YSO Insights serves two audiences with a shared purpose: keeping children safe and helping them thrive. For administrators and staff of youth-serving organizations, that means evidence-based guidance on child protection policy, mandated reporting, screening, and investigations. For Plan B parents — foster, adoptive, kinship, stepparents, and blended families — it means honest, practical guidance from people who have been there. For both, it means evidence-based ideas to encourage resilience and protect futures.
Summer co-parenting is one of those topics that exposes the gap between how blended and foster families look from the outside and what they actually require on a Wednesday in late June. When school is in session, the schedule does most of the work. The...
Debbie Ausburn · May 21, 2026
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One rarely discussed issue with being a stepparent is how lonely you can feel in your new family. When you become a stepparent, you join your bonus family’s story halfway through. They already have a shared history, with customs and stories and family jokes that you do not (and cannot) share. Their bonds as…
One struggle we all face, especially this time of year, is how to find the strength to keep up with all of our tasks. Sometimes the problems our kids face can seem insurmountable. The sheer magnitude of the trauma they have suffered, and sometimes what…
One of the most difficult challenges of parenting bonus or foster children is dealing with all the drama. Our kids’ lives are not what they want, and many of our kids have trauma reactions that can be hard to manage. It also seems that, even when our kids are…
One common suggestion for blended families during the holidays is to create new family traditions. That’s usually easier said than done, particularly when it comes to thinking of new traditions. Below are some suggestions that I’ve found for blended family traditions, including some that I wish I had known about…
The holiday season puts pressure on us to be the ideal happy family enjoying each other’s company. So, what do we do when one of our children just doesn’t accept us? How do we deal with those feelings of rejection? Here are some principles to help get through those rough spots. Putting these principles into…
We’ve discussed before how the community can help foster families. This time of year, there is an even greater need for community support. Foster parents have the same holiday to-do lists as every other family. In addition, they have to find time to help their…
One never-ending controversy during this most difficult time of year is whether and how to help our foster children and stepchildren buy presents for their biological parents. As a single foster mother, I never questioned that I needed to help my children strengthen…
As we navigate through these holidays dedicated to family ties, let’s remember that many of our kids may have a different family — a biological family — that they are tied to emotionally. If you and your spouse have custody of your stepchildren, those children will have strong ties to their non-custodial parent. Your…
In the midst of celebrating National Adoption Month, we need to also remember the heartbreaking journeys that brought our kids to this point. It is good to celebrate new beginnings, but we shouldn’t forget that our kids are available for adoption only because they…
In my last post, I discussed seven ways to lower your family’s holiday stress this year. In this second part of the series, I’m including some more great ways I’ve heard about to avoid conflict and stress. There really are no “best ways” to navigate the holidays; each family has its own unique source of stress. These…
Somehow, all of the normal stresses of raising other people’s kids seem to combine and hit us all at once during the holidays. Whatever disagreements we have with biological parents pop up worse than ever, and our foster and bonus kids have a hard time navigating all of the family tensions. Whether it’s school…
We’re headed into one of the most stressful times of the year for blended and foster families. Winter holidays can be a constant reminder for our kids that their world is off-kilter and different from what they want it to be. There’s nothing we can do to change our kids’ perception of the holidays, but we can take steps to