In this powerful episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction, Tammy Vincent sits down with attorney, licensed mental health clinician, child advocate, and author Paula Yost to explore the complex intersection of trauma, foster care, mental health, and advocacy. Paula shares her unique perspective as both a legal professional and trauma-informed clinician, bringing deep compassion and real-world insight into what children in foster care truly need to heal.

Together, Tammy and Paula unpack the realities of childhood trauma, the lasting impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and why many foster children struggle with trust, regulation, and connection. Paula shares the deeply personal story of becoming the adoptive mother of a former foster youth and explains how healing often starts with one stable adult who refuses to give up.

This conversation highlights the importance of relationship repair, trauma education, emotional safety, and why behavior is often a trauma response—not a reflection of who a child truly is. Paula also sheds light on the foster care system, mental health advocacy, and how society often misunderstands children who are acting out from pain rather than defiance.

Most importantly, this episode is a reminder that healing is possible—and sometimes all it takes is one person who believes in you.

🔑 KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Why foster children need trauma-informed support

• The hidden realities of childhood trauma and neglect

• Why behavior is often a trauma response, not defiance

• The importance of relationship repair and emotional safety

• How one stable adult can change a child’s future

• Understanding ACE scores and childhood adversity

• Why hope and advocacy matter in healing

⏱ CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Introduction to Paula Yost

01:12 Paula’s legal and mental health background

04:00 Mental health, the justice system & missed intervention

10:30 Foster care and trauma education

13:00 Why foster children act out

17:00 The power of one safe adult

21:00 What a child advocate really does

24:00 Paula’s adoption story

31:00 Trauma-informed parenting tips

35:00 The heartbreaking realities many foster kids face

39:00 Paula’s final message: There is always hope

🔗 CONNECT WITH PAULA YOST

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paulajyostauthor/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paulayostauthor

Follow Paula for practical insights, child advocacy education, trauma-informed perspectives, and updates on her work and new book.

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Well, hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Adult Child of Dysfunction.

Today we have with us Paula Yost.

She's a seasoned attorney and mental health clinician who brings a multi dimensional perspective that blends legal precision and human compassion.

She is deeply committed to what she called legal social work, advocating for individuals at the intersection of law and mental health.

Welcome, Paula.

Hi, Tammy.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, you're very welcome.

This is actually a nice, I'm gonna say a nice break because I, we have been.

The last couple episodes have been so deep and I'm like, oh my gosh, I want something light.

And not that this is light because it's a very important topic, but it's kind of something different.

We have not had anybody on here really talking about the legal aspect and the struggles of that legal and compassionate and that whole intersection.

And it's, it's vitally important.

So thank you.

Yes, thank you.

I appreciate that.

Yeah, so we're gonna jump right into.

I'm gonna ask a couple questions.

I.

You had a couple questions for me to ask you, but what is your background that got you started in this work?

Yeah, so I am a lawyer.

So I went straight from college to law school and got out and started practicing law and realized that law school had woefully under prepared me for the issues that many of my clients and situations that I was placed in were facing.

And so I went back to graduate school and got my master's degree in clinical mental health.

And so I am a licensed clinical mental health therapist.

On top of being an attorney.

I will also add too that I grew up with a parent who I believe loves me very, very much and loves me as much as she can.

But my mother's family of origin was incredibly dysfunctional and I believe that as a result of that, she has a personality disorder.

And so I am much better at recognizing mental illness and dysfunction than I believe many other lawyers are because I have that background.

I am a first generation college student.

And so my experience was that many of my academic colleagues and legal colleagues just could not relate to that shared experience because they did not live it themselves.

Yeah.

And it makes a huge difference because I just had somebody else on here that was talking about my last interview with was he dealt with a lot of sex offenders and he was on kind of both sides of that as advocating for the victim, advocating for, you know, trying to help the process, trying to get these people who he said were, you know, not wanting to be healed or take responsibility.

And.

But this threw him into the trauma, informed work.

Right.

Because of the patterns you see.

And it's.

I mean, I don't know where you come from.

