"Giving Children a Healing Start in Foster Care"

Tracy Rubstello - Director of Development

Bridge Receiving Center Tracy ‘s presentation will look at how the current foster care system is taking already traumatized children and further exacerbating their trauma by how they are being treated. She will then share how Bridge Receiving Center is a revolutionary approach to how children can be brought into the foster care system with trauma responsive care that puts them and their unique needs first. The Bridge Receiving Center model is one that we hope will become the standard for care not only across Washington State but across the whole US. You will also find out about the second Bridge Center they are in the process of creating – a center for older teens who have been in care for a while but not found any permanency.

About the Speaker

Tracy majored in Communications with an emphasis on Advertising at the University of Washington and has a long history of nonprofit work. She started and ran her own nonprofit that worked in Rwanda post-genocide in helping to establish healing and reconciliation as well as poverty reduction programs. Tracy’s strengths focus on helping to cast a vision for new ways to impact the world for good, create a community or support around those visions, and sharing hurting people’s stories in ways that honor as well as help them. In her free time, Tracy enjoys taking walks – especially in the woods, reading books – especially children’s books, and spending time with her family that includes her husband, two grown children, one son-in-law and a grandson.