

We did it. You you just got to play by their rules and do what you got to do. Yeah. And that's.

Matt Darrah (32:25.394)

And then it's really it. So yeah, it was it was very interesting movie making that transition from kinship to fostering. Yeah, you're like, wait a minute. She's like, she's got a skinned elbow. my God. There's a form, you know, it's like he had a fever last night. He's teething. But he had a fever. So I got to fill out a form like, my God. Yeah. I think the one that gets me is when you call the call the hotline.

It's like the sexual trauma type of hotline. You're like, no, no, this is not that extreme. This is like, he's got a communicable disease, which is.

commom cold. You know, and then you're like, kind of and I had to confirm with them when I called and see, am I calling the right number? That's like it wants me to do this stuff for like some sort of like terrible, terrible thing that he's got. It's like, no, he's got the flu. And they're like, well, you have to report it. Yeah, right. Communicable disease. But you have to go through this one and they do. So it's like, OK, I'll sit here. And then the prompts are just like the worst thing imaginable. And I'm like, no, I'm not reporting into this terrible stuff like he has the flu.

And then you get on the phone, you're like, he's got the flu. But you gotta do what you gotta do. Yeah, yeah. So what thing do you think surprised you the most about the whole getting licensed process?

Really, think it was, again, going back to some of the trainings that we had to do. That's the part that I didn't anticipate. Running an IT company, I anticipate a lot of things and my mind goes through a lot of different iterations of scenarios. So I kind of did the same thing with the adoption thing, but I severely...

Matt Darrah (34:12.674)

Undershot how much training that we'd have to do and and how often it was. Yeah and not only that but the content of the trainings that we had to to go through and I couldn't help but to think you know if the people that This happened to where children get removed like i'm talking about in the most extreme where parent-parent like in this in his case Parental rights are terminated and you know, there's people spending time in prison that sort of deal I can't help but to ask myself like

why don't they make these people take some of these trainings? To me, that was the part that I really was thinking about. thought, know, like if...

if they offered a lot of these trainings or these deals for for people or made it mandatory, you know, like, for instance, you know, you go to to to a hospital, you have a kid and maybe you've got a little bit of a record or something. Maybe it should be given you the option. Hey, would you like to take some of these trainings? I don't know if that would really help or not. I'm just kind of, you know, going off on a tangent there.

my brain tells me, you know, if some of these folks had, you know, even been set through some of these trainings, there's a good chance that they would probably limit some of the things that would happen. Or if they were even held to some of the standard, and I'm not trying to say that everybody should, but I just, couldn't help but to think that going through all these trainings, you know, and...

Anyway, we go through the trainings that we did it all and got it done. Obviously we did the adoption, was very interesting. And we did have the lady from the state show up randomly. That was very interesting when that happened. you know, we obviously we had everything in order when she did show up, but they're not kidding when they say that those guys will show up when they want to. When they want to. Yeah, and that happens. So.

Matt Darrah (36:02.97)

You guys had not finalized the adoption on him before you got the call again, is that right? We had, actually, we had. So we finished up his adoption October of 24, and we had suspected that my sister was pregnant again. Interestingly enough, interestingly enough.

The caseworker had called us at the time, caseworker for bringing, she called us and she said, hey, do you know if your sister's pregnant again? I said, well, I don't know. I don't even know what we do. And she said, well, I this crazy dream that she was pregnant. She's going to have a kid. wow. I thought, well, that's weird. Well, almost the exact same time that she was saying that.

our son, had said, he had said, hey mom, I want a baby sister. We're like, okay, well, let's see what we can do. Let's get settled in and we'll see what we can do. And this was back in...

I don't know, February or March of that year. And we had adopted him in October. So he had already talked about this several months before. And tracking down people in the prison system is really not that hard. You can just do a search in the Texas inmate deal and find out who they are, where they're at, when they're going to get released. A little bit harder to find them when they're in county jails. Yeah.

And my sister had bopped around and done some things and ended up in jail in a halfway house and this that the other at some point during all that in February or March she actually did get pregnant. We had no idea. Yeah. So when we had his adoption, we asked our lawyer, which the adoption attorney that we actually use was.

