Episode 200: The Playing Field Was Never Even | Karen Losi | Social Worker, Foster Parent, Community Advocate
What if the American Dream wasn’t broken - just never built for everyone? Karen Losi is a social worker, foster parent, and fierce community advocate who’s spent years on the front lines of public service. In this episode, she joins Kara to talk about what really shapes opportunity, how systems fail families, and why small changes can lead to huge impact. They discuss trauma-informed care, foster parenting, leadership in social work, and how to build communities that actually work for everyone. Whether you’re working in education, dreaming of a purpose-driven career, or just trying to make a difference where you are, Karen’s story is a powerful reminder that empathy is action - and action is what changes lives.
“As a society we should be lifting families up & providing them scaffolding when they are in extreme need. It’s the purpose & true measurement of a strong & successful society.”
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Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Growing up in Boston with purpose
02:30 From retail career to social work pivot
05:00 Why the playing field was never level
07:30 What foster care really looks like
10:00 The myth of the “bad parent”
13:00 Trauma, resilience, and the power of one adult
15:30 The hidden cost of poverty
17:30 Why universal programs matter
20:00 The ripple effect of caring teachers
23:00 Advice for anyone thinking of fostering
25:00 What leadership looks like in hard systems
27:30 Defining success in service
29:00 What she’s building now and why
If we just realize that it's not an even playing field, like you said, and help to implement change of things that can happen, that can make a huge positive impact on a lot of people's lives, we see that it actually doesn't cost
us that much. That's Karen Losi and this is The Powerful Ladies podcast.
Hey guys, I'm Kara Duffy, a business coach and entrepreneur on a mission to help you live your most extraordinary life. By showing you anything is possible, people who have mastered freedom, ease, and success, who are living their best and most ridiculous lives. And who are making an impact are often people you've never heard of until now.
Democracies and great societies work because citizens participate. As John F. Kennedy said, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. Today's guest, Karen Loey, understands the assignment. She's pivoted from a successful career in retail to looking to where she can best be of service to her community.
First as a foster parent and soon with her master's degree in social work. In this episode, we discuss her choice to pivot the realities of kids and families in need and why we need more people to share their gifts, to elevate and create the caring connected communities we all crave.
Welcome to the Power Ladies podcast. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. I am really excited to have you today because I wanna talk about the awesome stuff that you do and that you're, back in school grinding for. I wanna talk about a city that we both love called Boston.
Yes.
And I just wanna talk about what it means to be powerful as a wife and a mom, and a figuring life out and making pivots.
So before I get too excited and carried away, let's tell everyone who's listening, who you are, where you are, and what you're up to.
Sure. My name is Karen Losi and I am here in Boston, Massachusetts. Best city in the world. I'll challenge anyone on that. And I am, what am I up to? I am on the end, the tail end of a major transformation of my life.
I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. And it's pretty great.
Let's dive right into that. So part of what I got so excited about when I had the pleasure of meeting you when I was back in Boston, and I would first wanna preface that you were introduced to me as my friend Karen, who loves the podcast well.
Yes, I've listened to every single episode including the one that posted this morning. But how could I not? When you started episode number one with my most favorite powerful lady, Elizabeth McGarry. So I was Yes. From the beginning.
And I have to give her credit because that most people hate their first episode.
I do not Like we did an episode, I looked at my sister and I went, holy shit, this is gonna work. Yeah, okay.
She's a good, she's a good person to start with and I'm sure we're gonna get back to her at some point during this conversation.
No, she's so great. So what got me excited about you was that you and your husband have decided to, you went through the foster care system.
It was really emotionally challenging for you guys. You have another son as well, and you have two others. Yes, two others. Forgive me. Sorry. Whichever one son. I wasn't counting. And then. You have decided because of your experience to dedicate yourself into social work, which I just think is so phenomenal in a time when so many people are making choices about how can I like, have more time, more freedom, more money, more whatever the things are that we think we need to be happy, you are making this pivot to say, no, I need to serve more.
Yeah. And that I think is really interesting. So let's go back to the beginning to like catch everyone else up with how did you decide to go back to school and completely change the career trajectory of your life?
Yeah. So I love that you said the term serve more because I really feel like that is the pie in the sky prize.
That's where I wanna go and to be of service in a different way to my family and my community, my city. And people in general. But we can go back about 20 years. I was a retail girl. I started in retail when I was 16. It was the greatest job to have in the early two thousands when retail really was at its height.
I was very successful doing that job. I got promoted really quickly. I loved it. It was all consuming. And it was just really a fun experience. I was lucky enough to work for a company and for a woman in particular who really helped to shape my view of what that work looked like. So it was a competitive world and it was a world where the dollar mattered.
But I also got the opportunity to learn about people and to become. A great leader. We did a lot of learning about our employees and seeing where they were strong and building teams. So I got this glimpse into a world of like how you can connect with people to really get a great result.
