“Connectedness has the power to counterbalance adversity.” — Dr. Bruce Perry

The challenge of acquiring, maintaining, or even desiring healthy relationships after foster care is that many of us are neurobiologically inclined to accept unsafe or unhealthy connection simply because it feels familiar. And layered on top of that is the reality that relationships often feel fragile, like they are always one moment away from being lost.

In this deeply personal episode, Angie names a shared but often unspoken struggle among adults with foster care experience: the longing for connection alongside the fear of abandonment. Drawing from lived experience, trauma research, and faith, she explores how early relational ruptures shape the nervous system, distort our understanding of love, and make trust feel terrifying to extend.

Angie reflects on how inconsistent caregiving, repeated abandonment, and the absence of repair taught her body to stay alert. She traces how survival-based definitions of love, rooted in compliance and self-abandonment, followed her into adulthood and even shaped how she once perceived God.

This episode is for anyone who desires healthy relationships but feels overwhelmed by closeness, conflict, or vulnerability, and for communities seeking to understand how to create environments where trust can grow slowly and safely.

• Why trust can feel fragile after foster care
• How early relational trauma shapes the nervous system
• The difference between love and compliance, and connection and self-abandonment
• How distorted views of love impact adult relationships and faith
• What Scripture offers as a grounded definition of love
• How healing happens through safety, consistency, and healthy connection
• Why trust is not rebuilt through pressure, but through presence

Where have you learned to shrink, comply, or silence yourself in order to preserve connection, and what might change if love no longer required self-abandonment?

Connect with Angie via email: Hello@angelaquijadabanks.com Follow on Instagram: @angelaquijadabanks Subscribe to The Cozy Glow Newsletter for behind-the-scenes reflections and spiritual nourishment Explore healing and identity resources at AngelaQuijadaBanks.com

You Are Not Broken, You Were Just Unprotected Featuring Kassandra Villarreal, M.S., LPC Associate

Angie is joined by her sister in Christ, Kassandra Villarreal, a Counselor and LPC Associate with a Master of Science in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. With professional experience as a Youth Specialist at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services and a deep commitment to supporting children, parents, and families, Kassandra brings both clinical insight and lived understanding to this conversation. Beyond her work, she is a devoted wife, mother of two boys, and community builder who hosts weekly coffee gatherings and intentional spaces for women to connect and heal.

In this episode, Angie and Kassandra gently shift the lens from the belief that people with foster care experience are “broken” to a more truthful and compassionate understanding: many of the wounds carried into adulthood were formed in the absence of protection, consistency, and care. Angie also reflects on how internalizing the “broken” narrative impacts self-worth, relationships, and the future we believe we deserve, and how healing begins when blame is removed from the self and placed where it belongs.

This episode is for anyone who has ever questioned their worth, struggled with shame around survival behaviors, or wondered if healing means fixing themselves rather than understanding what they were never given.

💭 What You’ll Hear in This Episode: • How the “broken” narrative forms in foster care and other systems of harm • The difference between being broken and being unprotected • Why survival behaviors were adaptive, not defective • How internalized shame shapes adult relationships and self-expectations • What healing looks like when we center safety, protection, and truth

🪞 Reflection Question: What parts of yourself did you label as broken that were actually doing their best to protect you? And were you instead just unprotected?

📚 Resources & Links Connect with Angie via email: https://angelas-newsletter-bc8a88.beehiiv.com/ Explore healing and identity resources at AngelaQuijadaBanks.com

The Unwritten Guidelines of Adulthood: What We Weren’t Taught Before Aging Out Featuring Lola Bunn's poem: "I'm an adult"

Expectations are often what we’re met with after foster care, with very little guidance and sometimes even less grace. Because we should already know.

But turning eighteen doesn’t mean we were taught how to be successful, healthy adults. It simply means the responsibility shifted.

In this episode of Fostering AfterCare, Angie explores what it means to enter adulthood without a written roadmap and how the quiet expectations of the world, around relationships, finances, work, and self care, can feel overwhelming when the instruction was never given.

Through layered commentary, Angie names how what often gets labeled as personal failure is actually the collision of multiple realities. The personal, the relational, the communal, and the systemic. All happening at once. All placing expectations on individuals who were often trying to heal while also trying to survive.

This episode is also held in poetry. Angie is joined by her little sister, Lola Bunn, a lived experience expert, videographer, creative, and poet. Lola’s words give voice to the emotions many adults with foster care experience carry quietly. The overwhelm. The confusion. The grief. The longing. Her poetry offers a body level reflection on becoming, survival, and healing in adulthood.

