Ep 68: Mentorship Program

In this episode of Fostering Conversations, host Amy Smith sits down with Michelle Ostmark, the Statewide Mentoring Coordinator for Utah Foster Care, to discuss the Utah Foster Care Mentoring Program and why it matters.

Michelle explains how the program pairs experienced foster parents with new or existing foster and kinship families to provide guidance, emotional support, and real-life insight throughout the fostering journey. From navigating first placements and court processes to coping with reunification, burnout, and self-care, mentors help ensure families don’t feel alone.

The conversation highlights how mentoring builds community, strengthens placements, and improves outcomes for children by supporting the adults who care for them. Michelle also shares how the program began, its statewide growth, success stories, and how former foster parents can continue giving back as mentors—even if they’re no longer licensed.

Learn how to request a mentor or become one at:

https://utahfostercare.org/foster-parent-resources/mentors/

Welcome to Fostering Conversations. On today’s episode, we’ll be talking about the statewide Utah Foster Care Mentoring Program and its importance to our Utah foster families.

Amy: Welcome to Fostering Conversations. I’m your host, Amy Smith. Today we have Michelle Ostmark, who is the statewide mentoring coordinator for Utah Foster Care.

Thanks for joining us, Michelle.

Michelle: Thank you for having me.

Amy: So we’re excited to talk about the mentoring program. It is part of Utah Foster Care and available to all of our foster families in the state of Utah. Is that correct?

Michelle: It’s also available to kinship families that have gone through the licensing process or have started the licensing

Amy: which is awesome. I think kinship, all foster families need support, but kinship have an added layer of need of support, so I love that you’ve included that now.

Michelle: Yeah. I think it’s important that they also have support for the children that are coming into their home. They have the same. Needs that any other child coming into care have, and they just have an extra dynamic of having a personal relationship with the biological families.

Amy: Yeah, absolutely. So let’s just start by what is the mentoring program?

Michelle: So the mentoring program is designed to pair a seasoned foster family with a new or existing family that needs additional support, or. Resources in each of their communities. We gear it towards new families just so that as they’re starting their foster care journey, they’re able to have somebody that they can call and gather information from, learn what’s appropriate, what’s not, questions to ask as they’re getting placements in their home, um, when they’re struggling, when there’s. exciting news for a child or their family, they have somebody that they can share those things with. Yeah. So that they’re not feeling alone.

Amy: I love that because I think back to when I started fostering and I didn’t know like anything, like you just like you get trained. But then you forget what you’re doing and then a kid shows up and you’re like, wait, what am I doing again?

Yeah.

Michelle: Yeah. And I think our training is amazing,

Amy: It is. It’s beautiful.

Michelle: But like during that process, you go through the training and then you wait for your licensing and approval, and oftentimes there’s a few months that pass by. Yeah. And so all of that training that you’ve had, you’re super excited.

But once you get that call for that child, all of that training and all of that, just go. Goes right out the window. And so foster families often panic because they don’t know what the next step is. And yeah, what do I do now? Who do I call? Why do these children have all of these appointments? And so having somebody that’s calling in and checking on them and making sure that they, have some.

Support and somebody that has actually been down that road before them. They have lived experience that they can offer, advice and support for, and sometimes we have new foster families that have never parented before, so they don’t know who to call for medical appointments, dental appointments.

And so having a mentor that is in their area, they’re able to, give them. A list of providers that they can possibly take the children to and just prepare them for what to expect during those

Amy: Yeah,

No, I think that’s so important to have that access to somebody that knows.

And if nothing else, the fostering journey is so unique. You need someone that understands what you are doing and can tell you, yeah, that’s totally normal. Yes, I know. It’s absolutely wild what you’re enduring, but, yep. Sounds about normal.

Michelle: Yeah. I think that, when we start this journey as foster adoptive families or kinship families you have a certain idea of what it’s going to be like, but once you step into that role, it’s nothing like that.

Nothing like that. And so, just having somebody that you can talk to, that you can vent to is so important. Yeah.

Our friends and our families in our personal life, often are very supportive, right when we start this journey. But because of the confidentiality that we have to maintain for the children that are coming into our home, and not just for them but for their biological families, um, we’re not able to share this stuff.