Like, I don't know your whole background, but I don't know your thoughts on this.

But I'm assuming they're probably very similar to mine in that you can see a lot more of the side of the.

The compassion and the empathy because you've been there.

Like, you know why some of these people do what they do.

Absolutely.

Absolutely, I know why they do what they do.

And, you know, not that we want to in any way.

Excuse me.

Or minimize bad behavior, but so many of the things that I see are fixable or could have been fixable.

So if I'm going to just give you an example of this, the horrible.

You know, I'm from right outside of Charlotte, North Carolina.

So the horrible case that's been all over the news and it's been very high profile in the last few months of Irina Zaruska, who was this poor Ukrainian girl who was murdered on one of our buses, you know, what no one's talking about in this case is that her murderer is schizophrenic.

He's been schizophrenic since he was young.

His family was unable to pursue guardianship over him due to financial reasons.

And when he called them, he kept saying, there is a device in my body that is making me do things and I need someone to come and get out.

And instead of sending EMS out there to take him to a mental health hospital and have him evaluated and treated with the Invas shot and given medication, they charged him with abuse of a 911 call.

And I'm like, this man was like Haley's comment, like, if you know anything about mental health, you could see that this guy was going to wind up hurting someone because he was obviously having schizophrenic related command prompts.

And.

And the invega shot in most people is 93% effective.

So this was something that could have been avoided, but absolutely the system failed.

It failed everyone.

It failed the victim, it failed the abuser.

It failed everybody.

And most prosecutors that I know, if you have a legitimate diagnosable bonafide mental health problem, they don't want to throw you in jail.

You don't belong in jail as long as you haven't committed a violent crime, which unfortunately now this man has.

But most of the time, violent criminals who are schizophrenic do they get arrested for dumb stuff on the front end?

Like they spit in somebody's face because they're hanging out in the emergency room and they won't leave when the nurses tell them to leave, so they spit on someone and get charged with assault.

You know, district attorneys don't want those people in the jail.

They want them out.

And they'll work a deal with you if you'll work and come up with a plan.

But we don't do that.

Right.

And.

And in the case, the going back to the one.

I mean, that is negligence on so many different levels.

Yes, it's.

It's the same thing.

You have a suicide hotline.

If someone calls a suicide hotline, you don't tell them.

Get over it.

That's not what we do.

That doesn't work.

Right, right.

So you get involved.

So are you a.

What kind of lawyer are you?

I mean, I know there's different branches.

And stuff, so for the most part, I'm an estates and probate attorney.

So we write wills and we help with dead people's things.

But on that same realm, I involuntarily commit mentally ill individuals in counties geographically close to me.

And I also do incompetency hearings.

So competency hearings can be, you know, anything from non verbal autistic adults or down syndrome adults, not always with down syndrome, but sometimes people who would be victims of exploitation if they weren't declared incompetent.

So mom and dad or grandma or whoever can continue making medical and financial decisions from them into adulthood.

It can also be elderly adults with dementia or people who have had a stroke, folks who don't know they're in the world some of the time.

And then lastly, we do have our profoundly mentally ill population, folks who are, you know, usually what I tell people is, you know, you need to get competency over someone when they've had to be IVC'd more than three times in a calendar year.

You know, explain.

IVC'd for the listeners.

Yeah, involuntarily committed.

So I've had clients that have done everything from wreck a car and flush the car keys down the toilet and tell law enforcement they had just killed Justin Bieber.

Obviously, that's not true.

They were probably listening.

I've had a client take his shoes off and put them on top of a hot dog roller in a gas station because he was cold and almost burned the gas station down.

Lots and lots of indecent exposure in this population, but many times they just don't understand what they're doing or even where they are some of the time.

Lots of self medication with poly substance use, things like that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So a conglomerate of different things, but at the end of the day, most of the time, things that, like you said, they don't even know they're doing it.

So it doesn't.

Punishment is not the way to go.

It's correct.

Correct.

You know, and again, you know, for the listeners out there, it also is not, like you said, behavior, you know, just, okay, well, this is your issue, so we're gonna forgive you.

