Meet the Team

CEO/Founder

Sarah’s passion for foster care was sparked at 16 while working at an orphanage. In college, Sarah earned a BA in Youth Ministry and founded a mentorship program that paired foster youth with college students for year-long guidance. She’s continued collaborating with various foster care organizations throughout her adult life, steadily building her knowledge and experience.

Professionally, Sarah is a Recreation Area Manager, where she's responsible for volunteer coordination, event planning, agreement management, and staff supervision. Five years ago, she stepped into fostering as a single mom raising three youth. Since then, Sarah has welcomed six placements into her home. This transformative experience strengthened her belief that caregivers are the backbone of foster and adoptive care.

Sarah founded Steadfast Foster and Adoptive Support to empower families with tools to create loving, informed homes where foster youth can thrive. With steadfast dedication to both the children in the system and the caregivers who nurture them, Sarah strives to inspire hope and lasting change in the foster care community.

Family Support Coach

Having walked the path of parenting children from various origins—birth, adoption, and fostering—Terra offers a unique blend of empathy and expertise. 

She understands the intricacies of attachment, the realities of trauma, and the profound impact these factors can have on behavior and family dynamics. Whether helping parents manage baffling behaviors, providing practical strategies for daily challenges, or offering emotional support, Terra is committed to guiding parents on complex journeys.

Terra aims to ensure that all parents—especially those raising adopted or foster children—feel understood, equipped, and empowered to build secure, loving, and resilient families.  Terra is a registered facilitator for the Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors Course developed by Robyn Gobbel.

Family Support Coach

Debbie has a lifelong passion for supporting people through challenging times. Her personal experiences, including raising a son adopted from Kazakhstan, and her recent specialized training in Relational Neuroscience give her a unique perspective on navigating complex behaviors with empathy and understanding.

Debbie is educated in psychology and sociology and has a graduate degree in social work. She is also a registered facilitator for the Raising Kids with Big Baffling Behaviors Course developed by Robyn Gobbel. Debbie is equipped to help parents develop the confidence to stay connected with their children, despite bizarre and baffling behaviors.

Her desire is to build communities that empower parents and caregivers to meet a child’s need for connection, regulation and felt-safety so their true self can emerge.

Fundraising Director

Jessica has been a foster parent in Southern California for the past 10 years. Her dedication to providing a safe space where children can develop a reliable, secure attachment has been an ever-present theme in her caregiving journey. She has adopted through the San Diego foster system and is a mentor to many former foster youth, as well as to both biological and foster parents.

Recently, Jessica joined forces with the Alliance for Children's Rights and the California Alliance of Caregivers for National Caregivers Day at the Capitol in Sacramento, advocating for legislative change. Jessica's career in non-profit fundraising goes back more than 20 years, and she has worked with notable organizations such as The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, The Fleet Science Center, San Diego Botanic Garden, Plastic Pollution Coalition, Salvation Army, ALS Network, and Home of Guiding Hands.

Grant Writer/Administrative Support

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Abbie is now living out her Southern California dreams, is thrilled to join Steadfast as a grant writer, blending her technical writing background with her passion for supporting families in the fostering and adoption space. Having witnessed firsthand the profound impact of adoption and the need for ongoing support, she is committed to helping children find loving homes and ensuring their families have the resources to thrive. Outside of work, Abbie enjoys beach days, reading, crafting in just about any form, and hosting friends and family for dinner parties and game nights.

Fundraising Manager/Grant Writer

Sarah has experienced the joys, challenges, and life-changing impact of loving and caring for a child through the foster-to-adoption journey. Her own path—and standing beside other caregivers as they grow, grieve, and adapt—fuels her deep commitment to supporting foster and adoptive families, especially first-time foster parents who are learning and feeling everything all at once and need someone in their corner.

With over 20 years of experience in partnership development and educational leadership, Sarah's professional work has centered on advocating for resources that help every child reach their full potential. She's had a lifelong commitment to helping families and providers navigate learning differences, neurodiversity, and the complex needs of at-risk youth. She is excited to bring her enthusiasm for community engagement and building mission-aligned relationships to the Steadfast network.

Social Media & Content Manager

Kevin started marketing in 2003 with Adidas in the copywriting department. Since then he has worked with companies like Nike, Flojo and Canon Cameras. He started his own marketing agency, Black Coffee Digital Media in 2013. Kevin's philanthropic help started when Unicef asked for help with marketing and social media. Since then, underprivileged and unseen children have been a passion of his. Once Sarah and Jessica mentioned they needed help with Steadfast, he jumped at the chance to help foster and adoptive families in whatever capacity he can. 

“When I heard Sarah and Jessica were working together on this nonprofit, I was reminded of a Kurt Vonnegut quote: ‘You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.’ I knew I had to help. This was an opportunity to support families giving so much for kids in their care, and as a father myself, I understand the importance of stability, love, and community in a child's life.”