Yeah. With. our personal friends and family where a mentor signs a confidentiality form that has been approved through DCFS that allows them to talk to these foster families in depth. They can talk to ’em about their court cases, visitation, anything that’s going on with the children, so that helps them get additional insight and how to best support the

families.

Amy: Yeah. I think that’s really important for mentors and the families that are getting mentored to know, is that they can talk about that information with each other,

Michelle: And mentors can also attend child and family team meetings, because they’re, again, signing another confidentiality form. Their role will be a little bit different because they’re there to support the foster family, so they’re not there to offer insight or ideas or suggestions on the case just to help be a support to the foster family and help them understand.

Why some of those things are being put in place for the children or for the families of the children so that they can have a little bit of support as they move forward with the case.

think

Amy: really valid. I remember as a foster parent, I would, after the family and team meetings, I would talk to the casa that was assigned to my foster child at the time. And it was just so nice to have somebody that knew what was going on. ’cause it was, you just, there’s not very many people who know what’s going on.

And so it was just nice to have somebody. That could listen and be there. And yes, she was the advocate for the child, but it was just nice to have another adult to speak with. And so I think that’s what the mentoring program really

Michelle: Yeah.

It’s offering the support for our families that are providing the care for these children that are coming into the foster care system. They’re getting a ton of support. Their families are getting a ton of support, to help with reunification.

But then our foster families are left going, where do I fit into all of this? So mentors also help with, all of those feelings with reunification. Why am I so sad? Why do these children need to go home? Why is the goal reunification? And if reunification doesn’t happen and it moves towards adoption, it’s helping them with that process as well.

Yeah. So our mentors are designed to stay with a new family from the time that they are first licensed through their first placement. And then if they need additional support and help and they wanna keep ’em on longer, they can. We also offer it to existing families that are just struggling with like a new case that is really difficult and they just need, some additional support.

So our whole goal is to build that village around our foster families so that they have people that can understand exactly what they’re going through, have already been through some of these difficult. Issues and can empathize with them in a way that other people can’t. We work really closely with the resource family consultants as

well.

Because they’re also a good support for our families. Yeah. But again, unless they’ve lived this right, they don’t have the lived experience to

Amy: and they’re also

supporting so many families. There’s 10, ish per region probably,

and. They’re dealing with a lot of families. So mentors tell us how many families one mentor would take on.

Michelle: mentors can take between one and eight families on their caseload. Their goal is to reach out to the family, one to four times a month. answer phone calls from the family to offer support if the family. Needs them.

They don’t have to wait for the mentor to call them. Right. They’re able to call the mentor anytime. And in addition to that, if they’re unable to reach their mentor at any time, they also get my contact information. Yeah. And can contact me with questions and then I can guide them through whatever needs to happen in that moment.

So

Mentors are great for crisis situations. They can help find respite resources in the community, like again, like doctors, dentists, therapists, things like that. Yeah. They mentor each other and I help mentor them as well as a former foster, adoptive mom. And we make sure that, again, they have additional training to help support these families as needs arrive.

Amy: I love that.

Michelle: Tell

Amy: Tell us a little bit about why and how the mentoring program was born.

Michelle: So the mentoring program started. Nine years ago, we started researching throughout America what mentoring programs looked like. Most of the information we received were mentors for children. Okay. But we were not seeing a lot.

On mentors for foster families. So we researched things for about six months. We came up with some great ideas and how this was gonna look. We reached out to DCFS. They are the ones that actually thought that this would be a great program for our foster families, and had asked for it for several years, and we finally launched it.

We started in the Salt Lake region and within eight months we had it statewide. Okay. So currently we have 86 mentors statewide. We’re always in need of mentors who have some experience, and we have mentored 425 families from July, 2025 to the present,

Amy: which is amazing when you only have you what said 86 mentors and 4 25

families. So yes, there’s clearly a need for more mentors,

Michelle: in every region

Amy: it’s also showing like we’re like, if you need a mentor, we’re gonna make it happen.

Whether that’s you or someone in your region, ideally you want someone close to them, right? Someone that they could physically get together with if they needed

Michelle: Yes. So go

Amy: to lunch, grab a coffee, whatever

Michelle: it

is.

