Dr. David and Jayne Schooler began their journey into the world of foster care and adoption in 1978, with a simple question presented by a student in their church. “Would you become my foster parents?” he asked. They answered “yes,” and began a new path in working with children and youth.
Later, in 1983, the couple fostered and later adopted their son Ray at age 16, while also raising their birth daughter Kristy. The couple realized that raising children through fostering and adoption would require them to try different approaches. Jayne shared, “We didn’t know what we didn’t know. We needed to learn new ways of parenting when we started fostering children.” After years of accumulating personal and professional experience in the fields of counseling and social work, the couple began working together to inform, support and train adoptive and foster parents.
Today, Jayne holds a master’s degree in Life Issues Counseling and is a national and international trainer in the field of adoption and foster care. She has been a featured speaker at numerous state, national and international conferences and trains regularly for the Ohio Child Welfare Training Program. She is the recipient of a number of state and national awards for her work. Jayne is the author/co-author of seven books in field of child welfare including her newest: Wounded Children, Healing Homes: How Traumatized Children Impact Adoptive and Foster Parents. Recently, two of her books have been translated into Russian and Polish.
David has served in the pastoral and counseling ministry for over 40 years. He served as a senior pastor in churches in both Missouri and Ohio and currently serves on a part-time basis for four local churches as a staff counselor. Much of his current focus is on working with adults who have a lifetime impact of early childhood trauma.
Jayne’s international work has taken both her and her husband, David, to a number of countries including Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, Romania, Poland, Mexico and Haiti. Both David and Jayne are recognized nationally and internationally as speakers/trainers in the field of adoption and foster care, partnering with LAMb International and Orphan’s Promise.
In January 2015, David and Jayne joined the staff of Back2Back Ministries. Among their responsibilities, the Schoolers will travel to each ministry site delivering comprehensive training on caring for traumatized children. The research-based principles and strategies will be taught and integrated at each site to establish continuity in the delivery of care across each home in partnership with Back2Back.
The Schoolers will also be working to deepen Back2Back’s 5-Point Child Development Plan to ensure each area of development incorporates issues related to trauma and loss. Follow-up training and program evaluation will also occur after the initial implementation phase is completed. Additionally, Dr. David Schooler will utilize his counseling background to provide care for Back2Back staff serving at each ministry site. We look forward to sharing more about their impact on the lives of the children we serve.