The great result for us at the end of the day happened to be, a 30% increase in sales or whatever it was that we were searching for at the time. But it was awesome. But as we all know, with the retail story, over that time, that landscape, it's began to change. And brick and mortar retail began to change quite a bit.
And it lost a little bit of that person to person connection that I loved so much. It became really stressful. I wasn't. I wasn't feeling successful at home, at work, on the hour and a half commute it took me to get from point A to point B. I knew something had to give. I had also gone through that point.
I had already had one child. I had three miscarriages between my two biological children. And that really shook me that maybe that the stress that I was feeling and this place that I was in wasn't the right place for me anymore. So after the birth of my second biological son, we made that, my husband and I made the decision.
It was time for me to step back into stay home for a little while with always the intent of going back to business and going back to retail because I really did love it. And then six years ago, yesterday. Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. And I, I don't know if that we're getting political here, but it shook me in a way that I wasn't quite prepared for.
And I remember waking up the next morning and saying to my husband things like, I'm gonna fly to South Dakota and chain myself to the pipeline and I'm gonna go to Washington and fight for people's rights. And he was like, you're cute. That's not gonna happen. You have these two little kids at home.
I love this passion that you now have and you have all of this background. What do let's figure out something else you can do with it. So I said, fine, I won't get on a plane. And I started to take stock of. What was working for me and what I was really good at and how, and doing research around what that looked like.
What I knew at the time was that I was a really good mom. I'm proud to say that I know that we as women sometimes shy away from saying how good we are at things, but I'm pretty good at it. And then I also am a very privileged person. I had an extra bedroom in my house, so I said what's the best thing that I can do as a stay-at-home mother with an extra bedroom?
And that was to become a foster parent. So like almost all foster parents or anyone really, I think that goes into something like that. I showed up, day one with my notebook and all of my research and I was like, I am ready for this. And was like star student in the classes. And then I was hit with a ton of bricks about the reality of foster care.
We got our first call. Before we were even technically licensed, it came real fast. And they said, we'll, we're gonna get that paperwork through and we have a placement. We need a place for these kiddos. And it happened to be newborn twins. Yeah, we were thrown right into the deep end of foster care.
We've been foster parents for about six years and it has changed my life in a way that I am a more complete person. Having known these kids, I am less of a complete person having seen the system that they need to operate within. And I made the decision as the children started to get older and that clock was ticking a little for me to go back to work.
I knew that I was changed to the point that I could no longer. Go back to a business world. So I decided to go back to school and I'm getting my master's in social work at Simmons University. It's a really great program. I'm finishing up in May. And that time of going back to school and learning more about the systems and the macro pressures that get put on something like the foster care system and other systems that are in our city.
Social work, I'm, I have now learned touches, literally everything has allowed me to, expand my knowledge about, how someone can be effective in this world. And this is how I wanna do it now. And, i've been so fortunate and just so privileged to do this work and to grow alongside some really amazing women.
Some of them in their forties and they're my age, but so many young women that are just so idealistic and it is awesome to be with them and to watch them grow as clinicians and to really be able to see, the future of mental health in the city. And I think it's looking pretty good from where I sit.
So
that's where I am today. I love that. And I cannot wait for May to come for you, so you can just have that sigh of relief. But I'm sure also be like jumping right into something else where you're like, oh shit now.
Yeah, I, yeah, that part I've actually been thinking about, oh, I need to like, get a job again and, do real things.
It won't be just all reading journal articles and writing papers, which. Also love, if I can plug going back to school in your forties. It is awesome. Your brain is so good. And there's just a different kind of investment. I have loved every second of being in school, so
Yeah. I, that's amazing. Something I'd love to dig in with a little bit with you, and it might get a little political, so if anyone listening gets offended by that, then this probably isn't in your podcast in general, but Yeah, sorry.
So I had literally this morning, 8:00 AM I had a client call before a day of podcasting and we were talking about everyone's money stories and how there are so many stories about money is bad or is money good and being rich is bad and being poor is bad, or whatever those things are that we have decided as individuals in a society around money.
And they made this statement of, I don't, it's impossible in America for someone to. Do anything with their life if they haven't been privileged. And I said, okay, I'm gonna challenge that because I think any human born has a lot of power and it's micro choices. And at any moment you can choose to change your life.
It doesn't mean it's easy. Yeah. It doesn't mean anyone's gonna help you. Yeah. And I think like where people get so stuck in this us idea that this is individuals and you can pick yourself up by the bootstraps, it's yeah, you can. And it's not a level playing field. Yeah. What has surprised you most about the inequalities or the lack of access that people truly have?
Who need it.
Yeah. I struggle with this quite a bit. As a privileged white woman who has benefited from generational wealth in the city of Boston, a place that is deeply divided. So both racially and economically poverty is, I think, the biggest challenge of our society. And while we do have a narrative in this country of people being able to, change their life and, pick themselves up by their bootstraps, and that's this like wonderful nar, like great story that we tell as the American dream.
There are so many people that are working that hard and are trying to change their life and are making the best choices. And yet they still can't put food on the table or they can't get their kid to daycare. And I know you're in Southern California, it's very similar to the Northeast in that like the prices to just live basically are almost impossible if you don't have an advanced degree.