We're gonna forget, we're gonna let it go.

There's no accountability.

Like, that's.

So that's kind of where you kind of balance that act.

Yeah, you need to have medication.

You need to have a guardian in place to make sure you're taking the medication.

You know, especially with our schizophrenic population, my state has something called the ACT Team actt.

And they will come out to a schizophrenic residence every 90 days and make sure they're getting their Invada shot.

Because, I mean, I've seen schizophrenics who have been in jail screaming crazy religious things in the middle of the night so none of the other prisoners can sleep, and painting the wall with their own feces, who are now perfectly mentally stable and able to hold down a job because they're medicated.

And so we don't talk enough about the solution.

We talk a lot about our problems, but we don't talk about our solution.

Exactly, exactly.

And you had mentioned a couple other things, and this probably goes back to.

Okay, I see your adopted daughter was in foster care.

So you talk about.

That's one of the things I did want to get into because we have a lot of adopted.

I have a lot of podcasts on here about adoptive trauma and foster care and different things.

What is your.

I mean, this is kind of changing subject a little bit, but I want to really.

You had so many different things that you mentioned in here that I really want to touch on, at least most of them.

You gave me a lot of good information.

But what.

What is talk about the trauma care that you believe that foster children really need?

Well, I want to start at children trauma education.

I'm sorry, not trauma care, trauma education.

I want to kind of start with children entering the foster care system in the first place.

There is a growing movement in the United States now that just says we shouldn't have foster care because foster care has its own problems.

And we shouldn't have fost care at all.

Just leave people with their family of origin because removing children from the home is just as bad.

I want to tell you, I. I can't with that.

My daughter's biological family was simply ill equipped to take care of her.

And her foster care journey was also not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

God only knows it was not perfect, but it was better than where she would have been.

And there's no way she would be where she is today.

Today she has a college degree and she works a normal job.

No one would ever know my daughter had been in foster care if she didn't tell you.

No one would ever see the trauma if she didn't share it with you.

But we just have to start off with the understanding that if you are in foster care, something has already gone badly awry.

So daughter's biological father was in prison during her whole minority, so she had no relationship with him at all because he was in prison.

Her biological mother had a low iq, but she was also an addict.

So my daughter was basically raising herself.

She was badly educationally neglected, medically neglected, her dental care was abysmal, she'd had a lot of problems.

So by the time she enters foster care at 14, a tremendous amount of damage has already been done to her.

So what I think is important for everyone to understand.

I was not her foster mother.

Actually I was her court appointed child advocate.

So in some states they're called casas and others they're called guardian ad litems.

But that was my role.

And so I was her child advocate.

And my goodness, she was a mess when we first got her.

I mean again, she was a runner.

She would run away if you didn't have her in a secured lockup, she would try to run off, she would spit in people's faces, she would scream, she would yell, she would use abusive language to everyone.

I mean it was not lovey wonderful situation.

And what I did and what I told everyone to do is we're going to have to love her through this.

She, we're not seeing who she really is, we are seeing the trauma defense mechanisms that she has in place.

And all she needs is some stable adults.

That's it.

She just needs to learn that life can be different and she is savable.

But we've all got to just bear with her that because she's going to act really badly.

And where I see people making mistakes in the foster care system is number one, they get in it for money.

That's not a reason to do it?

No, not at all.

Number two, they get into it because they feel that what I will hear is God has called me to this work and it's about, you know, protecting widows and orphans.

I am not at all going to disparage anyone's faith, whatever it is.

And I definitely believe there is a space for faith.

To say, this is something that I feel is a calling, but in that you should not expect this to be pretty.

It is not going to be.

It might be a little easier if you've gotten an infant or a toddler, but if you've got a child that's over six years old after they've already been in a horrible amount of trauma for all of their life, it is going to be an uphill battle and you have to be prepared for that because you can't become the next person who says, this kid's too much, I can't handle it, and writes them off.

They're not a puppy, you know, you, and you, you shouldn't take puppies back either.

