Doors don’t open on their own in the world of foster care. Someone has to open them. Or in the case of Misty Stenslie, someone has to take the door off the hinges.
I’ve been called upon to travel to Minnesota to hear the life lessons of someone who spent her life in service of foster kids and alumni of the system.
Misty Stenslie was born in North Dakota, the second of five. A tumultuous family led to a tumultuous family life. In addition to her four immediate siblings, she also fought for attention among her Uncle’s five children who all stayed in the same home. Home shifted frequently. “We’d move several times a year. Sometimes it was to change schools and sometimes it was to stay ahead of the area social workers”, says Stenslie, “I’d be in and out of care my whole life.”
“As a toddler they’d take me away for living in a dirty house and reasons like that. Later they’d take me because reunification wouldn’t work and then I started to run.” She recalls that in her early teens, those around her decided that she was the problem. “By the time I was 14 I’d been back and forth from home to care with a lot of police incidents dotting my record along the way. We tried to have me home one last time and I was in Juvenile Probation by the end of that two-week experiment. It was the last time I was home.”
Salvation was found in the many schools she would attend. “School saved my life. I was great at school. That was my constant. If everything was falling apart…I could keep it together at school. I’d have 40 truancies and a dozen absences and still be on the Honor Roll.” This thirst for knowledge and ability to excel in school would be an unseen compass that would move her through life.
After an estimated 29 placements and 8 states, Misty found herself in the home of a Casey Family Programs family by the name of Jim and Norma Stenslie. “I was at the State Industrial school in North Dakota, the Stenslies were my foster parents. Jim was the first person who ever saw me. I’d been this invisible little thing that no one knew what to do with and all of a sudden, this man talked to me and listened to me and I wasn’t invisible anymore.” Jim Stenslie was the school Chaplin, his wife, the head of the Music department. They began the task of easing a wounded young girl, prone to running, into their family.
As the family began to gel, Misty’s unbelievable intellect became evident. “College was a word I’d never heard before I moved into that house. It was an option I didn’t even know I had. But they had met in college. Their kids went to that same college. So I went to Concordia too. And though it wasn’t a great fit for me, I finished.” Rather than aging out to nothing, Misty (now) Stenslie used her impressive brain to gain a degree. Next was being the youngest person to be admitted to the prestigious University of Minnesota School of Social Work to gain her Master’s Degree in social work.
“I knew I’d end up in social work. Any honorable person I’d met in my life had been in social work.”
As a graduate, she went to work for an agency named PATH where she would meet her best friend, Connie Connors and foster three kids of her own, Chris, Sean and Tomikia, while taking what she’d learned and applying it to her new career.
In 2000, Misty was selected as the Director of Alumni Relations with Casey Family Programs, it is this time in Seattle that would lead her to change thousands of lives.
Alumni of care, those who have been in care, had been woefully represented around the country when Misty moved to Seattle. There was still a stigma attached to those who had been in care, a stigma that Stenslie would work to eliminate.
Her time at Casey Family was well spent. In 2001 the Better Together Curriculum and Strategic Sharing were launched. Next in 2002, she gathered alumni for a convening to get feedback on a foster care alumni study. That convening would lead to a group called National Alumni Network (NAN). Misty would end her tenure with Casey to return to work at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work, while continuing her work with NAN.
Always the most likable and most vocal advocate in any room, Misty and NAN would leave the umbrella of Casey Family Programs to become an independent group named Foster Care Alumni of America with a significant contribution from Casey to get started. She was voted FCAA’s first Deputy Director and in 2004, FCAA would begin to make noise in the world of foster care. Misty would make it clear that alumni of care deserved a spot at the table when decisions were being made about the state of foster care.
“That first group, we all just wanted to change the world. We worked so hard with what we had. I think a lot of good came from it. The Postcard Project came and a lot of what we would do for the next several years came from that first core group. We’re all still very close.” The Postcard Project would prove to be one of the more successful projects from FCAA. Postcards written by alumni about their time in care. Cards that read: “This is what I would have looked like if anyone had bothered to take my picture as a kid” and others showed the public the impact care can have on kids. “That Postcard Project was so dear to me. I created a lot of them. There was a very nice tribute to me in 2011 when they published it as a book, there are some nice words about me in the beginning of that book.”