I'm not even talking a college degree anymore. It is an, you need an advanced degree and 15 years of experience to, make it here. And what I see with families that I work with both with the Department of Children and Families, and now I'm working at an organization called the Children's Advocacy Center of Suffolk County which is a wonderful organization.
What I see is that when children and families in particular have, are having a traumatic experience, they almost aren't even allowed to feel the trauma. They're not allowed to experience those things because they have to worry about where they're gonna get their next meal. And I think that. The power that we have is to be able to, first of all, talk about it because it's not shameful to have money.
I think. I have some opinions about billionaires, but billionaires, like for most people, capital B, billionaires. Yeah. For most people, if we just realize that it's not an even playing field, like you said, and help to implement change of things that can happen, that can make a huge positive impact on a lot of people's lives, we see that it actually doesn't cost us that much either monetarily or as a society to make those things happen.
My favorite example of that is here in Boston about seven years ago, it was figured out that it cost more money to process the paperwork to give kids free lunch than it did to give every kid free lunch. So what they did was they just stopped doing the paperwork part and like applying for these grants and doing all this stuff.
And for the last seven years they've just get every kid free lunch and breakfast every day, no questions asked. You don't need the weird little card to go up and get it. And what they've seen is an increase in test scores, an increase in graduation rates, and increase in attendance. So those little things that help, even the playing field makes such a huge difference.
And if we want our people or we want our kids and our families to succeed, these are the little tweaks that have to be made and we just have to take better care of each other.
And I think that from a psychological standpoint, because I have a lot of opinions about the education system and how we sort people in a negative way and label them in a negative way, when you no longer have the card that says your family's not good enough. Oh, everyone's getting free lunch. Like it's no longer, it's one less thing to remind you that you might be different. Or less than. And when that goes away, it's like even there's always debate about do uniforms help in schools?
Yes or no? I don't know. Are we taking away another reason for someone to think that they're different than somebody else in a bad way? Everyone. I do think we have to balance celebrating that everyone is unique and special, but that, but if we can get rid of all the bullshit around Yeah.
What kids attach to themselves at such a young age, that is, becomes compounding as we become adults. Like, why not? I love that example. Yeah,
it's awesome. And even during the the pandemic, what they did was that every family got an EBT card, which is like the government snap benefits.
Just in the mail. Here you go, you don't, you're not at school, so go buy your own groceries and we're gonna pay for it. And it was just like you said, like a, just this little tweak that stopped othering people for a deficiency. And I think the more we can celebrate people's uniqueness, the better off we're all gonna be and the more compassion we'll have for each other and the more excitement we'll have to Yeah.
Diversify.
And I think the, so often when the argument is being made that every resource you need to have a great life is in America, we're talking about good days. And you mentioned the trauma and the bad days. And for the simple fact that we don't have standardized. Vacation time or family leave.
If your kid gets sick, if you work an executive job, you just work from home or you take a couple days off, it's not a big deal. If your kid is sick and you are doing a, you're a housekeeper or you are working at a hotel, or you are like whatever the job is where you don't have all those flexibilities.
It is a crisis. Yeah. Because you don't, you the now can't send your kid to school, which means you have to find someone to watch them, which means you're not gonna get paid that day 'cause you're an hourly paid employee. It just keeps, instead of that one impact has a tenfold effect. Yeah.
Instead of it just being like every, everyone else in quotes just stay home.
Yep. Yeah, and we saw that disparity during the pandemic. I was really fortunate to be working at the Department of Children Families in the 2021. I don't even know what year it is anymore. And I became I crowned myself the daycare voucher queen.
I was really good. This is where my business side comes in. I'm really good at paperwork. So I would fill out, for families that came, in our realm fill out their daycare voucher. And the second you hand a young woman escaping from a domestic violence situation, a daycare voucher, her life changes.
And it was so amazing to watch these transformations happen in such a short amount of time. I had one client that went back to school she got her GED, she was able to enroll in like a secondary cosmetology situation and she was, she got housing. All of these things started to snowball because she had daycare.
And I think it was Elizabeth Warren that said, we need to start treating day things like daycare, like infrastructure because it's just as important as a bridge in getting to work. Yes, it is a bridge. It's
the first bridge you have to cross. Like I don't have kids yet, but I know, but when I moved to Germany, I was freaking out about what to do with my dog when I traveled.
Yeah. So imagine moving just ha every day you're like, I have to put food on the table and I need to make sure that human doesn't die, and in fact is thriving. Who can help me? And like I, I'm sure you've watched the help. So just that first episode was crushing to see like, all she needed was daycare.
Yep. That was it. All she needed was daycare. Like daycare
can change people's lives. Yeah, it absolutely can. And it changes the kids' lives too, because there are so many studies that show like, early bonding with other children in a, in a loving and supportive environment is so great. And we, whether we like it or not.