But you cannot do that to a foster child like you.

If you're going to do this, you've got to be in this.

I will also add to probably the best foster parent that Tanya had.

This woman was wonderful, she really was.

And we still communicate with her often.

But her husband actually got diagnosed with terminal brain cancer while Tanya was living in their home and they had to move to another state to get family support.

So that was another loss for her because she was actually in a good environment.

And then her foster dad was dying, her foster family had to move, she couldn't move with them.

So then she wound up being displaced again,.

Which is more trauma, more heartache, more when she finally feels and finally has hope, like, wow, I can have a normal life or I can have a good life and then bam, gone.

But I will always be thankful to those people though.

And again, we do speak to the mom in that situation often, even now.

And it's been like, it's been like 15 years.

But she was the person who helped me stabilize her.

Because essentially Tanya was going to school and she was not appropriate for the school she was in because she was 14, but she was in the seventh grade and she really needed to be in the ninth grade.

There's a big social, emotional difference in a 12 year old girl and a 14 year old girl with immense trauma.

So she was just not doing well in that public school school setting.

And I had a teacher that I had a lovely shout match with because the teacher said, you just need to prepare her for a gd.

And I said, well, we're not going to do that because we don't know what she can do.

We have no idea what she's capable of.

No one's ever given her an opportunity to try.

Like, I'm not saying she's not going to have to work and that it might not be an uphill battle, but no one has given her.

Like, no one in her family has graduated from high school.

She has no diagnosable learning disability.

There's no reason why she can't finish high school.

We just have to redirect her.

So I had a principal at that school who worked with her foster mom and I to actually get her into high school and get her.

I mean, she was in the lowest level of all the classes, but she actually did do her work and graduated from high school on time.

And so you can work miracles, but you really do have to have a village.

And that requires the.

Whoever the foster parent is believing in, the kid, the social worker, the school system, and you really do have to kind of rally the troops and wrap around the kid.

And everybody has to say, number one, we believe in you.

We believe you can do this.

And if you can do this, these are the things we think your life will have that is different from where you came from.

Yeah, you got to give them hope.

You got to give them.

You have to give children, especially children that came from that traumatic background where, yes, if they were.

If at the best case scenario, they were talked to, but told they weren't going to do anything productive, you know, worst case scenario, they weren't even talked to.

Absolutely.

And.

And Tammy, I gotta tell you, there were moments where I didn't know if she could do it or not.

I really didn't.

Like, I didn't know if she would be able to graduate from high school.

I had no idea.

But I told her that I believed she could do it, and I was gonna tell her that until she proved to me that she couldn't.

Now it's different if, like, she had come back with, you know, if her IQ had been 75, and it just really looked like this was genuinely something that was outside the scope.

But I just kept telling her I believed in her.

I knew she could do it.

And every single time I told her that she.

She did it.

Yeah, she did it every time.

Guys, if you're listening to this, if you're out there listening to this, that.

That's the key right now.

And you said, it takes a village, you know, and it does.

It takes advocates, it takes people working with her, it takes coaches, it takes.

It takes everything.

But your chances of thriving are astronomical if you have one person that believes in you.

So I tell everybody, be that one person for one person in your life, be that person.

Because that's what it takes sometimes, just one.

It's a wonderful documentary about this very topic called Paper Tigers.

It's an older documentary.

But paper Tigers is absolutely about this.

It follows some foster kids in an inner city school.

And it basically just goes into, they need one stable adult.

That's all that they need.

And you know, that's really also why guardian ad litems and casas are so important to the judicial system, because so often the village gets disrupted.

And what I mean by that is, okay, the kid is really connected to a teacher.

Well, now they're going to the next grade and that teacher's gone.

The kid's really connected to a foster parent.

Well, they have a situation like I described earlier, where foster parents, family has their own medical crisis and they can't do this anymore.

Social workers, I've seen kids change social workers like underwear.

Like, you know, and there can be any number of reasons for that.

I will add that work is very, very difficult.

