Today we’d like to introduce you to Natasha Pepperl
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Shortly after I graduated from college, I lived in Scotland with a Scottish family who had what I would describe as an open home. Everyone was welcome no matter their background, socioeconomic status, political views, ethnicity or religion. And we often gathered to share a meal together.
I really enjoyed living in such an open-minded and welcoming space and I decided that one day I wanted the same for my own home. Luckily I found a partner who agreed and we decided foster care would be the way for us to open our home.
As I was going through the training to become a foster parent, I looked for foster parenting podcasts to learn more. And I grew more and more frustrated that I couldn’t find any that I could relate to as a woman of color. My mom and her family are political refugees from Iran and my dad’s family is American so I grew up exposed to differing worldview from the start.
The vast majority of foster parenting podcasts I found were from a singular perspective: white, upper-middle class, conservative Christian, married foster mom. As I looked around at the other hopeful foster parents in my training class, I saw a huge disconnect from this foster care narrative and the diversity of religious and cultural backgrounds of my peers.
I thought if I couldn’t find the foster parenting podcast I wanted to listen to, why not make it? I have an educational background in journalism and had started a successful digital marketing business (www.pulseperfectconsulting.com) a handful of years prior so I knew it would take a lot of work to get something new up and running but believed so strongly it was needed.
I recruited my sister, Rachel Pepperl, to be my podcast co-host as she is a foster care mentor and also volunteers at a women’s prison with many moms who have kids in the foster care system.
We chose the name Just As Special for our podcast and our pitch was accepted into House of Pod’s Women of Color Podcast Incubator which was a total crash course in all things podcasting. As part of the program, we were able to win funding for our pilot season (https://www.justasspecial.com/podcast) which was produced by House of Pod’s rockstar team.
The second season of the Just As Special podcast is currently underway thanks to a sponsorship from Kids Crossing, a Colorado foster care agency. And we are currently partnering with foster care organizations and local businesses to provide quality training for foster parents through an interactive training portal (https://www.justasspecial.com/training) built around our podcast content.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Shortly after the Just As Special podcast trailer went live, I was rushed into an emergency and life-saving abdominal surgery. It was a huge and unexpected shock and the recovery was rough. It was months before I was able to have a “normal” day again in terms of my energy levels as it was difficult to eat or move around for weeks after the surgery — and my body was diverting so much energy toward internal healing and replenishing blood loss.
I had to take some time off from the podcast and just focus on healing as even writing emails was difficult initially.
I’m very lucky to have an amazing partner as well as a strong community of friends and family that pitched in to help in really practical ways such as bringing meals as I was also foster parenting during that time.
Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Just As Special?
Most foster families burnout within just 2 years.
Each year in the U.S., 30,000 kids age out of foster care without any family to call home. Most of these youth end up surviving on less than $8,000 a year. Many end up homeless or in jail. (Sources: nfyi.org, ifstudies.org, fostercare2.org)
We believe there’s a lot of room for these statistics to improve. And we’re playing a role in the solution by sharing diverse perspectives of foster care through powerful interviews to recruit more diverse foster families and volunteers – and to mobilize the friends and family of foster families to support them in concrete ways.
And we’re partnering with foster care agencies to provide quality training for current foster parents focused on diversity and expert education to help fight foster family burnout.
We are the only active BIPOC hosted foster care podcast and the only foster care podcast dedicated to calling out the destructive savior complex that runs rampant in the system. I would argue we are also the only non-foster parent-centered foster care podcast out there and the only one making BIPOC; LGBTQIA+; and multi-religious perspectives the main voices heard.
Our podcast features former foster youth; multi-cultural foster families; same-sex foster parents; foster care professionals; and more. Coming soon are interviews featuring LGBTQIA+ former foster youth; single foster parents; and more.
We also realize that not everyone can be – or wants to be – a foster family. So we help people interested in getting involved find the small or big ways of doing so that makes the most sense for them.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I love how there are so many people and organizations in our city that are truly dedicated to doing good in progressive ways. I think our city still has much to do in the work of understanding and honoring diversity and helping alleviate generational trauma and disparity – especially around foster care.
Contact Info:
- Email: hello@JustAsSpecial.com
- Website: https://www.justasspecial.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justasspecial
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JustAsSpecial
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/just-as-special/id1525005634
- Remote volunteering opportunities: https://www.
justasspecial.com/volunteer
Image Credit
Brien Hollowell