Have a very academically driven society and those kids that get a little taste of that academics sooner do better in the structured school system that we have. If that's something we wanna go away from someday, which I would support great. But that's where we are now. And I think sometimes working within the system and learning to tweak it and change it is the work that we have to do whether we like it or not.
And that's where I'm going.
And with the school lunch example, did all kids get, all kids got the school lunch? Every kid? Did it matter how much your parents earned?
Nope. Your parents earned a million dollars. Your parents are, have nothing or aren't disability. Every kid got the same thing
when the thing living in Europe was very eye-opening for me because I got to live in a, what people call a socialist society.
And it did not feel strange. It actually felt like every human was valued. Because when it's, I got to see what Germany said they care about as a culture. Yeah. Everyone gets a minimum of four weeks vacation because we want you to have time to rejuvenate and be with your family.
Everyone got healthcare. We want everyone to be healthy. Everyone got access to some form of education. Like we want everyone if they want to be able to go to school if they want to. It was, it shifted how I saw people doing their jobs. Yeah. Like even the garbage collectors they all had uniforms. They were super clean. They would always put the garbage thing things back. Exactly. Neat. They would like, there was pride in doing all of the tasks that we don't associate pride with often in the us. And I think it was because they were like, yeah, my kid can go to school.
I have healthcare. Oh, and I guess what? We have pensions. Crazy idea. And like we get the vacation time. Like we're valued as a human versus not, yeah. And it was such a sh and they have daycare included as well of course. But it was such a shift of what would it be like if instead of it, the story being pitched as either you can you don't deserve it, you haven't worked hard enough for it.
To everyone in this community gets these things. Yeah.
And when I hear you say is this idea of value and we have a value in social work that is the dignity and worth of a person. And it's one of our ethical standards that we have to abide by in this work. And it's a touch point for me.
Every time I meet with a person or a family to say am I treating them with worth? Am I treating them with dignity? And if I'm not, or if society isn't, how can I change that? Because it makes a big difference.
And why isn't that what we as states and nations have as a priority, right? I don't like when we look at the things that we're talking about, it's guys, it's great that's your concern, but how are you making my everyday better?
And I hate the argument that we're taking things away from people. Like in the healthcare conversation, I'm like, we shouldn't need insurance, right? So let's just get rid of the all everyone's insurance can go away and we can all have healthcare. And that's why I wanted to clarify with the school lunch example, because.
We're, everyone gets more. Yeah. Every single person, everyone. So we all get more. It's this scarcity mindset that we have in a country with such abundance
Is maybe the biggest scam that Yeah. Is going on.
And I think it comes from this idea of individualism that we so value as a culture.
And I didn't grow up that way. So I grew up in a very small neighborhood in Boston that was connected centrally to a church. I grew up with, I don't know, 12 grandmothers because every woman on the street was my grandmother's best friend. And they were all widows and raised, I don't know, 14 children each or something.
But there was this sense of community and mutual aid that I saw go on. If somebody needed. I don't know, wallpaper put up fine. If somebody needed a date, a doctor or something, like you knew somebody or, whatever it was it was available. Somebody figured it out. And what I am able to see in hindsight was this team community mentality that exists in a lot of places, but we have stopped relying on it.
And we've stopped, asking our neighbors for something or we've stopped, like offering, whatever we have. And I still have glimpse of it, glimpses of it here in my community. I still live on the same street that both me and my dad grew up on. We still get a little bit of that community piece, but it's changing and it's sad because I think mutual aid goes so far and just helping the person who's next to you can make such a huge difference, I think.
Somebody said it was a foster care advocate. I can't remember who said it, but it was one of those things, if somebody walked up to your front door and knocked and had a baby in their arms and said, this baby needs somewhere to go, nobody would say no, it just wouldn't be a thing. So why do we say no if it's not right in front of us?
So I like to put these things in front of people as much as I can.
And it's there's that idea in anthropology that there's 150 people that we can feel connected to, so I do know that there's so much power in bringing it down to the town and the street and the neighborhood level.
Yes. And I do think that there is a slightly different approach to neighborliness in places that have extreme weather than not. Because it's so common to like. Someone on the street's gonna have to shovel the old lady's sidewalk and driveway and steps. It's just a matter of who's gonna get there first.
That's, it's not an option when you know that's who lives there. And when it's a blizzard and you run out of diapers or something else, like you have to go next door and ask or Yeah. Like you're phoning your friend. And I think everyone is craving that connection within their communities and I don't think people know how to initiate it anymore.
Yeah.
Yeah. And I don't, the pandemic definitely didn't help. Again, this kind of idea of individualism and money equaling success, I can even see trickling down to young kids. Like it used to be you went and shoveled the old lady's car out because you shoveled it out and that was what was expected and now you do it for $25 and I try to not have my children do that because they are.
Very able-bodied young men who have everything they could ever need. So they're, they don't need to take the $25 from the old lady. But yeah, it's hard, it's really hard to foster that sense of community when we're all, looking down at our screen or, insulated in our own lives.