I think a lot of social workers get very frustrated because they got into this business to help, and sometimes the system doesn't let them help the way they think it should, and so they get aggravated and they leave.

And so.

But you can have a lot of turnover in those types of core positions that children need.

But when you sign up to be a guardian ad litem or a casa, they ask you, those programs are supposed to ask you at the beginning, are you moving?

Are you in good health?

Because we want you to stay with this kid from now until this case closes from, you know, reunification or adoption.

You need to be in their lives and you need to be checking on them and, and making sure that things are okay.

And that was totally my role with her.

Right.

So let me ask you in this program, because I don't know anything about this program, honestly.

Was she.

She wasn't living with you?

No, no, no, no, no, no.

She was in foster care.

So.

In foster care, yes.

So some states call them court appointed special advocates, and some states call them guardian ad litems.

And essentially you can volunteer to do them as long as you have a clean criminal record and you're will class, you can get assigned a child advocate.

I see retired teachers do this all the time.

Where they go through these classes.

Almost every state has either a CASA or a G program.

They will then assign you to a foster child and so this kid does not come home with you.

It's your job to do things like attend their fatality or attend their child welfare team meetings, go to IEP meetings at the school system, you know, kind of be a supplement to social workers and to parents and to support.

And that.

That's what I did.

And I will add, like, it is a really rewarding role.

It's a volunteer position.

You.

You don't get paid to do it.

But I will also add, I did not make friends doing that.

If anything, there were definitely meetings where no one liked the things that I had to say because I was saying things like, I'm not going to prepare her for a ged and neither are you because we don't know what she capable of.

You know, there were.

I. I was a boat rocker.

And that's okay.

And that is okay.

And that's the kind of advocacy everybody needs.

Like I tell people, like, especially like with your own medical care, don't settle for just one doctor telling you one answer.

Tell them, I want this.

I want this test.

I want that test.

I mean, like, you have to advocate for yourself.

And if you're a child, you can't do that.

That's right.

So you need someone to do that for you.

So how did you end up adopting her?

I mean, that's kind of cool.

Well, essentially what happened was she aged out of foster care.

And so this is a national problem.

When children turn 18, there's almost nowhere for them to go.

There's the occasional nonprofit.

My county has a very good one, but it can't serve all the children that age out.

And so for many of these kids, their options are to go back to their family of origin, which is often often really not a choice.

I was very worried when Tonya was 18 because she did have a high school diploma, but she had not yet gotten a driver's license.

And I live in an area where there's not access to a lot of public transportation, and the public transportation we have is not really safe.

And so I was worried about that because a lot of foster kids can't get their driver's licenses because who's going to pay for that car insurance and who's going to accept that liability if they wreck a car?

Like, you know, the state's not going to accept that kind of automotive liability.

So a lot of these kids graduate from high or finish age out, but they don't have basic things that they need to be responsible adults.

Many of them don't even know where things like their Social Security cards are or their birth certificate is.

And so I was worried about her.

And my daughter's really, really pretty.

She really is.

I'm not just saying that because I'm biased because I'm her.

Her mother, but she is.

She's beautiful girl.

And I was honestly worried that she was going to get trafficked or wind up stripping.

That's the first.

That's the first thing that came across my mind, because that happens a lot.

Or she was going to wind up homeless and something.

Not.

It was nothing good was going to happen to her.

And I was a newlywed at the time, and my husband had known about her for a long time because he knew I was always taking calls from this kid, and I was always mentoring this kid and I was always going to meetings about.

So he knew, like, it's not like she was not, you know, part of his life.

Right, right.

He.

He knew.

But I came home one day and we had.

We lived in a townhome.

It was not a big house.

We had a town home with an extra bedroom and bathroom.

And I said to him, I said, we are going to have to bring Tanya home and let her live with us.

And he looked at me and I said, we have an extra bedroom and an extra bathroom that no one's using.

And I cannot leave her.

Like, I cannot do it.

Like, I'm not going to be able to live with myself if I abandon her.

I cannot abandon her.

And he was like, well, I guess we're getting a kid now.