Yeah. So our mentors actually. We’ll invite their families over for barbecues. They’ll take ’em, plates of cookies, just welcome stuff. A lot of our mentors use a Marco

Polo app. Okay. Yeah.

So that they have like, face-to-face interaction.

Quite a bit. That’s a great idea. And a lot of families sometimes get a little overwhelmed and they’re like, oh, it’s just one more person I need to have contact,

or, What they’re not understanding though, is this is a great support for you.

Yeah.

And. Our mentors have that lived experience so that, when you’re calling them either in a crisis or when there’s something good happening, they can celebrate with you or they can go through those trenches with you, right?

During those difficult things. And I’ve seen mentors literally stop what they’re doing to go help a family in crisis and, offer respite. Just take a meal over or even just meet ’em for, an ice cream or a soda somewhere, just to help them learn how to build, self-rated regulation skills.

And also to learn how to do some self-care. ’cause I think with our foster families. When you’re in the middle of all of this, I think we often forget to take care of ourselves.

Amy: Oh yeah. You don’t have time.

Michelle: Yeah. And so our mentors are really good at reminding our families that you need to do self-care too.

Amy: Yeah. Take a little break. Take a little breather.

Yeah.

I love that.

That’s awesome. Are you able to share like, any success stories with us about things that you’ve seen over the years of mentors or mentorees, if that’s what they’re called?

Michelle: Yeah. A lot of our mentors and their families that they’re mentoring, become friends. Yeah. Through this process. Who better to understand what your family’s going through? Their kids connect in a different way because they understand, oh, our family isn’t the only one that is doing foster care. And so biological children, adopted children and all of the.

Children that are placed in care are often connecting on a different level. Yeah. So I’ve seen a lot of friendships come out of mentoring and also I’ve seen a lot of families that have started, foster care that had a mentor at the beginning of their journey become mentors. And so

Amy: they see the

Michelle: of it Mm-hmm.

Amy: they wanna give back in that way as well.

Michelle: well. Yeah. And it just helps them when they had somebody that’s so supportive, they wanna be able to say, Hey, this person really helped me through a lot of, tough times or great times, and I wanna be able to help another family that’s starting out as well.

Amy: Yeah. I love that. Yeah, I was thinking

Michelle: back

Amy: like two weeks ago, we had the Western region mom’s night out. And it was like 50 plus women that come, and I’m not a foster parent anymore, but we actually hosted at my mom’s house, so I still get to go every year.

And so it’s so fun for me to get to go see these foster moms, many of who I know well because I was fostering at the same time in them and many new faces that have come on since. But it is amazing to see what that connection and comradery and. Just being able to sit there and chat and listen and totally relate to what each other are doing.

And as a foster mom who hasn’t been doing this for the last year or two, I I’ve removed myself from that world in a small way. ’cause I don’t bring kids in on a regular basis. But putting myself back in that environment is just a reminder of like, we need each other and.

You

need those supports of who knows what this feels like and who can say that is absolutely insane. I can’t believe you did that, but Yep. I’m doing it too. So I just think the mentoring program is a small scale of that, right? We get together once a year for this mom night out, but mentoring can be every day, every week, every month when you need it.

Yeah.

Michelle: Yeah. I think it reminds us the why. Why do we do this? Yeah. Why do we bring these children into our home? Fostering is not an easy task by any means. You’re opening up your heart, your home, you’re subjecting yourself and your children to often heartache.

Yeah. And so it reminds us of the why, like, especially when we. Build those long lasting relationships with foster families. Some of my closest and dearest friends now are families that I met through

Amy: Foster. Yeah, absolutely.

’cause

Michelle: they can relate to me. I can relate to them, their children can relate to my children, and we’ve become lifelong friends.

Yeah. Through this process. And another thing, like you mentioned, you’re no longer a foster parent. I’m no longer a foster parent. One of the ways that families can still stay connected is as long as they’ve left DCFS in good standing and they wanna still remain involved, they can still be

mentors. Yeah.

Even if they’re not licensed,

Amy: I just learned that today, speaking to you before we started the episode. So I think that’s an amazing way to give back. ’cause I was talking to a mom who was like, yeah, I don’t a foster mom. I don’t know how much longer I’m gonna foster, but I still wanna give back after.