Angie also shares a faith flashback from early adulthood, navigating housing instability, financial pressure, spiritual questioning, and the search for truth and belonging. Together, these stories invite listeners to reconsider what it means to learn late and to release the shame of being expected to know what was never taught.

This episode is for anyone who has ever felt unprepared for the expectations placed on them, and for those who walk alongside people with foster care experience, offering consistency, grace, and support.

Angie’s personal reflections on entering adulthood after foster care with expectations but no instruction

A layered exploration of the unwritten rules of adulthood, from finances and relationships to work, self-care, and managing a household

How missing guidance is often misread as personal failure instead of a collision of personal, relational, communal, and systemic realities

A faith flashback from early adulthood navigating housing instability, financial pressure, spiritual questioning, and searching for belonging

Lola Bunn’s poetry giving voice to the overwhelm, grief, longing, and becoming many adults with foster care experience carry quietly

A prayer and reflection for those learning late, releasing shame, and rebuilding adulthood with compassion and support

What expectations were placed on you without guidance or explanation?

Where do you still feel pressure to already know what you’re still learning?

How might compassion, for yourself or others, change the way you approach adulthood now?

This episode is sponsored by A Home Within, a nonprofit dedicated to the mental health of youth in foster care and adults formerly in care. A Home Within connects individuals to free, long-term, relationship-based therapy, recognizing that healing is a lifelong process.

Learn more at ahomewithin.org.

Connect with Angie via email: Hello@angelaquijadabanks.com

On Instagram: @angelaquijadabanks

Subscribe to The Cozy Glow Newsletter for behind-the-scenes, reflections and mamahood: https://angelas-newsletter-bc8a88.beehiiv.com/

Explore healing and identity resources at AngelaQuijadaBanks.com

Growing up without a stable foundation changes everything. For many of us who aged out of foster care, the “what if” questions don’t fade with time — they deepen. What if I had a home that felt safe? What if I had parents who protected me? What if I didn’t have to survive before I could dream?

In this episode of the Fostering AfterCare Podcast, Angie opens up about the grief that comes not only from loss, but from absence. Absence from what was never built in the first place. She reflects on moments when the past reemerged in adulthood: in motherhood, marriage, and milestones that brought both joy and pain.

Together, we’ll explore what it means to grow up without a blueprint, and how that lack of stability ripples into early adulthood. Angie shares personal stories of housing instability, fractured relationships, and rediscovering hope in faith and community. We’ll also unpack the data behind the experience; from homelessness and mental health challenges to the concept of “relational poverty” that is revealing the deeper cost of growing up without secure roots.

More than an exploration of grief, this episode is an invitation to healing. It’s about recognizing that while we can’t rewrite the beginning, we can rebuild the foundation with one act of faith, one relationship, one prayer at a time.

This conversation is for anyone who has ever carried the weight of “what if” after foster care, and for those who walk alongside them, helping turn survival stories into stories of restoration.

• Angie’s personal story of parental grief resurfacing in adulthood

• A story of housing loss and instability after aging out and how community support made a difference

• The heartbreaking reality: between 31–46% of youth who age out experience homelessness by age 26

• Why the absence of stable love, housing, and belonging makes adulthood harder to navigate

• The call to reimagine foster care as a healing ecosystem ; one that supports both youth and the adults who care for them

• A prayer and reflection for those grieving what never was but still daring to build what could be

• What “what if” questions do you still carry from your past?

• How do those questions show up in your life today; in your relationships, faith, or sense of belonging?

• If you support youth or adults with foster care experience, how can your consistency help transform grief into restoration?

This episode is sponsored by The Empty Frames Initiative, a nonprofit empowering orphaned and vulnerable youth as they transition out of care by providing life skills, community, counseling, and access to the Gospel. Learn more at fillingemptyframes.org.

• Connect with Angie on Instagram: @angelaquijadabanks

• Subscribe to The Cozy Glow Newsletter for behind-the-scenes reflections and cozy spiritual nourishment

• Explore I Am Success Workbook for guided tools on healing and identity restoration

• Learn more at AngelaQuijadaBanks.com

• What Happened to you ? (book)

Welcome to the very first episode of Fostering AfterCare! I’m Angela Banks—though you can call me Angie. This podcast was created for us, by us; for adults with foster care experience and anyone walking the long road of healing beyond survival.

In this episode, I share the heart behind this podcast, the story that sparked it, and what you can expect this season. We’ll talk about why your identity is not defined by trauma, and why healing is a lifelong journey of rediscovering who we are.