I will add, my husband is the type of man, like, I never know how to deal with women that are like, I have to ask my husband's permission.

If I came home right now and told my husband I was going to buy a zebra, he would build a pin for it in the backyard.

Like, he's that type of, like, supportive guy.

Yeah.

So I was very fortunate that that's the man that I married.

But in any event, Tanya moved in.

We told her she had three rules.

You've got to go to school.

We don't care what you go to school to do, but you've got to go to school and learn how to do something where you can support yourself.

You got to work a college appropriate job, so you can't be stripping or anything like that.

But, you know, she wound up working at Subway.

For the record, she made sandwiches the whole time she was in school, which Was a great age appropriate, fabulous job for an 18 year old girl or really anyone but fabulous job for her.

And then she, we told her, you know, you can't bring problems into our home.

So she lived with us.

She ultimately graduated from college.

Her biological mother died during the pandemic.

Not from the pandemic, but her biological mother died during the pandemic and we legally adopted her after her biological mother passed away.

That's awesome.

I mean that's a great story.

It's a great story.

I'm going to go back though and really as in the law part slash advocate part, how much work is being done on making sure, like how much does.

Do you foster parents have any trauma informed care training?

Is there any?

I mean that seems to be the biggest thing because I know I struggle with my own children and it's because of my trauma.

I struggled.

My children I can't even imagine.

Yes, someone that doesn't have the background, doesn't have the understanding, doesn't have the training.

That's why they, I mean that has got to be why they go through so many.

I just can't take care of her anymore.

I can't do it.

I can't.

Throwing up your hands and no fault, no fault to them if they're not equipped.

Correct.

So I think that it is a twofold problem.

I do believe that most states and most foster licensing agencies are providing trauma informed training.

I do think that is true.

However, I'm not sure that you can really understand it from a class.

I'm really not like, I come from a background where my maternal grandparents, my, my grandfather was an alcoholic.

I mean, you know, and, and I apologize to the rest of my family for saying that on tv, but he was, and we all know he was, he was an alcoholic.

And my grandmother and him were the type of couple where they would get married and divorced.

And you know, this was back in the 50s and 60s when they were having their children.

So there, the state wasn't really going to do a whole lot back then, but they kept getting divorced and remarried and they actually had an incident where my grandmother shot him because he came home smelling like another woman's cologne.

And he was in the hospital and you know, he didn't press charges against her.

Basically he was just like, I was glad I was drunk when that happened.

Like.

So my mom and her siblings were subjected, like they joke about it like, yeah, that time mom shot dad.

But they were subjected to profound domestic violence.

And I just grew up hearing about it.

But I had the Benefit of being the third generation.

Right.

Like, I'm a generation removed from what they experienced.

So I was hearing about it in terms of stories, I wasn't living it.

And my father's family is also like, they're the salt of the earth, man.

Like my grandparents and my dad are the most stable people.

So I kind of was able to learn about my mom's trauma in more of an academic capacity.

But I think if you don't have that type of a background, then it's very difficult for you to really understand what these kids face.

And the other thing that I'll say too is it's one thing to understand it, it's another thing to live it.

Oh yeah.

And our foster parents, the best foster parents, are the ones who get it, who really truly get it.

Because I'll say too, there are some terrible foster parents and there are some foster parents who cannot take it.

But I've also seen some people that have raised 17 kids because they do one at a time.

And some of those people are absolutely amazing.

And Christmas dinner at their house is crazy because there's all these kids that they've raised who are coming home to foster mama.

Yeah.

No, and that's, that's the goal.

But you know, you talk about, we talk a lot on this show about the aces and I wish I had more time to even get into that, you know, the adverse childhood experiences and just, just having ace training and like, what do you do?

Like, what are some simple tips?

Like what, what are some simple tricks that you might give a foster parent or somebody dealing.

Just simple things that they can do.

I think one of the best things you said so far was we have to love her through this.

Yes.

Like, you know, so are there any other little tips that you would give that foster parent who is ill equipped?

I would say the first thing is relationship repair.

