Author.
Speaker.
Foster Care
Advocate.
One Story Can Open Hearts. One Community Can Change a Child’s Life
ABOUT
Linda Summerford brings a deeply personal perspective to foster care—shaped by her own childhood experience in foster care and adoption and strengthened by years of advocacy.
Through heartfelt storytelling and practical encouragement, Linda helps churches, organizations, and communities understand the needs of children and foster families—and discover meaningful ways they can become part of the solution.
Everyone Can Do Something.
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You Don't Have to Foster to Make a Difference.
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What Can You Do?
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Everyone Can Do Something. · You Don't Have to Foster to Make a Difference. · What Can You Do? ·
Linda’s Speaking Topics
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Linda's Story: From Foster Child to Advocate. A Story of Brokenness, Redemption, and Hope
Linda shares her journey through foster care, separation from her siblings, adoption, and the discoveries that eventually inspired The Glider—a story that reveals both the lasting impact of foster care and the difference loving, committed adults can make.
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Wraparound Support: Simple Ways Individuals Can Make a Difference
You don’t have to become a foster parent or be part of an organized ministry to make a meaningful difference. Linda shares practical, everyday ways individuals can come alongside foster, adoptive, and kinship families through encouragement, meals, respite, prayer, friendship, and simply showing up when support is needed most.
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Why Foster Care Reform Matters
Drawing from lived experience and years of advocacy, Linda encourages audiences to look honestly at the challenges within child welfare while focusing on constructive change, accountability, advocacy, and hope. She challenges listeners to move beyond simply recognizing the problems and consider how they can become part of the solution. Through greater awareness, compassion, and a willingness to take action, each of us can help create better outcomes for children and families.
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Wraparound Support: Helping Churches and Community Groups Build a Network of Care
You don't need a large foster-care ministry to begin. You need willing people.
Whether your organization is just beginning the conversation or already supports foster and adoptive families, Linda helps audiences recognize needs, discover opportunities, and identify practical next steps.
A PERSPECTIVE SHAPED BY EXPERIENCE.
She doesn't just speak about foster care. She lived it.
Linda entered foster care as a young child and was eventually adopted with her younger sister. Years later, she discovered that they had been separated from an older brother and sister.
Her search for answers became the story behind her award-winning memoir, The Glider. Linda later spent decades in the legal field and served on the Lexington County Foster Care Review Board by gubernatorial appointment.
Today, she uses her story to help others consider not only what happened—but what can happen next.
INVITE LINDA TO SPEAK
Let's Start a Conversation That Can Lead to Action.
Linda is available to speak to churches, women's ministries, foster and adoption organizations, conferences, nonprofits, civic and community groups, colleges, and other organizations seeking to make a difference in foster care.
Planning an event? Linda would love to hear from you.
Travel Information
Linda is grateful for opportunities to share her story and message with churches, organizations, and communities. For speaking engagements requiring travel, the hosting organization is asked to provide or reimburse reasonable travel expenses, meals, and lodging when needed.