Bonus Babies
The Anthem Award winning BONUS BABIES podcast is the only one of its kind that features the compelling true-life hard-hitting stories of those with a lived foster care experience and the people who care for them––all via the unique 360* lens of a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer. Through raw first-hand accounts, BONUS BABIES reveals the daunting complexity of the foster care world while documenting the challenges, failures and successes of the system as well as the people and the agencies involved. The creator and host, Jayne Amelia Larson, is a CASA - a Court Appointed Special Advocate volunteer for youth in foster care. In the same way a CASA works, she explores all things in the foster care maze by talking to kids, parents, caregivers, attorneys, social workers, therapists, adoptees, adoptive parents, members of community and social programs...anybody and everybody who will speak to her to keep the conversation open and the information flowing about all things CASA––to give a forum to help people understand what it's like to have a lived foster care experience. Original music by Christina Apostolopoulos. Emma Karpman is our Social Media Manager. Audio engineering and mixing by Adam "Yukon" Harr of Blue Oak Mastering. Executive Producer is Jake Eberle. Cover art by John Crowther.
Bonus Babies
Rachel Elovitz: I Am Going To Do A Damn Good Job Because I Genuinely Care
Jayne Amelia speaks with guardian ad litem and child advocate/attorney, Rachel Aliza Elovitz. Rachel has worked as a family law attorney for more than 27 years. In that capacity, she has represented fathers seeking to legitimate children (who were born out of wedlock), grandparents seeking visitation rights with grandchildren, third party relatives seeking custody of children who are being abused or neglected by their parents, parents hoping to protect their children from another parent's abuse - and parents who have been falsely accused of abuse in an effort to alienate them from the children who love them.
Rachel also serves as a guardian ad litem and child advocate, roles she initially took on in 2001 and 2007, respectively. As a GAL, her role is to be the eyes and ears of the Court and to make recommendations about what is in the child's best interest (in both custody and dependency cases). As a child advocate, she represents children in abuse and neglect cases (children in the child welfare system).
Rachel is also a trained mediator, arbitrator, and collaborative lawyer. Over the course of her career, Rachel has mediated domestic relations cases (family law), domestic violence cases, dependency cases, and legal guardianship cases. Rachel was a founding partner of Elovitz and O'Nan, LLC, and Elovitz, Edwards, O'Nan, & Buerlein, LLC, firms focused on family law in Atlanta, Georgia. During the Covid Pandemic, Rachel decided to return to solo practice.
Rachel is at her heart an educator. Prior to practicing law, she taught children part time at various Jewish schools - one in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and four in Georgia.
Now 57, Rachel is still practicing law, but she enjoys spending time writing in the hope of sharing her knowledge and insights with others. Her articles have been published in Family Lawyer Magazine, The Georgia Bar Journal, Jewish Women of Words, Divorce Magazine, The Atlanta Jewish Times, and The Jerusalem Post.
Rachel is also active in her community, serving on the Boards of the Atlanta Israel Coalition, the Atlanta Jewish Community Relations Counsel, and is part of Ahavath Achim Synagogue's chevra kadisha (“holy society”), a group of Jewish women who help care for and prepare the bodies of those who have died for burial.
Rachel is active on social media, mostly Twitter, as "AmIsraelChai_", which is Hebrew for "Israel lives." She appreciates that her voice - by itself - has limited power, but she is part of a collective of people who are committed to doing whatever they can to dispel the lies that permeate the Web, to bust the myths to which people injudiciously cling, to call out those who engage in disinformation and propaganda, to report those who incite hate and violence, and to amplify voices of truth.
See bonusbabies.org to learn more about what we are doing and please donate to support us by making a 100% tax-deductible contribution. EVERY PENNY OF YOUR CONTRIBUTION GOES TO RECORDING AND PLATFORMING THESE STORIES. Yeah!
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