So one of the most important things about kids in foster care is that very rarely has anyone tried to do any relationship repair with them.

You know, addicts are never going to apologize for doing drugs.

That's just, it's someone, show me an addict who's not in recovery who is going to apologize to you for anything.

It's going to be everyone else's fault but theirs.

And so most of these children have no idea what it means to hear.

I'm sorry.

So some of the time what I think is good to do is just walk away.

I mean, assuming the child's not destroying property or assaulting anyone, walk away.

Let the child have their little tantrum.

You know, let them be upset, walk away and come back to them when things are calm.

An hour later, two hours later, maybe you come back a little bit later and you say, hey, dinner's ready.

Or you say, hey, can I make you something for dinner?

Or come back and say, hey, I washed your clothes.

Here they are.

Right.

Because what that's going to show the child is I just completely exploded and showed myself.

And you're still taking care of me.

Why?

Why are you still taking care of me?

Why do you still care about me?

Yep.

It's that trust.

Right?

And what will happen over time as you show that child.

I am not going to abandon you to.

I'm going to be here.

You will develop a trust with them.

And I'm not telling y' all that things have been easy for Tanya and I.

They have not been.

But I will say that is something that we do.

If we have a blow up or a fight, I go back to her and say, I love you.

You know that?

And she'll come back to me and say, I love you too, Mom.

You know that.

And we are really good.

Relationship repair is incredibly important.

And you can't just walk around and act like nothing happened.

But you can come back and say, what will happen then?

Usually is when the child is calm then, and things are better.

You can use this as an educational moment.

You know, you can kind of slowly and calmly say, look, I want to talk about what happened a minute ago.

Right.

And also informing the child about what trauma is.

You know, the kids don't understand childhood trauma either.

And the sooner they understand it, the better off they are.

Yes.

Other things that I recommend for people with a.

Because I've never met a foster kid that doesn't have an ACE score over eight ever.

That's never happened.

I've never seen one with a lower eight.

Under eight.

Yeah, no, yeah.

I was gonna say.

Yeah, yeah.

I've seen some.

I mean, you might have an infant or something, but I've never seen a kid over the age of five who comes into foster care whose ACE score is not an 8 or higher.

I mean, that's almost inevitable.

So educating them about their ACE score is very helpful.

And, you know, also just telling them things to take care of themselves.

You know, what kind of clothes do you need to be comfortable?

You know, are you not.

Are your clothes scratchy?

Are they itchy?

Making sure they have things like clean water, access to food.

I'll also add to one of the most crazy.

Not crazy, but one of the most heartbreaking Stories for me.

After Tanya moved in with my husband and I, one day she came downstairs and she looked weird.

She had a weird look on her face.

And she was like, paula?

And I said, yeah.

And she goes, I'm out of toilet paper upstairs.

I said, oh, no big deal.

So I walked to the closet where I kept the toilet paper, and I pulled a 24 pack of Charmin out.

I was like, take that upstairs.

You know, it's cool.

That should last you six months or so.

And she looked shocked.

And I was like, what's going on here, baby?

And she goes, I've never lived anywhere where we just had access to toilet paper.

Yeah.

And I said, what do you mean?

She said, well, in my house, we would always run out of it.

Like, our food stamp money would run out, or my mom would sell our food stamps for something and we wouldn't have enough toilet paper.

And I was like, what did you do?

She said, we just used rags until the end of the month.

And like, that is how many of these children live.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, absolutely.

And so it's the small things, like, it's.

It's the little itty bitty things that we take for granted that is huge to them.

And that's why those small little gestures and that.

Like, that, like handing her a pack of toilet paper, she's probably like, holy crap, this is amazing.

Like, I don't get that.

Yeah, that's.

I've also had.

Not.

Not her, but I've also had foster children say things like, this is the first time I've had a bed, not a bedroom.

This is the first time I've had a bed because I've always slept in, like, a drawer or on the couch or on a floor.

So for many of these kids, the things that we take for granted, like the basic first level, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, these kids do not have them.