And I think that, I think women bear such a huge weight on that. 'cause I think we're expected to be the gate holders of the community, but if we don't know how to find it then it all comes tumbling down.
And that's hard. And I think a discussion that's been popping up more frequently with either women on this podcast or other female oriented events I've been going to is the fact that women are so thankful that.
We have the right to work in America. Yep. And as a society, we were not responsible for all the jobs that women were doing. Yeah. That we didn't bother to figure out who was gonna do 'em instead. There's a huge gap right now in Orange County, one of the most privileged places on the planet, but also the county with the highest income disparity in the entire us.
There's a huge gap in school volunteers because it used to be that the wealthy women or whatever moms were staying home could volunteer. But now they're working, or if they're not working, they're filling their schedule with. Faux working things like being on boards of this and that. Yeah.
And making their day look like a career scheduled day. And so there's no one to come in and do the Halloween party. Yeah. Or to go on field trips and it's the weirdest no one expected
it. Yeah, I can definitely see that. And I had one of those moms and I have been lucky to sometimes be one of those moms.
I don't like volunteering at school. I find it really stressful with all those screaming kids. My husband actually does all the field trips and things, but I, I think part of it is the expectation is different for stuff like that too. So I agree with you. I think it was definitely a privileged thing when and this goes for anything, it's not just schools and kids, but any sort of volunteer things.
You could go to the library and you could read to people, or you could go and, sit with, people at a nursing home or, be the school mom or whatever. And then those things started to elevate. So you had to like, bake the best cookies or, read toto or, I don't know it just, we kept raising the bar that it became so unattainable to even want to bother.
And schools have become, and most institutions, again, I don't wanna limit this to just schools and kids, but most institutions have become so regulated that sometimes you can't even fit that time in, of like just having an un unqual, I don't wanna say unqualified and but a non-specialized person come in and help a civilian, it almost doesn't exist.
Civilian. Yeah. I'm sure you have to have 12 nursing degrees now to go and read to. People at a nursing home.
It's hard. Yeah. It's a friend of mine is getting their master's in art therapy. And they're sharing a frustration they're having right now because it's so regimented.
Like how long you can be talking to someone, like at the facility they're at, and they'll be like, we'll just be starting to open up this space. And it's happening. And they're like, okay, time to move on. And you're like, yeah, I need five more minutes. Sorry. No. And there's again it's become so over extreme.
Imagine how many other places we're spending too much money on paperwork besides school lunches, like when? At what point are people allowed to say this is dumb. Yeah. How do we simplify this? Yeah.
Yeah. Let's just, as my grandmother would've said just sit down and have a cup of tea.
It'll be okay. Yeah. We'll figure it out, yeah.
And I also imagine that there's not a lot of crossover. There's probably a lot of paperwork to fill out for every different social service you need. 'cause there's not like a master debt database. That's another thing I don't understand.
Even myself going to a doctor. Why am I filling out a piece of paper ever again? We all have computers. I can fill it out once I'm sure. Like, how do I get everything? Give me my own Google folder, please. Yeah. That you can all see. 'cause this is ridiculous and such a waste of trees and time.
Yeah. And pens and, oh, it's i, there was someone recently who was talking about like filling out applications and they're like, I just stopped because of the application.
Yeah, we do. For the families that we're, we serve now, like we have this whole sheet of mental health services and you have to call every single service.
And I was like, isn't there like a database or something? We have the ability in this country, we have the technology, we have the people who can implement that, and I don't know where they are or what they're doing, but we need to get more of them to serve, because these, I think, and that's where I see such a huge value in this kind of crossover from business, is that I'm armed with tools that can implement change in high systems.
And I, I can already feel like my brain twirling around like organizational development and, structure and scheduling and all of these things that the people that have been working in organizations like, social services, they don't have time or the brain power or the energy at this point to think outside the box.
And I would challenge more people who maybe are at a crossroad with their with their life to think of ways that they can utilize their expertise in a new way and to give new eyes to something. 'cause it's pretty great.
And there's so many best practices that don't require huge investments to implement.
Like just so many things. Like it's it same with the IRS when you're like why are we sending actual papers anywhere, ever again? I saw, just curious. I saw this like meme
or I don't know. I don't even know what those things are called. And it was like taxes fill out, like all this paperwork about every single thing you've ever done.
And if it's a test and if we already know the answers, but if you mess up, you go to jail.
Yeah.
Yes.
It's so ridiculous. It's so ridiculous. And that's another thing where it's I'm so pro, like a flat tax rate. Like 10%. Everybody, it's fine. Sure. Just take my 10% and I don't, no questions asked. I don't need Nope.
I'll, yep. The calculations make it so overwhelming that people have to be specialized in this. That seems really unnecessary. Yeah. Let's move their energy into helping into other things. Something else, please. Yeah.
Probably the biggest learning that I have, that I've made, or I've had in this journey has really been that I am not here to serve children.
