FASD Hope is a podcast series about Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), through the lens of parent advocates with over twenty years of lived experience.
November is National Adoption Month and FASD Hope is honored to highlight Andrew Bridge in Episode 162.
Leaving foster care at eighteen, Andrew Bridge attended Wesleyan University, then graduated from Harvard Law School and he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship. He began his legal career representing children in mental health facilities across Alabama. His work as an attorney and an advocate enforced children's constitutional rights to be free from staff abuse and to receive meaningful psychiatric care.
Andrew returned home to Los Angeles as the CEO of The Alliance for Children's Rights. He defended children at MacLaren Hall, where he was once confined. He won the right for Los Angeles' 60,000 foster children to speak publicly about their treatment. He investigated the excessive removal of African-American babies from their parents, which led to one of the first government initiatives to stop it. Andrew is the Co-Founder of National Adoption Day. He went on to lead one of California's largest recruiters of foster and adoptive parents.
Called to address the unjustified placement of foster children in mental institutions, Andrew has served as a Senior Advisor to the State of Illinois. His educational work resulted in the creation of New Village Girls Academy, California's first all-girls high school for parenting teens. Andrew serves on Arizona's Foster Care Review Board and he consults with child welfare systems and foundations.
Andrew is also the author of the New York Times AND Los Angeles Times BEST SELLER book, "Hope's Boy: A Memoir". The Washington Post named "Hope's Boy" one of it's Best Books of the Year, with a review that called it "filled with vivid scenes and empathetic description...compulsively readable".
In this THOUGHT-PROVOKING episode, Andrew shares: his personal journey and lived experience as a foster child in the Los Angeles Foster Care System, his journey in becoming an attorney and child rights advocate, insights and discussion points from "Hope's Boy", the punitive nature that was / still exists in child welfare systems, his thoughts on how to educate those in the child welfare system about FASD and other brain-based diagnoses, the beginnings of "National Adoption Day" in 2000 and how it's grown, his current work and initiatives and words of hope and encouragement.
EPISODE RESOURCES -
Andrew Bridge -
Hope’s Boy - https://hopesboy.com
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-bridge-667860210/
FASD Hope Resources -
https://www.fasdhope.com/
natalie@fasdhope.com
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/fasdhope/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/fasdhope1
Twitter - https://twitter.com/fasdhope
LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalie-vecchione-17212160/
“HOPE FOR THE FASD JOURNEY COMMUNITY”, CO-LEAD BY NATALIE VECCHIONE AND SANDRA FLACH
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT “HOPE FOR THE FASD JOURNEY” COMMUNITY OR TO SIGN UP, VISIT THE BELOW LINK -
https://www.justicefororphansny.org/hope-community
Check out our book “Blazing New Homeschool Trails: Educating and Launching Teens with Developmental Disabilities” by Natalie Vecchione & Cindy LaJoy
BUY IT NOW!
179 - Three Years Later and a Plot Twist with John and Natalie Vecchione
178 - Tinderbox - A Conversation with Lynn Alsup
177 - Sip By Sip - A Candid Conversation with Patti Kasper
176 - FASD Legislative Update and Run FASD 2023 with Jenn Wisdahl and Rebecca Tillou
175 - All About FASD - FASD and Neurocounseling with Dr. Jerrod Brown
174 - An Update from the UK and Scotland with Jessica Rutherford, Ph.D. and Ailsa Clarke
173 - Dream Acres FASD Community - A Conversation with Kathryn Meinhardt
172 - FASD North Dakota - A Conversation with Carl Young
171 - A Journey of Faith and Strength - A Conversation with Liz Kulp
170 - All About FASD - Energy Drinks and FASD with Dr. Jerrod Brown
169 - FASD Legislative Update and Upcoming FASD United Events with Jennifer Wisdahl
168 - CAMP FASD - A Conversation with Nicholas Tassone and Emma Melendez-Scherer
167 - FASD Legislative Update AND Run FASD 2023 with Jennifer Wisdahl and Rebecca Tillou
166 - All About FASD - Excessive Sugar Consumption and FASD with Dr. Jerrod Brown
165 - Mom, Author and Navigator - A Conversation with Laura Bedard
164 - Welcome Back - We Need More Hope! A Conversation with Jennifer Wisdahl and Natalie Vecchione
163 - Be Still - Our Final Episode
161 - FASCETS Friday - A Family’s Transformation with Lynn and Clare Alsup
160 - The Fellowship of Rural FASD - A Conversation with Rob More
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