Matt Darrah (37:54.696)

Bill Hanker and he's a great guy. Yeah him And so we start asking him. Hey, how would we find out if she's pregnant again? And he said well, I got I'd have to check and we'd have to pull some strings and figure out You know what's going on? Well, then that was in October. So In November We found out that she was pregnant and she was gonna give birth She original due date was November 11th

Which means that the conception date was in February, which was ironically the same time when the caseworker randomly called us and Elijah started saying he wanted a baby sister. So it's very interesting. I just like to put that in there because again, a lot of this stuff I think is divine. That's work. Great. And and a little boy said he wanted a baby sister and.

It happened. And so anyway, she was due on the on the 11th and we had just found out about a week before that that she was pregnant. we didn't have space situated in the house for that sort of deal. But we said. We're going to make this happen, we got to take it because she was in Randall County at the time. And you, you know.

Can't have a baby in jail with you. It's frowned upon. Hid it under the pillow. Well, interesting you say that actually, according to the lawyer, Randall County didn't even know that she was pregnant. She claimed that she was fat and I guess she refused certain things. So she would just say, I'm fat. But then she would also ask for more rations and stuff in the jail. She'd ask for more food and they wouldn't give it to her. then I guess one day.

a week before she was supposed to give due or have the baby, then she finally coughed it up and said, well, I'm not fat, I'm actually pregnant. And at that time, the jail scrambled to get her on because she didn't have any of the prenatals or anything. so everything was last minute. And so as soon as we found out about that, you know,

Matt Darrah (39:57.298)

We had no space, we didn't anticipate. We had two weeks, by the time it was all said and we had two weeks to basically renovate one of the rooms in the house to paint it, pull up some of the carpet, finish it. It was just a room that we had extra that we hadn't really paid any attention to. We were never in there. It was one of those things where we had already worked on the rest of the house to get it, just normal remount paint, pull up carpet, that sort of stuff. That room we didn't mess with.

And so scrambling last minute, we had to get in there, paint it, pull up the floor, do all that sort of stuff, get it ready for the baby. it was it was very interesting during that deal. You we got a call from a CPS worker and he said, hey, when we finally did get the call, he said, your sister gave birth.

A day ago, it was was the like we she she was born on the 17th of November. We got the call on like the 19th. And then he said, we're going to, know, we're going to do all the paperwork and I'll bring the baby by and.

We'll do that. Wow. It was very quick. Yeah. When I talked to him to that day, we were originally because me and my wife, you know, we had talked about having like I explained before biological children and it wasn't really going work out. So we never thought that we would have an infant, let alone a newborn ever. Even in the adoption fostering system, we never really considered it. Yeah. So we got that call. We asked him, I was like, hey, can we can we pick the baby up from the hospital?

And it ended up being that we couldn't do that. He had to do some extra paperwork and it took a little bit later. So he ended up bringing her by the house. We came by the house. He had this stack of paperwork. had to take care of it. I think we spent about an hour, hour and a half or something like that doing paperwork, signing everything and telling us all the stuff. And then basically he just left. And figured out. Yeah, we got dropped off with the baby, a little pack of the bottles that she got from the hospital.

Matt Darrah (42:03.488)

He was nice enough to give us a carrier. So we had a carrier.

And that was it. Yeah, we had one extra onesie for her that came from Northwest So she had to the one she was wearing and the one that he put in the bag Wow So that was basically what we got dropped off with us that night. Yeah with the baby and she was two days old. Mm-hmm Luckily enough in that two weeks. We rallied up support from the family and they had given us You know, we had gotten clothes and diapers and all this sort of stuff I was kind of left to my own to remodel the room

Yeah, everybody kind of bailed on me except my sister-in-law. She's one who came and helped but anyway, you know, it was It wasn't like, know the traditional, you know deal where you've got all this time to get ready and you a baby shower and do things and you got time to prepare it as it's like, okay, you got two weeks and there's a lot of people in the foster system that don't even get to absolutely get like an hour or less. Yeah, you know what I mean? They just kind of show up and then they have a child. Here you go. Yeah, there's a baby. Here's here's some formula. Yeah, and then you get a

go to Walmart at like midnight. Yeah. I, we did a placement package one time. She was in Pampa. No, no, it wasn't Pampa. Where was she? She was 45 minutes from a Walmart, put it that way. And the kiddo came with a can of formula and it was empty.