I'm here to serve families. And when you take in, so with the foster care system, there are 400,000 children in the foster care system. But when you, I think we do a disservice by saying that foster care is about children. Because it truly is, if you decide to foster, you decide to foster the entire family.
And that is mom, dad, aunts, uncles. Cousins, siblings, grandparents, their other caseworker. Yeah. Yeah. All of the entire thing. And it's been a real, it's a challenge to do that because you're, you are the outsider. You're the person that is disrupting or helping to disrupt. And I think that having that mental kind of clarity around why I am there and what I'm doing has really helped me grow and really pushed me into the social work world because I wanna help change that narrative for families because every family matters.
And I have, I've met a lot of families, I've met a lot of kids. There is not a parent in this world that does not love their child and. I've been challenged on that and people have said, oh, but what about this case? And what about this case? And I'm like, I understand that, but that love is there. And if we as a society and as a system can put in structures and scaffolding and support to lift this family up and to help them in their time of extreme need, then we should do that because it's just the right thing to do
so Well, and I feel like there's a lot of parallels between the foster, between foster care and ending up in jail in that absolutely.
Both of them are outputs of many decisions or traumas before then. Yeah. Or challenges. And to your point of how like the game should be, how do we prevent foster care from being needed? It's like, how do we, like, how do we keep working backwards? And shoring up the next challenge.
And of course we'll never get all of them shored up because it's maybe humanly impossible. But there's a lot of things that can get changed and prevented. And, giving people free breakfast and free lunch is a big deal. It's a big deal. It sounds so small, but it is such a big deal.
And I'm gonna misquote the statistic because I don't have that statistic in my head, but it is, the statistics about inmates and people in the prison system that have been through foster care are just unbelievable.
It's, I don't, it's 70%, it's a very high correlation. Yeah. Very high. And and of course. Children who have been bounced around and have hard, difficult attachment with people and have been left behind at school and didn't get a free lunch and didn't, were basically like, said figure it out.
Of course they're gonna, go to drugs or they're gonna steal a car or they're gonna figure out a way to survive. And one of the things we talk about in social work a lot is that there are things that we consider protective and positives. So if somebody is stealing food that's considered oh, they figured out how to eat today.
It's a skill and in our society, it's not one that we are celebrating, but it's still a skill and that person is still utilizing their brain to stay alive every day. And the things that people have to do to just live another day are too hard in a country like this. And we make it way too
difficult.
We, we, yeah. It's, are we setting up families and people for success? Yeah. And there's just, I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to work with Casa Orange County so Good. And it's I really don't do anything besides show up to meetings and help fundraise and things like that, but there's, I'm so thankful for the exposure to what's really happening. And forgetting that setting people up for success is not just, did they have breakfast and lunch, it's, do they know how to deposit checks? Do they know how to create a resume? Do they know what is expected of them as a functioning adult in society and how we prepared them for it.
Yeah. And there's so many things that we just assume people know. And they don't like and I think that there's becoming an awakening of how what we think people know is starting to also show up in the middle class. More and more. Because there's so many things about like financial literacy that are causing the average American, I think, or family to have like less than 4,000 in savings.
Yeah. When generation ago, two generation ago, that would've been scandalous. Yeah. So there's so many things that we're thinking this knowledge is getting passed around and it's not. And we're thinking that access is getting passed around and it's not. I think how we're changing from a social perspective in this country and including, and sharing and serving is gonna be really interesting in.
The next couple of years.
Yeah. Yeah. And I agree with you. I, there's, it's so easy to look at, the negatives that are happening and to listen to the noise. And I also see a propelling of people moving forward in a different way. I am so incredibly blessed to live in Massachusetts with people like Elizabeth Warren and Ana Presley.
And when I think about women like that and the work that they're doing, I know they wouldn't have necessarily done it in the same way and the same capacity had we not been in this place. I think 20 years from now, 30 years from now, a generation from now, we will look back at this time. And whether we come out on the right side of history or the wrong, I don't know yet, but.
Something is happening, something is churning. There, there are wheels going and I'm excited for where it's gonna bring us because we're not stagnant. I can
say that. So let's move on then. Okay. To what makes Boston in Massachusetts Great. Do I
need to sing
like dirty water? Do I need,
talk about the Red Sox?
I don't like, okay. So I am, like I said, multiple generation on the same street. I am one of those that is a true, like to my heart, Bostonian. And I think for me what makes it great is it's a small city. It's, I always call it a walkable city, although there are places that are too far for me to walk.
But unlike places like LA and New York and Chicago, which I know are really great, vibrant cities, this feels small enough to tackle. And I love. The seasons. You caught me on a good time because I don't love the seasons in March when it's still snowing. But we have the, we have perfection of all four, so sometimes just a glimpse of them.
But you cannot beat fall in New England and you cannot be that two weeks of spring where everything is perfect. I love Boston for all of those reasons that you just mentioned about being at the forefront of universal healthcare and gay marriage and universal free lunch and the access to education is unparalleled.
