Overloaded: Understanding Neglect

About Overloaded: Understanding Neglect

Overloaded: Understanding Neglect explores the complex crisis of child neglect and family separation in America, where 37% of all US children experience a Child Protective Services investigation and nearly 70% of children in foster care are separated from their families due to neglect. Hosted by Luke Waldo, Director of Program Design and Community Engagement at the Institute for Child and Family Well-being, this podcast builds a shared understanding of neglect as a preventable public health crisis. Through conversations with national and local research and policy experts, inspiring changemakers, and lived experience leaders, we examine the forces that overload families - from poverty and social isolation to systemic racism and institutional failures - and explore innovative pathways toward solutions. Across four seasons, we've journeyed from understanding the problem to identifying Critical Pathways - Economic Stability, Social Connectedness, Community Collaboration, and Workforce Inclusion and Innovation - from transforming systems to examining the stories that shape our beliefs and actions. Each season builds on the last as part of the Strong Families, Thriving Children, Connected Communities initiative, bringing together those who know these issues best to reimagine how we support families and prevent the separations that tear them apart. We believe neglect is preventable. Join us as we work together to change the conditions and improve the odds for children and families to thrive.

Publisher

Institute for Child and Family Well-being

Category

society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

16 Sept 2022

Latest episode

3 Jun 2026

Latest episodes

2 of 49 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   3 Jun 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Behind the Stories: Building Season 4 with Overloaded Technical Producer Nathan Fink

   Host [Host Name] interviews Technical Producer Nathan Fink about the creative process and narrative choices behind Season 4 of Overloaded, revealing key lessons learned.

2. 

   20 May 2026TRANSCRIPT

   Offering Up a Positive Vision with Jessica Moyer

   Host Jessica Moyer of the FrameWorks Institute discusses how to shift harmful narratives toward constructive ones and measure progress in this interview.

3. 

   13 May 2026

   Seen, Felt, Heard: The Power of Representation, Empathy, and Truth

   Last episode, Pardeep Singh Kaleka showed us how the power of authentic relationships can disrupt narratives that keep us stuck. He showed us what it means to challenge the "monster" narrative—not to excuse harm, but to refuse to let society off the hook with simple stories that prevent accountability, future harm, and healing. He taught us to walk each other home. To choose presence over divisiveness, understanding and being effective over being right. But here's what I keep wondering: How do you get to that place? How do you develop the capacity to see someone different from you not as a threat, but as someone to learn from? How do you create systems where people don't have to shrink themselves to fit in? And how do you change hearts and minds when the dominant narratives - the ones coded into policies, embedded in practices, repeated in headlines - keep telling a different story? I think it requires three things working together: First: Seeing. How might we make the invisible visible as Prudence did in episode 4 with the hidden history of child welfare or as Rinku did in episode 8 with immigrant families who were being separated through deportation? Second: Feeling. How might we build empathy around experiences we haven't had as Desmond showed in episode 3 through his question “Has anyone that you love ever made a mistake?” or as Megan described in episode 7 through the science of connection and neural coupling? And third: Speaking Truth. How might we transform discomfort into learning and change as Dr. Nadine Burke Harris showed us in episode 3 through her personal journey of “speaking up to change outcomes”? Today, we're bringing together three voices from episode 5 who showed us how dominant narratives manifest in their lives. Today, they illuminate these pathways to build better narratives that change hearts, minds, and systems. Shary Tran, who co-founded ElevAsian because she was tired of feeling alone in every room making decisions about her community. Tori Brasher-Weathers, who, with the Institute for Family, created Mission in Common because she knew that data without stories leads to decisions without empathy. And Valerie Frost, who speaks her truth to power because it's the one thing systems can never take away from her. Three different approaches. One shared understanding: You transform systems, you change hearts and minds by being persistent, by being visible, and by refusing to let harmful narratives define who deserves support. This is Episode 13: "Seen, Felt, Heard: The Power of Representation, Empathy, and Truth"

Inside a recent episode

Behind the Stories: Building Season 4 with Overloaded Technical Producer Nathan Fink

Published 3 Jun 2026 · Transcript excerpt

[…] It's the science of storytelling. It's the art of storytelling. You need to bring them together. And you've really allowed me to bring back that storytelling side of my, not only myself, but the passion that I have for this work that oftentimes can get buried when you are so immersed in the data and the research and the science of our work. So if that is in fact the premise of this, that we are reawakening, we've got this kind of out of tune, maybe missing a key or two and we're playing together, at some point in the conversations that we were recording for The Shift, Season four of Overloaded begins to take shape. […]

Who has been a guest on Overloaded: Understanding Neglect

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Nathan Fink
• Jessica Moyer
• Jennifer Jones

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

31 ratings

Spotify

4.9 / 5

17 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 62 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

73

Social presence

91

YouTube

0

Engagement

82

Contact Overloaded: Understanding Neglect

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.