That's rough. And she's 45 minutes one way from a Walmart. Thankfully, we had gotten the referral and we showed up shortly after and had some formula in there. yeah, she asked. So in this case, interestingly enough.

Matt Darrah (43:44.542)

A while before we had actually met you guys at the business connections You guys had actually put a placement package with us, and I don't know if it was The CPS worker who put it into you guys or who it was I'm not sure I would have been the it would have been your case worker with that case worker with upbringing. Okay, so yeah, yeah, she had put it in and

You know, was that package was very helpful for us to get started with her too, because we had clothes, we had some clothes. I won't say we had a whole bunch, but we had clothes. We had some stuff to get us by. But the placement package we got from you guys was actually really helpful. We'd never heard about you before that point.

And it really did help us along because I think you guys put some Pampers and stuff in there for small babies. You put a toy or two or something, some books, the clothes. You you guys put some of the some of the basic necessities in there for I think you guys tailor it for the age of the child. Just whatever the family needs. Whatever the family needs. they ask for. Yeah. So we didn't actually put it in. think our caseworker, like you said, had put it in.

And so it was was a blessing to have that along with everything else because I think we also had some formula and stuff in there too. And that was very helpful because this baby would drink three ounces two days old like every two or three hours. He would drink a whole three ounces and so we ran out of what they gave us from the hospital pretty quick. And anyway, that was that was just as powerful, if not more powerful as when we got

Our first placement originally the the boy that came to live with us and we adopted him. It was very Very powerful not only that we were given the opportunity to you know foster and adopt and all that sort of stuff because at that time we weren't even sure if we were gonna adopt her that one that case was different because you know Technically she wasn't subjected to any type of abuse like her brother was

Matt Darrah (45:49.486)

It was just that my sister was in Randall County and she was pregnant. She gave the baby. Well, my sister was supposed to get out in December. So like a month. Well, actually, OK, so it was longer than that. But the judge said, well, we're going to commute your sentence. We're going to get you out in December. And the caseworker on that side had said, well, I got to go set up a family plan and we got to try to do all this stuff. And.

Less than 10 days after she got out, she went and stole a car, shot up some drugs, ended up right back in Randall County. And that was the point when we said, OK, we're going to pursue adoption.

And so, you know, because we were we were, you know, as reluctant as you get a small baby and you want to think, hey, you know, I'm going to take care of this baby. We're going to adopt it. Well, it's not always the case. Yeah, it's hard, you know, not to get attached to so many children. I imagine as they come through foster care, I can only imagine that we have not had that experience because we've only had the two and adopted the two. But, you know, at the time, we weren't sure what was going to happen. So we were just stewards of the basic of the baby at the time. And then when she went back to Randall County, we made her

We're like we're gonna adopt. Yeah, like my sister needs to get help and she needs needs all those sorts of things We don't need to throw a baby into the mix with her and us being family We always said that you know, she would be able to have a relationship with them whenever she gets Much better. Yeah about that sort of stuff. Yeah, I mean it was it was a very powerful impact anyway with us taking on a newborn it was a very new experience for us and something that You know we we wouldn't

We wouldn't have unless, again, God hadn't put it in there for us to do that and be in that situation and then at the same time answer the prayers of a little boy that he wanted a baby sister. anyway. So, I mean, I know you kind of talked about some of the stuff, but what stands out to you, if you can remember, in the placement package, what do you think?

Matt Darrah (47:55.934)

Or has Brittney said this was or something like that? What do y'all think? You had the book which I think you have on your shelf there. Yep. From Robyn Gobble. Gobble. My pronounce. Robyn Gobbel. So sorry. Robyn Gobbel. The book about big baffling behaviors. Yeah. That book actually stood out to me being in there. I think we've read through through part of it. I don't think we finished it. We very busy with a lot of stuff. So we get a lot of time to do reading. But I think that's the one thing that stood out to me in the place of Package.