You throw a stone and you hit a college or you hit a university and we were the first to do all of that. And I think while there are definitely some traditions that are entrenched that need to go away, it is still a hub of innovation and of knowledge. And that is a huge value that you can feel no matter where you go.
And then I also love the diversity of the city. I take the train every day and I can sit next to, lifelong Bostonians. I can sit next to somebody who's here from India. I can sit next to somebody whose family comes from Japan. It doesn't matter. There are so many different people who live here and it's starting to integrate more.
It is still a highly divided place. But I think that we're doing a better job lately, and that I feel really good about it. My kids feel really good about it, and I. I'm supposed to say things about the Patriots and the Red Sox because I'm sure my family will listen at some point. Yay. Sport.
It's one of those things though that brings you together. My parents travel a lot in their retirement and my dad is a, lifelong Red Sox fan. He wears that hat everywhere, all over the world. And he will always get stopped by somebody who is either from New England or from Boston or knows somebody or so it's definitely a place of connection.
And it gives us a sense of community, even on this wider scope when we rally around things like these teams. So I do appreciate them for what they do. I don't follow it, but,
The thing that I miss the most about living in Boston. Two things. One was that there were so many opportunities to participate.
So many volunteer opportunities, so many sports to play as an adult. So many just groups like hip hop class and this and that. Like my schedule was full of fun things Yeah. At that time. And I just felt like it was easy to keep meeting and expanding with like bigger groups of people. And I haven't had that same feeling since I've ever left.
And the other part that I love is that people, if you go out in Boston, you will talk to strangers. Yes. And you might get into heated debates with strangers and then buy each other drinks and it's okay. Yeah. But like you, there's like this, and I don't know if it's like a hangover from like just how Boston is and education and discussion and debating things like.
There's a reason I think, why in that northeast corridor, like a lot of that exists there since pre-revolutionary time. But there's this idea of we are here to discuss things like people are meant to discuss things and debate things, and through talking about it, we connect and build community and make better choices.
And it's definitely not that way here. There's lots of conversations happening, but they're much more private. It'd be really weird to talk to a stranger at a bar about politics or an opinion you have about something. And the other thing about living here is if you go to an Angel's game or a Dodgers game and they're playing the Red Sox or the Yankees.
This stadium will be more filled with those hats Yes. Than local. And I'm like, that is a shame. And I mean it's, I'm all about rooting for the home team when they're not playing your team. But like it to go to a Red Sox Angels game here, like the stadium is Red Sox. Yeah. And they're everywhere.
Not flying in. No. So it's, I like that when you go to Boston, it's oh no, we're cheering for Boston, so there might not be another team here except on the field. Yeah. Yeah. But there's just like this level of community and commitment and like filling it up, like people are showing up to be like, this is our city.
This is what it stands for.
Yeah. And we have that like ownership, like you're so proud to be from here. I think for a lot of people. I know I am. And I spent, before having kids before realizing I like. I wanted to travel, I wanted to go places and everywhere I went I was like, that's nice.
Nope. I wanna go home. And I think, having such deep roots here helps me too. But that sense of community is huge in a place like Boston and I think unrivaled. So I'm gonna stay. You're welcome to come back anytime.
Thank you. Yes. It's been a big debate lately because when I was back the time I saw you then I was back on the east coast for six weeks after that as well. It's the first time that I have been back on the East Coast and I thought it might be time to come back. Yeah. For I, how it's been a long time since I've, almost 15 years at least since I've lived in the East Coast. Maybe longer at this point 'cause I'm getting so old, but and like up to this point I've been like, nah, it's like it wasn't the right fit and things.
Yeah. So I think it'll be interesting what shakes out Yeah. In the next couple of months. I would say give it more than a
couple of months because if you wait until April. Yeah, wait until April because that decision is not a good one to make in like February when we're all cranky. And I will say that is another New England thing that we do better than anyone is complain about the weather.
And that I think is that topic of conversation that unites us. Whether it's, like you said, politics, the Red Sox and the weather. Like you can get anyone in the city talking and we complain about everything all the time. It was 70 degrees the other day and I was like it's really hot in November.
70 degrees in November was too hot for me. But yeah, it is warm. Yeah, it is warm in November.
Yeah. When you think about the words powerful and ladies. What do they mean to you? And do their definitions change when those words are next to each other?
I first think about my grandmother and her group of women because they had such a powerful bond.
And I think that's where, that's the word I look for when I think of powerful ladies. It's a bond. I think that we as women go through the world connected in a very special way. And when we tap it to that connection, our power and our influence is really has no bounds. So I don't wanna separate them.
I wanna keep them together. And I've been so fortunate to have women in my life that have shown me what those bonds look like and have shown me how to build them with others. And, i'm learning every day how to reinforce them. And I hope to continue to do that.
I love that. We also ask everyone on the podcast where they put themselves in the Powerful Lady scale.
If zero is average every day human and 10 is most powerful lady you've ever met or imagined, where would you put yourself on that scale today and on any other day?
So you mentioned at the beginning that you were introduced to me as a fan of this podcast. So I've been nervous about this question leading up for like months I've been thinking about it, and my answer is zero.
