Timely Interview: R.B. Michell on Strengthening America’s Foster Care System
They Left Me at Three” – Orphanage “Lifer” Turned Top Financial Advisor R.B. Mitchell has Warning for Policymakers
As discussions reignite around the challenges and opportunities within America’s foster care network, especially following Former First Lady Melania Trump’s renewed focus on improving outcomes for foster youth, family advocate R.B. Michell offers a compelling and experienced voice on what it will take to protect and empower vulnerable children.
Michell—a recognized speaker, author, and foster care reform advocate—brings decades of experience working directly with families, child welfare leaders, and faith-based organizations committed to restoring stability and hope within the system. With national attention returning to this issue, Michell’s first-hand insight offers both practical and policy-level solutions at a crucial time.
Suggested interview angles:
- Insights on Melania Trump’s plan for revitalizing foster care and how it could reshape state-level support for foster parents.
- Real-world changes needed to ensure children transition from “temporary care” to permanent family environments.
- The role of community and faith-based networks in reducing foster care burnout and child displacement.
- Why bipartisan collaboration remains key to real progress for America’s most at-risk youth.
R.B. is a gripping, TV-tested storyteller; he has appeared on hundreds of programs and knows how to land his story in tight, high-impact soundbites without losing the heart. He is available for live, satellite, or pre-taped segments and can tailor his comments to breaking-news conversations about foster care failures, youth mental health, crime, or the crisis of fatherlessness.
We would be glad to send a brief clip link, suggested questions, and segment framing tailored for you.
Castaway Kid: One Man’s Search for Hope and Home
Despite a childhood marked by abandonment, beatings, and being told he was unwanted, R.B. refused to let the system define his future; he ultimately rose to become a senior vice president at a national brokerage firm and a respected author and speaker whose book Castaway Kid has moved readers worldwide to tears and action. His story is raw and unsanitized — he talks candidly about the searing loneliness of waiting for parents who never come back, the shame and anger that nearly consumed him, and the turning points that led him toward forgiveness, faith, and a different future.
For your viewers, he can deliver an emotional, can’t-look-away segment around:
- “What It Feels Like to Be Thrown Away”: The moment he watched his parents’ car drive off for good and how that wound shows up today in America’s foster kids and shut-down teens.
- From Orphanage to the Top 2%: Why he says success did not erase the pain—and what actually began to heal it.
- A Warning to Parents and Policymakers: How systems and even well-meaning adults unintentionally deepen the trauma of already broken kids, and what must change.