And I was like, it’s hard. It’s hard to know where you can still give back when you’re used to bringing kids into your home. That feels like the only way. So I think this is an amazing way that. Foster parents can give back that have had that experience, but maybe can’t, can no longer bring kids into their home.

So I love that you’re sharing that. ’cause I had no idea. So hopefully we’re educating listeners as well that hey, you can still be a mentor if you’ve been a foster parent and left in good standing, which hopefully you have. Yes.

Michelle: Yes. And we are the only state that I’m aware of that we are able to give our mentors a small stipend.

It’s not huge, but we do give them a small stipend for their time in making sure that they’re contacting the families and Yeah, and letting us know what their needs are and. As they’re contacting families, they’re reporting back to me so that I can also help with any type of resources that they might need.

Also can help connect them with our care communities. I meet with the DCFS, our RFC team, the resource Family consultants on a regular basis, so I can also reach out to them and. Say, Hey, this family is really struggling. These are the services that we have been able to provide for them through Utah Foster care.

What can you do to help us wrap some more services around this family? Because at the end of this, we wanna make sure that they’re. Successful and that their placement is successful. Yeah. And they’re not leaving after their first placement saying, this is not what I imagined this would be. And I felt so alone in this process. We wanna make sure our families feel supported and cheered on, and they just have all of these people making sure that their needs are being met. Because if our foster families are feeling supported, the children that are coming into their home also have a much easier time.

So, and we can help in that process of reunification or, sending them to kinship. Our kinship families are also facing those same things so that, we’re making sure that they have their village and they have the people that they need to rely on and count on when things get hurt or, yeah, there’s joy.

Amy: And I think too when you have people that you can talk to I realized this a few weeks ago at this same mom’s night out, one of the moms was telling all these things, and I did, I text Tammy over at Care Communities and I said, so and so needs a care community. She didn’t ask for one. No, but I decided that she needed one.

Yeah. And it was like sometimes as foster parents are the givers, right? We’re the people in the community that are literally stepping in to bring children in, strangers into our home in the middle of the night. Like it’s insanity if you think about it. And so oftentimes we don’t ask for help and sometimes we don’t even know that we need help.

’cause we’re just used to giving. That’s just what

Michelle: we

1. And

so I think.

Amy: Mentoring can also as these parents are talking and chatting with you, there might be ideas like, Hey, they do need a care community, or, Hey, they do need, we need to get them set up with a therapist to talk through all of these really difficult things.

Or, Utah Foster Care has the free therapy now and like, there’s just so many ways that people with an outside lens can support. ’cause sometimes you can’t always

Michelle: see

it when you’re Yeah. And I don’t think our families realize that there, that Utah foster care has so many

Amy: supports

I agree.

Michelle: Yeah.

And so we do, we, I get referrals from mentors saying, Hey, this family could really benefit for, extra help with one of our clinicians here at Utah Foster Care. They’re really struggling with reunification and they might need a little extra support and we can offer that to them.

Yeah. I contact one of the clinicians, especially in their region. Yeah. And just say, Hey, can you reach out? I always check with the family first and make sure that they know we’re gonna be calling just so

don’t catch ’em off guard. Yeah. And same thing with our care communities, we’re able to say.

This is a service that we might be able to provide for you. Is this something you’ll be interested in? And if they’re not, we also have, other resources available to our families. We can get some meals delivered to them. We can get, respite situated and make sure that they’re being taken care of in different ways.

So, yeah, and mentors do a lot of that too, yeah. They take time to, to do that for the families that they’re mentoring.

If they need additional support, like that is what we’re doing for these families, is we’re making sure that we’re surrounding them with as much love and support as we can to make their foster care journey a little less

Amy: stressful.

Yes.

Lighten the load in a small

way. Yes.

So tell us if somebody is wanting to become a mentor or feels like, Hey, I could really benefit from a mentor, what do they

Michelle: do?

So they just need to go to our Utah Foster Care website www.utahfostercare.org/mentors. There are a couple of tabs on there. One is a video just explaining the mentoring program just like we did today.