And the reason for that is because through this journey and this evolution that I've been on for the past 10 years, what I have seen is that those everyday normal people. Sometimes make the biggest impact. And I'm actually striving to be as everyday normal as I can because I wanna be part of this micro change in people's lives.
I've been part of a macro change before but it's those micro everyday little things that we do. I think that can really help to change the world.
Your zero was approved. Oh, thank you.
I was really nervous about it. What are you excited about for this next year? I'm gonna graduate
in May. Thank goodness. It's been a long process. I'm just really excited to have that check mark. And then I'm really excited to. Begin a new career with a different sense of purpose.
I heard a quote the other day from Viola Davis that said she, that she was thinking about her life and she said, I no longer wanna lead a successful life. I wanna lead a sustainable life. And it just hit me right in the gut. So what I see for myself for this next chapter is this sustainability to do some of the hard work.
And I'm ready for it and I'm amped for it and I'm excited for it. And I really think I'm gonna be good at it.
I love that. And the last question that I've been asking everybody is. What do you need? How can we help you? What's on your wishlist? Oh, that's a tough one too.
I need more people to ask questions.
I need more people to wonder and to be curious about what's happening in their own backyard. I want people to be okay with failing and to be okay with messing up because it's within those spaces that we learn the most. And I want people to smile at each other more and look at, look each other in the eye when they're walking down the street.
I think that sense of, engagement and community cannot be devalued. And the more we do that, the better off we're all gonna be. Yeah.
It has been such a pleasure to hang out with you tonight, to have you on the podcast and. I am so thankful for the work that you're doing and the service that you've dedicated yourself to.
These are conversations that I want more and more people to be having and to just take a moment to go and see what it's really yeah. Go see what it's really because there's so much judgment happening when no one has gone through the experience. No one knows anyone who has gone through the experience, and it changes you when you are able to see it firsthand and remove a lot of the nonsense.
Yeah. That is used strictly for media marketing purposes. And it's just, it's not true and it's not helping the people who need the help. Yeah. So thank you for the work you're doing. Thank you. Thank you for being awesome, and I can't wait to get back to Boston and hang out with you.
Yes. And Miss, miss Elizabeth. Miss Elizabeth. You guys are great. We'll go out on the boat again. Yeah. It was such a great day. That was like one of the best days this summer. I thought. I was like, yeah, this is just perfect. Like it was perfect. Even the ridiculous rain afterwards. I don't think my sneakers ever survived that.
No. And I have not laughed that hard in such a long time. Like same deep laughter, like of this is insane. And yes, perfect. All at the same time, all at the same time. It was awesome. I also will not forget the looks that people gave us trying to walk into that restaurant. Like I have not been that, like I would've been less wet if I had jumped in the harbor.
Yes. I don't even know where all the water was coming from, it just, we looked, we were basically the same thing as like swamp thing trying to come into a restaurant and they were like I don't think so.
And I agree with you. I haven't left that hard in a long time. And it was needed and yeah, I need to do more of that yeah.
Exactly.
Oh, and I realize I have one more question. Yeah. For people who are considering being foster parents do you recommend it? Should they, do they need to what should they think about, should they do it?
It's really different for everybody. I think you have to dig down real deep and decide why you wanna do it.
Because there, there really are so many kids that need support and need help, and it is not easy to be that person in somebody's life. There's a lot of training, there's a lot of people you can follow on Instagram and people and you can call your local. Department of Children and Families and say, Hey, I wanna talk to somebody, and believe me, foster parents will talk to you.
And they will, because God knows there aren't enough of us. So we recruit at any minute we can get. And then if you decide that's not something you wanna do or can't or don't have the capacity in the moment to do, that's okay too. Volunteering, raising money, raising awareness, posting something on social media, like any little thing helps in the end.
And the more we're talking about it. So I appreciate you so much in bringing up some of this conversation. The more we talk about it the more help we can give and the less shameful and stigma comes associated with it.
Amazing. For anyone who wants to follow you, support you, and maybe hire you how can they find you?
I am I am a infrequent visitor on Instagram these days at Kloss 4 51. Or my email address, which you can post, I think. Yeah. I put in the show notes. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. If you want me to, that's totally fine. I am, an open book when it comes to talking about things like foster care and social work and really an or at the Red Sox, I can talk to people about that too. And yeah, I'd love to connect with people.
Again, thank you so much. This has been a pleasure. I can't wait to hear people's reaction to this episode. And yeah, just thank you for being a Yes. To meet everyone else. Oh, thank you. And thank you for all the
work you do, that you're, it's my favorite of all the podcasts.
Ta listen every week,
all the links to connect with Karen. Earn our show notes@thepowerfulladies.com. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening, and leave us a rating and review. Come join us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies, and if you're looking to connect directly with me, please visit kara duffy.com or Kara Duffy on Instagram.
I'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope we're taking on being powerful in your life. Go be awesome and up to something you love.
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Instagram: @Klos451
Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