Through Misty’s persistence Chapters were created. Each Chapter representing a state. By 2006 Chapters from Washington, Arizona, California, Idaho, Michigan, Florida and Ohio would all convene in Seattle for a Chapter Summit. Those chapters would continue to grow in the next decade to an impressive count of 19 Chapters.
2007 brought about even more impressive work from FCAA and Misty with a Thanksgiving Dinner of alumni at the Capital. Organized by Misty, it announced FCAA’s place in D.C. She’d also take the position of liaison to the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Foster Care.
“That Thanksgiving Dinner was such a great time. We all came together in the place where all the foster care decisions were being made. The government raised us, seemed right to have dinner at home.”
She’d spend 2008 organizing alumni reunions, doing the work of FCAA and even testified before Congress on the overuse of psychotropic medication for children in foster care. That testimony would help reshape the way lawmakers looked at prescriptions for kids in care.
In 2009 the Flux: Life After Foster Care book, co-written by Stenslie was published with a grant from the Anders Family Fund. “That was baby. I spent years on working on that.” A year later a training curriculum that would be utilized all of the country was launched, ensuring Stenslie’s legacy.
It would also be a year later that her meteoric ascent as an advocate would come to an end.
In the winter of 2010, due to give a speech in a few hours, Misty found herself in a health crisis. “I couldn’t read or comprehend what I had written. I was nauseas, sweating, I couldn’t form words. They rushed me to the hospital.” It was in the hospital that the seriousness of her health issues came to light. “It was fast. I was trying to fill out the paperwork and they took my blood pressure. Before I could get out my insurance card they told me my blood pressure was 270/170. I was in real trouble.”
Misty Stenslie was diagnosed with Lyme Disease. That Lyme Disease would lead to early onset Alzheimer’s and a once brilliant mind began to fade.
As I sit in a Minnesota restaurant with her, the disease that has ravaged her for the last 6 years is making its’ final stand. Her eyes are occasionally vacant and she’s having trouble remembering all the things she wants people to know about her work. Her best friend Connie is with us. She’s trying to keep Misty’s mind on track and attempting to aid her with her answers. It’s been this way for a while now. When Misty’s husband, Jay, is away at work, Misty stays with Connie so she has help if she needs it. The two friends are giggly and weepy as we walk through Misty’s life.
Connie tells me, “she’s never felt bad for herself or talked bad about anyone. She gives people hope. She’s made me a better person.”
In her moments of clarity, Misty is head and shoulders above me in intelligence. It wants to come out. I can see the once brilliant mind fighting to make it out. But it’s a fight it can’t win. Misty tries to explain to me exactly what’s happening. “It comes and goes. But Alzheimer’s makes you relive your life backwards. It’s almost time for my childhood…I can’t do that again.”
In advance of her death on April 30th, friends and colleagues took to social media for a weekend of memory sharing, celebration and admiration for this “Shero” as she was referred to several times. Thousands of messages of happy times, thoughtful times, emotional times and times when her work impacted change were shared by hundreds of people she had mentored or worked with.
With Misty holding on to bear witness of this shower of love, friends created an outpouring of love that has slowed very little in the month that has followed. Never have I seen a person more loved in the world of foster care. Her impact on the people of foster care can only be rivaled by the work her impact has had on care itself.
Before leaving the restaurant, I felt it was my duty to reiterate just how much she’d done for foster care and alumni. Her response? “Oh was it? That’s nice.” That wasn’t the disease unable to grasp what I was saying, she genuinely didn’t know how much she’d done.
“I guess there’s a vain piece of my heart that takes responsibility for some of the current leaders because I trained most of them when they first got involved but they’ve become my friends and you don’t think about that sort of thing when it comes to your friends.”
Modesty aside, Misty Stenslie is the reason so many people from care find themselves in positions of influence. She was a true pioneer in the world of foster care. She kicked down doors so that people like me could go forth with confidence that their voice would be heard. Policymakers, heads of agencies, government officials, nonprofit leaders and this magazine Editor have all studied at the feet of Misty Stenslie and we will all continue the work she began.
Owner/Editor - Chris Chmielewski