that and the giant duffle bag that you give. It's like you put a couple of kids in there. Yes, yes you could. So that duffle bag was in there. Unfortunately we didn't have space to store it all the time, the duffle bag. But anyway, so yeah, no that book I think was the one thing that stood out to me in the Places Package and I think there was formula in there so that was definitely a moment to where hey, you that saves us 40 bucks. Yeah, because that formula is there is and because none of them are on just

like basic normal formula right it's all they're all on like the most expensive formula that there is and so you're like yeah and we tried to change the formula once that's a bad and it was the worst decision we ever made we're like well we could save a few bucks with the other one but it's not good for the baby so we switched back yeah expensive right no doubt no doubt so so so you hadn't heard about us before then and then and then hadn't

I don't think heard anything from us.

after that right after the placement package actually we we didn't you guys kind of came in on again the referral of the upbringing worker and and and did your thing you dropped it off he gave us some information and then yeah that was kind of it i think i think in my perspective would be one of those things where you you've left all of your information with us it would be up you know it wouldn't be up to us to to reach back out to you if we needed anything further yeah and and i think that's great because you don't want to be too pushy on families whenever

Matt Darrah (49:56.67)

they take in those children. can be very difficult. think, you know, I'm not sure, but you know.

On the outside looking in you might want to think hey, you know you want to be calling these people Well, no, don't call me. I've got a baby. I've got a figure out I've got a lot of things and I think it's much better to do that just kind of have the placement package and put it there and and Just make it very open and leave it with the family and say hey if you need anything else make that clear to say hey You know and and I think that was clear especially to our upbringing worker who really helped us through that

that chapter of taking in the baby and getting that ready to go. So then we ran into each other at the Business Connection. can't remember, I don't know if Brittney came up to me. I don't know, I was up there selling raffle tickets and then.

And then I think Brittney comes up and just starts talking to me. She's like, my gosh, that's placement package Yes. I think she immediately identified you guys being the ones who gave us the placement package due to all your, you know, the logo and everything else that you had with us in the placement package. So she works for the ER. That was just a few booths down from you. I think that's walking around and she happened to see you over there. Yeah. Yeah. So she called me and I think I brought them Chick-fil-A or something. And that's how I ended up up there.

Yeah, they think you're right. Yeah, and so then so then we're like talking and hanging out and everything and I'm like and then Brittney has just become I mean she edits these podcasts and she's just yeah, I was telling her today like how like Just how much easier my life is with with her helping and you know, one of these days We're gonna we're gonna get her full time That's on the board somewhere but so so so

Matt Darrah (51:46.206)

Look back, this journey, what stands out kind of most as you interact with people, you talk to people all the time, what stands out to you about this journey? Like, what do you think is the biggest thing? I know, that's a very clear question. What do you...

What do you think is, if you were talking to somebody, you were talking about foster care and adoption, what do you tell them?

to be honest, the first thing that I usually tell people, because I do this or this stuff all the time and.

One of the ways it comes up is we would just be talking to stranger just about anywhere. And we start talking about it. they start talking about the kids or something. I oh, yeah, it's kind of a deal. And somehow we end up on the topic of us fostering and adopting them for whatever reason. And the first answer I get once I utter those words to a lot of people, they say, oh, I could never I could not do that. It's not for me. I wish I could do something like that. I'd love to.

but I can't. And for me, it's...

Matt Darrah (53:09.498)

It's a. The whole journey is a challenge. It's a challenge and it tests you mentally and physically and financially. It tests you in a lot of ways that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise figured out. Yeah, when you do the whole even just kinship and then fostering and adopting when you go through that. And and so.

I can't really identify one thing that would be hard. think the whole journey itself as a whole is hard. And I think that each, you know, each chapter of it can be difficult in that moment. But again, you know, when I'm talking to it, talking about it to people on the outside, know, one of the things that pops in my head is, know, there isn't a world, like I said, when we first started this interview.

here when we started sitting down talking about this, there isn't a world where I would say no. And it doesn't matter the circumstances, where we're at, what we're doing. And maybe it's just certain people are prepared for this type of deal or some people aren't. Maybe they choose not to, I don't know. But for me, I think the whole journey itself is kind of challenging and testing. But I just...

