From Street Child to Foster Dad: Peter Mutabazi
What happens when a child who has experienced unimaginable hardship grows up to become the safe place other children need?
In the Season 5 premiere of Fostering the Future, host Kim Young sits down with Peter Mutabazi, a former street child from Uganda who overcame extraordinary obstacles to become a foster dad, advocate, author, and champion for vulnerable children.
Peter’s story begins when he leaves an abusive home at just 10 years old and finds himself surviving on the streets. Along the way, one man’s consistent kindness helps him discover that trust, education, and a different future are possible. Peter’s journey ultimately leads him to the United States, where he builds a life dedicated to showing up for children who need someone in their corner.
But this conversation goes far beyond Peter’s remarkable personal story. It explores what it really means to care for children who have experienced trauma, loss, and instability—and what foster parents can learn when they look beyond a child’s behavior to understand the experiences underneath it.
In this episode, we discuss:
- From street child to foster dad: Peter’s journey from surviving on the streets of Uganda to becoming a foster parent.
- Learning to trust: How consistent kindness helped Peter understand that not everyone would hurt him.
- Understanding behavior through a trauma-informed lens: Why behaviors like hoarding food may reflect fear and past experiences rather than simple misbehavior.
- When love isn’t returned: The reality of caring for children who may struggle to trust, connect, or accept affection.
- Separating our stories from theirs: How parents can recognize their own triggers and avoid projecting their childhood experiences onto the children they care for.
- Supporting biological families: Why foster care is about more than welcoming a child into your home, and why maintaining respectful connections with a child’s family can matter so much.
- Showing up for the small wins: Why progress doesn’t always look the way we expect—and why consistency matters.
- Building a village: How communities can do more to support children and the families caring for them.
Peter also shares what he would say to the 10-year-old boy he once was—a powerful reminder of the hope that can exist even when the future feels impossible to imagine.
Whether you’re a foster parent, adoptive parent, child welfare professional, advocate, or someone who simply wants to better understand children and the experiences that shape them, this episode offers an opportunity to reflect, learn, and see things differently.
Because every child’s behavior has a story, every child deserves to be seen beyond their hardest moments, and no family should have to do this work alone.
🎧 Listen to From Street Child to Foster Dad with Peter Mutabazi, Season 5, Episode 1 of the Fostering the Future Podcast.
If this conversation resonates with you, share it with a foster parent, caregiver, advocate, or anyone who believes in showing up for children.
Fostering the Future explores foster care, adoption, dependency, and the people and policies shaping child welfare.
