“Everything okay?” the man behind the bar asks.

I’m standing just inside the doorway, and it crosses my mind that this guy must not see a lot of people that look like me enter his establishment. Maybe he thinks I’m having car trouble?

“Jen, wait up a second!”

As I heard my name, I turned around and saw Ann* approaching with a serious look on her face. I started getting worried; we’d been having regular disagreements over my work for more than a year.

“I heard the radio documentary yesterday…” Ann began.

My work with two teen siblings in foster care had recently been featured in a one-hour documentary on National Public Radio. At the time, I was working for a five-year federally funded project with the goal of finding adoptive and permanent families for Minnesota teens under state guardianship.

“…and I need to talk to you.”