I would never say no. I guess I can't answer your question as well as you might want me to. I take it just like anything else. It's kind of like living life in general can be difficult. But we're doing it every day. And in that same way, fostering to me is just like that.

just life every day wouldn't be any different. think if people, know, because because if you got biological children, you have to take care of sure. I mean, you know, it's a lot of the same and maybe as fostering and adoptive parents, we have got a few other stressors put on us. But again, in our mindset. It's just what we have to do. Yeah, you know, mean.

Matt Darrah (55:19.61)

So that's kind of my take. Sorry if I didn't answer that question. No, I think it's fine. Yeah, I mean, like you say, mean, somebody's got to do it. There's nowhere near enough foster and adoptive families out there. And it is. It'll wreck you. I mean, it's hard. mean, those kids come and you can't help but love them. And then you watch them go back into a terrible environment. And you're like...

man, it wrecks your world, it breaks your heart. And then you get up and you...

You do it again. If we had to encounter that, think that would be probably one of the hardest things that I would have to do if we did take in a foster, which which we have talked about doing before. Right now, our our our house situation doesn't really accommodate for that. But we've talked about that before. We've talked about that in the past before. Before we had the baby, when we just had Elijah, we said, you know, we'd like to foster, you know, like normal, not, you know, my sister's kids. But we've we've talked about doing that. And

That would be one of the hardest things, I think, if we had to take in something, you know, a child from a bad environment, and then we got to keep them for a while and help them and watch them flourish in an environment that's stable and then, you know, you know that when the day comes that they have to go back to that environment and just knowing that I think would be very...

devastating. Yeah, I think to know that. So if we were put in that position where our situation was more like that, then yeah, that would that would probably be when it luckily in our situation, we have not had to had to do that. You know, we actually just finalized the adoption for the baby three weeks ago this month, the beginning of this month. You know, and and.

Matt Darrah (57:16.164)

Her case was definitely less dramatic and less abusive and everything as it lies just because of the situation that was there. But even then, still at end of the day, you know. My sister is in a in one place and the baby's here and we've adopted her as our own. And again, you know, the future dynamic is still the future. We don't know how that looks or how it's going to play out.

Yeah, that's what we have. Yeah. So if if you're talking to yourself back in 2022 as as you're being told like, you know, there's this boy and and and he might come live with you. What do you what would you?

What would you tell yourself? What have you learned or you know now that you wish you'd have known? Then what would you say to yourself, do you think?

Matt Darrah (58:19.038)

Would I would probably explain to myself that it's gonna be okay. Yeah, I would explain to myself, you know that that We're not alone in this, you know, which is a big one. Yeah You know, of course you got support from your family and stuff But the rest of our family had never been in the situation. I'm taking that in we've never been exposed even to the whole situation. Yeah So the the only advice I could really give myself is just to say

It's going to be OK. You're not alone. There's other people out there. There's there's resources. There's there's a pathway. You know, you're not the first. You're not going to be the last. And I think that's what I would tell myself, just reassurance that it's going to be OK. And and again, you know, I think our faith is really big in our family, too.

And it's hard to have some of that faith sometimes, especially when you go through these court cases and you listen to this stuff and you're like, you know, and you just can't, you can't think like that. You can't have that sort of attitude towards it. You just have to keep your faith up. And that's what's kind of helped us along, too, is keeping that up with.

Everything else going on knowing that it's okay knowing that we're not alone knowing that we're not the first We're not gonna be the last of course and keeping our faith about us to just trust that It's gonna be okay. Yeah. Yeah Love that So what are some simple ways talking to the community that hasn't? Walked this foster care road doesn't know what it is. What are some ways?

that you've seen that people could show up and do something.

Matt Darrah (01:00:08.494)

you know, I think that,

Matt Darrah (01:00:21.694)

I think there's a lot of different ways that people could show up and do things. think that people can offer to provide respite care for foster families. You don't have to be a foster care. You don't have to be an adoption or doing any of stuff to be able to.

help families that do that sort of thing. You know, if there's families out there that want to help, think respite care is a really good one. You can do that. You don't have to donate money. You don't have to donate things. You know, there's a lot of people that are in a position where they may not be able to donate that extra money, but you might have an extra space in your house to watch a kid for a couple of hours, you know, or something like that.