And that is why it's so dangerous to send them out into the world.

Because that is why they become victimized.

Because if you have these four basic needs and your abductor gives you one of them, he is now the hero.

And I. I tell people that all the time.

They're like, why would they.

Why would they do that?

Why would they not turn that guy in?

I'm like, because he is providing basic needs.

It doesn't matter.

All the other stuff.

Right.

When your boyfriend is paying the power bill.

Yeah.

Yep.

You think.

You think he's your boyfriend and you don't register that he's a total predator.

Yeah.

That Never crosses these kids minds.

No, that's why, you know, that is, it's.

That's how it happens.

I mean, a lot of times, obviously that's not the only way it happens.

But yeah, no, it's completely.

It's so easy to understand.

I remember, and even the bed thing, that just strikes a nerve with me because I remember one time I had a student and she came in crying one day to school.

I was teaching at a Head Start preschool and she said to me, she was crying because her grandma sold her bed.

And I said, it's okay.

I said, just, I'll get you some blankets and a pillow and we'll wrap up and you just sleep, you know.

And she goes, no, you don't get she.

Or no, sold.

Didn't sell her bed, sold her treadmill.

That's what it was.

And I'm thinking, what?

It's okay, baby.

Like, you're in, you're fit, you're good.

And I said, just get a blanket and the pillow.

I said, do you have one of those?

And she said, yes.

And I said, if not, I'll give you one.

And then I said, just wrap up, you know, and just sleep in a little corner.

And she goes, I can't, because when I sleep on the floor and not on the treadmill, the bugs crawl on me.

And it just broke my heart.

I was like, oh, gosh, this is not good.

No, not at all.

Not at all.

And that goes back to my earlier how we started this whole conversation, which is many of these children are in environments where the people who are supposed to be caring for them are ill equipped to be able to do it.

Yes.

Like your house should not be so dirty that you can't.

Well, you shouldn't have to sleep in the corner as a human being, period.

But if you're going to sleep in the corner, it shouldn't be the place where the bugs congregate.

Right, Exactly.

I mean, yeah.

No, I mean, it's just, it's unfortunate, unfortunately.

It happens.

We love that we have people like you that are out there advocating and talking and helping people along the way.

And it helps that you have the law behind you, like you have that knowledge, so you know what the laws are and what the rules are.

And you obviously can help a lot of people.

And I love that.

I love that.

Well, I try.

But let's add that all lawyers are not the best at this either.

No, no, no.

That' I'm saying you in particular, like,.

Thank you, Tammy, that's.

I'm giving you A shout out.

No, absolutely.

I understand that 100%.

But.

But everybody needs an advocate.

But Paul, I could literally talk to you for.

Absolutely ever.

But if somebody wants to work with you, find out more, just ask questions.

I know you just have a book that just came out.

Yeah.

And by the time this airs in a couple weeks or whatever, the book is out there.

Yeah, actually it's out on Amazon today, so.

Okay, it's out.

But I have a bunch of reels that I've been trying to make on my Instagram and Facebook page, which is Paula J. Yost, author.

And it just has little nuggets of things that I've been trying to say to help folks that I've learned in years and years of child advocacy.

Okay, well, we will put all of that on the show notes.

I'll put your Instagram, I'll put whatever you want on there because people need to reach out and they will.

Even if they don't talk to you, even if they just hear what you have to say.

You're a wealth of knowledge.

So thank you.

Yes, thank you.

And if you could give the listeners one last words of wisdom from Paula Yost, what would it be?

Just that there's hope.

There's always hope.

But you've got to be able to instill the hope.

Absolutely.

Like I said, that's.

That's beautifully said.

And again, thank you so much for coming out and everybody else out there listening.

Be that person.

Be that person for one person in your life if you can possibly do it.

You never know what it.

What just adding a smile or, you know, lending a hand or instead of asking people what's wrong with them, ask them what you can do for them.

Or you just look at it and assume that not everybody has a perfect life and be that friend.

The world would be a better place.

And you all come back next week.

Thank you.

Thanks.