Another is. Become a mentor. You would just fill that out. I would get that information, contact you. There’s a brief 20 minute training that we would do over the phone. Just get you prepared for what you would be doing as a mentor, and then we would get you started. If you need a mentor or a family that could benefit from one you just fill out the tab that.

Is request a mentor. Okay. And then that, again we try to pair families fairly quickly within a week of them becoming licensed. If I get a request for an existing family, we do the same thing. We try and, get them paired as quickly as we possibly can. And then, the mentor just starts reaching out to them, sets up times to visit with them if that’s needed. And then you just build that friendship and that support as you go.

And

Amy: so this is a random thought, but what happens if like someone’s not vibing?

Michelle: It happens. Okay.

Or

if the

Amy: mentor’s like, actually I hate this. Please get me out of here.

Michelle: So, we’ve had some situations where, a family is just like, I don’t think that I, this is the right person for me. Yeah. I just reach out to the mentor and say, Hey, can you gimme some insight on what’s happening? I talk to the family and then we repair them with somebody else.

Sometimes they ask me if I’ll be their mentor, which is fine. Yeah. I have no problem helping and supporting families as well. Yeah. But that happens. We’ve had mentors who have had to step back for some time, either for personal reasons, medical reasons. Yeah. Or just they need a break.

So they’ll let me know ahead of time, Hey, these are the families that I’m mentoring. Can you pick up for them while I’m on vacation? Or, I have to have surgery, so I need a little bit of, time off. We have mentors who. Have really difficult cases themselves and Yeah.

And they just,

Amy: just a lot to carry someone else’s load too.

Michelle: Yeah. And so, they’ll oftentimes say, Hey, I have six families right now. These two families are really close to, ending their placement for, whether it’s reunification, adoption, or them going to kinship. And they’ll just say, I have these two families and I really think that they could benefit for.

With keeping another mentor in place for them. But I need to step back for, yeah, a couple months just to, focus on my own family and my own needs for a while. That happens and, nine times outta 10 they’ll take a few weeks off and then call me and say, okay, I’m ready to come back.

Amy: Yeah. Because that’s

what foster parents do. We we say we need a break, and then we’re like, just kidding.

We’re back.

Michelle: Yeah. And I’ve built some great, friendships with the mentors on my team because they’re calling me all the time and just saying, okay, I need to vent. Yeah. And that’s what we do.

We listen to each other. And something that we would tell, one of our personal friends, they may not understand, I’ve sure I’ve vented about, personal situations with either a foster placement or my own children. And people are like, why do you keep doing this to

Amy: yourself?

Exactly.

Michelle: And so it’s nice to be able to have somebody that you can vent to and they’re just like, oh, I totally get

that. Exactly.

What can I do for you to make this situation better for you? And then oftentimes you just need to vent. Yes. And then you’re good.

Amy: And I’ve found too that sometimes you just have to cry or laugh together at the total insanity of your

life.

Yes.

And no one really is gonna get that unless they’ve done it or are doing

Michelle: it. Yeah. And I’ve seen. F foster families come together during some really critical times for another foster family. Yeah, absolutely. And kinship family. When there’ve been, tragedies in their family, those foster care communities band together to really support, whatever’s happening in that family.

And it’s been beautiful to see in a lot of ways. Yes. Looking on it from. Working here at Utah Foster Care, in addition to being a foster adoptive mom. Just seeing the amount of families that just love and care for each other in a different way is just beautiful.

Amy: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. No it is. I always say it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever done because it is, it’s so hard and yes, we had to step away to to care for all the kids that we now have, but it’s something that I’m so grateful that I’m part of and so honored to know how difficult and how beautiful it is.

So it’s just it truly is an incredible community to get to be a part of.

Michelle: Yeah. When you start it, you don’t think you’re gonna end up, with

Amy: however

Michelle: children.

But yeah. I started this journey with three children of my own and ended up with. Eight children of my own Uhhuh. So, and then many more that continue to reach out and yeah, absolutely. Stay in contact. So it’s a great, it’s a great thing to be a part

Amy: of.

It really is. Thank you so much

Michelle: for your time.

Amy: and thank you for all of the energy and time that you put into the mentoring program and supporting our Utah foster families.

If you wanna learn more, head over to Utah foster care.org.

Thanks for joining us.