You know, it's, you know, there's, obviously there's other ways to do that, but I think the respite care thing is very helpful for people. think that as a whole, I do think that people should have more of a...

I think there should be more community support for children who have been adopted and maybe have moved out of their adoptive parents house. Because those kids later in life, you know, I've noticed being in forums, Brittney's in a lot of a lot of foster care, adoptive forums, and she's been seeing she sees these stories all the time about these adoptive kids who.

You know, they go through and they've maybe they've been with these with these folks for years and they were adopted since they were a baby. And then they get out, they graduate high school and they're on their own. They're in college. And now suddenly they're starting to have all these dark, bitter feelings about a lot of stuff. And I think that that, you know, we all have to reassure these children that they're they're not left behind. They're not unwanted. They're not uncared for. The reason that they were adopted is because they were loved. They were cared for.

Matt Darrah (01:02:14.512)

And so I think that's the second thing. I think that there should be more resources for some of these adults now that were in adoptive care. They look back on a lot of things that happened to them and they've got lot of resentment towards one person or another or a situation. I think that it...

It causes it causes them some grief. Just based on what I read and what Brittney tells me about some of these forms that I've seen before, too. And a lot of these people that come out and they talk about it. And I think it's horrible that they that, know, that something happened to make them feel like that. Yeah. And so I think a lot of that, you know, can be helpful. But again, yeah, as far as the media, think respite care for for these families is is very helpful because, you know, getting ready for

For instance, with us, when an upbringing comes by or somebody else comes by, we know that they're going to come by.

Take some time maybe to get everything in order and make sure hey do we leave anything out? there something that doesn't need to be you know? got to kind of go through your house and make sure that it's all Put up not not saying that you do that normally, but you got to go through it Just like somebody else wouldn't make sure you know and there's the times where you know they could help and sometimes some of these foster children as You well know you know they can be they come from horrible places, and they can have some really big

Behaviors yeah baffling baffling, but exactly Yeah, and you know just some time away or maybe even time away from the adoptive parents or foster parents could help them So I really think that's a big one that people can do and they don't have to donate money or anything else just a Saturday afternoon Yeah, so yeah, it's huge Absolutely huge it is for sure man

Matt Darrah (01:04:06.724)

So guys, Ash, thank you for coming on. Guys, in case you aren't familiar, we do the podcast. We also do placement packages for kiddos coming into care in the 26 counties of the Panhandle.

Last year was our biggest year, we did 161, which is absolutely mind boggling, more than double what we did the year before, but there's about 600 kids that come into care in the 26 counties in a given year. And so we've got a long ways to go to get to where every kid gets a placement package. And so we need your help to get there.

There's a bunch of different ways to get involved in that work. Setting up a monthly donation, $100 a month buys us.

all the clothes we need for one placement package. $50 buys us a case of diapers and $10 a month buys us one outfit a month. That's huge. Volunteering, delivering, guys, I don't know if you guys know this, but the Panhandle of Texas is the size of West Virginia. Did you know that? 26 counties of the Panhandle is the size of a state, the state of West Virginia, right? And we're covering that. We're delivering.

all over the place. Sometimes we're driving an hour, hour and a half, two hours, one way to deliver a placement package. So it takes a bunch of resources to be able to deliver these placement packages.

Matt Darrah (01:05:42.146)

Maybe your small group at church, maybe your business can host a Moses Closet Drive. We have three Moses closets where we can, where we store a whole bunch of stuff and everything we give out to our families is new. And so, you know, the least things we have to buy, the...

the more money that we have to spend on things that we have to buy. So guys, you're interested, go to our website, panhandleorphan.org. If you wanna donate, panhandleorphan.org/donation. Set up a monthly gift right there. Shoot us an email, panhandleorphan.gmail.com if you're interested in volunteering. And so again, Ash, thanks for coming. So stinking much. I think you guys' story

is just really, really great. And again, I appreciate you guys, your help with all the network computer things that I've got going on, and then Brittney's help has just been really, really great. thanks again, guys. Tune in next week. We're gonna have somebody on that'll be really great. And so check us out. And don't forget, like, comment, subscribe, share. We want this message to get out.

to all over and so we need your help to do that as well. Thanks guys and have a great week.