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What does it take to earn the trust of a teenager who has been let down by the very systems meant to protect them?

In Episode 5 of The Anna Jinja Show's Athens County Children Services season, host Anna Jinja sits down with Lisa Seitz — a Life Skills Caseworker at ACCS with over twelve years of experience supporting youth in foster care ages 14 to 21. Lisa's work is both practical and profound: she helps young people navigate college enrollment, secure housing, obtain state IDs, manage savings, and develop the independent living skills they'll need to thrive as adults.

But the foundation of all of it, Lisa says, is trust — and trust is built in the smallest moments. In car rides where neither person has to make eye contact. In following through on a promise written in a calendar before the next visit. In explaining what an organ donor card means before a teenager is asked to make that decision at the DMV counter.

"They've been let down a lot in their lives," Lisa says simply. "I just follow through with the simplest things."

The episode opens with something rare and beautiful: an original poem titled "I Can Attest," written by the show's assistant producer Lizzi Montanti after a summer interning at ACCS. Written from the perspective of a caseworker, the poem captures what so often goes unseen in this work — the quiet, persistent act of bearing witness to a child's story.

For anyone who works in child welfare, education, or family services — or anyone who has ever been the one caring adult in a young person's life — this episode is for you.

Lisa also has a message for anyone considering foster care: "You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be rich. We're just looking for people willing to open their homes and their hearts."

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What does it look like to truly meet people where they are — not where we think they should be?

In Episode 4 of The Anna Jinja Show's Athens County Children Services season, host Anna Jinja speaks with Dan Fuchs, a school outreach worker with ACCS stationed at Amesville Elementary in the Federal Hocking School District. Dan's path is unconventional: after eight years in full-time pastoral ministry, he found a new calling in prevention-focused family services — and the transition, he says, has felt entirely consistent with who he's always been.

Dan speaks with rare honesty about the philosophy behind his work: that trust is built incrementally, that vulnerability is a gift, and that meeting a surface-level need — a gas card, a bag of groceries — is often the first step toward something much deeper.

He also shares a challenge worth sitting with: "What if I'm wrong?" — a question he believes could transform not just our personal relationships, but our cultural ones.

The episode also features a song by Riley James, an Ohio University musician and Brick City Records artist, whose song "Letting Go" weaves beautifully through the episode's themes of acceptance and identity.

Whether you work in child welfare, education, community development, or simply want to be a better neighbor — this conversation is for you.

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"My darling, you aren't mine."

Those five words opened one of the most tender, honest, and hopeful conversations we've ever had on this show. Episode 3 of our Athens County Children Services season features poet and foster-adoptive mom Becca Lachman and Athens County Children Services (ACCS) caseworker Laura Schaeffer.

They talk about:

💛 What it means to belong to someone — and to let go

💛 The poem Becca wrote in the middle of fostering a newborn

💛 Why Laura says the families she works with have the hard job — not her

💛 Why our community needs more people willing to open their homes

"If you want to know your community in a new light, to make connections you never would have before — fostering will do that." — Becca

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