Whether this is your first step into healing or you’ve been walking this road for a while, I want you to know...you’re not alone. This space is here to remind you that your story doesn’t end in survival. It continues into healing, wholeness, and purpose.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

• The vision for Fostering AfterCare and why it exists.

• My personal journey aging out, searching for identity, and shifting from survival into healing.

• What this podcast is not (spoiler: no “my way or the highway” here).

• A powerful question from a 2022 workshop: Who am I without my past trauma?

• What you can expect this season: conversations on aging out, hyper-independence, peace and safety, trust, relationships, parenthood, and more.

• An invitation to reflect

• Prayer of hope and love

Reflection Question for You: Who am I becoming beyond my past trauma and pain? Take this question with you into the week and throughout this podcast. Journal on it, pray on it, or simply let it sit with you.

My Hope for You: That you feel less alone. That you find language for what you’ve carried quietly. That you’re reminded you are worthy of love, peace, and a life built on who you truly are and not just what you’ve been through. ❤️

Resources & Links:

• • Connect with me on Instagram: @angelaquijadabanks

  • Learn more about my work: www.angelaquijadabanks.com

Share this episode with a friend who needs encouragement.

Aging out of foster care often feels less like a graduation and more like an eviction. One day, you’re told to pack your things. The next, you’re expected to step into adulthood with no clear foundation and no one to guide you.

In this episode of the Fostering AfterCare Podcast, Angie shares her own story of being abruptly displaced under the CARS agreement, navigating college while homeless, and wrestling with deep questions of identity, faith, and survival.

We’ll explore what happens when the “blueprints” of foster homes keep changing, leaving young people with fragments instead of a steady foundation. We’ll also dive into sobering statistics about homelessness, unemployment, and mental health, and reflect on what must change in the ecosystem of care if we want better outcomes for youth.

This episode is about more than data; it’s about grief, faith, and the ongoing search for belonging. It’s for anyone who has ever asked, “What do I do now?” and for those who walk alongside adults with foster care experience.

What You’ll Hear in This Episode:

• Angie’s personal story of aging out and the abrupt loss of stability.

• A moment of faith questioning and searching for truth.

• The blueprint and foundation metaphor; why building a stable life after foster care is so difficult without support.

• Heartbreaking data: 1 in 4 youth experience homelessness within 4 years of aging out.

• Why caregivers, caseworkers, and communities also need support to prevent burnout.

• A vision of what aging out could look like: not a shove off a cliff, but a supported step into a larger room.

• A prayer of encouragement for all who carry the question, “What now?”

Reflection Questions:

• Have you ever faced a moment where the question, “What do I do now?” echoed loudly in your own heart? How did you navigate it, and who walked with you?

• If you’re an adult with foster care experience, how have you carried that question into adulthood?

• If you’re a supporter—friend, ally, mentor, or relative—how can you help turn the impossible leap into a supported step?

Sponsor Spotlight This episode is sponsored by the Empty Frames Initiative, a nonprofit empowering orphaned and vulnerable youth as they transition out of care by providing life skills, community, and access to the Gospel. Learn more at fillingemptyframes.org.

Resources & Links

• Connect with Angie on Instagram: @angelaquijadabanks

• Subscribe to the Cozy Glow Newsletter

• Learn more about I Am Success Workbook

🎙️ Fostering AfterCare: The Long Way, Together

Aging out of foster care isn’t the end of the story...it’s the beginning of a whole new chapter. But what happens when that chapter feels overwhelming, lonely, or disorienting?

Welcome to Fostering AfterCare, a podcast created for adults with foster care experience and anyone who wants to understand and support them better. Hosted by award-winning author and advocate Angela Quijada-Banks (Angie), this series blends storytelling, biblical wisdom, and practical tools for healing, encouragement to stay on the path and building a life far beyond survival.

This is a three season podcast following the series theme of " The Long Way Home". In Season 1, we’ll walk “The Disorientation of Aging Out” together. Each episode explores the real challenges and quiet victories of life after foster care; from identity and relationships to holistic health and faith. Through honest conversations and guided reflections, you’ll find reminders that you’re not alone, that your story matters, and that healing is possible.

Whether you’ve aged out yourself, love someone who has, or simply want to learn how to walk alongside this community, Fostering AfterCare is your space to breathe, heal, and grow.

✨ Join us on September 29, 2025—the 5-year anniversary of The Black Foster Youth Handbook—as we begin this journey. Subscribe now so you don’t miss the first episode! And share with someone who needs to know: you don’t have to walk this path alone.

Stay connected: 📖 www.angelaquijadabanks.com 📘 Instagram :@AngelaQuijadaBanks 🌱 Subscribe to the Cozy Glow Newsletter