Called to Help: The Many Paths to Building and Supporting Families with Katy Encalade

Called to Help: The Many Paths to Building and Supporting Families with Katy Encalade

From Fostering Change by Rob Scheer

April 14, 2026 · 13 min · Season 7 · Episode 31

About this episode

Katy Encalade discusses her extensive experience in fostering, surrogacy, and egg donation, highlighting various ways to support families and children.

On this episode of Fostering Change, Rob Scheer is joined by Katy Encalade, President and CEO of Egg Donor & Surrogate Solutions, who has spent more than two decades helping to create and support families. Katy brings a unique and deeply personal perspective to this conversation. She has been a foster parent, an egg donor, and a surrogate — offering a rare view across multiple paths of supporting children and building families. Her experience as a foster mom serves as a meaningful bridge, grounding this conversation in the realities of child welfare while expanding the lens to include other ways people can step in to help. While Fostering Change often focuses on foster care, adoption, and permanency, this episode broadens that perspective. Katy encourages listeners to consider that there are many ways to support children and families — whether by opening your home, helping someone become a parent by choosing to be a surrogate or egg donor, or finding other ways to show up with compassion and responsibility. Episode Highlights How foster care, surrogacy, and egg donation connect through a shared purpose of supporting children and families The importance of lived experience…

People in this episode

Host: Rob Scheer

Guest: Katy Encalade

Topics covered

  • foster care
  • surrogacy
  • egg donation
  • family support
  • child welfare
  • building families

Keywords

  • foster parenting
  • family building
  • child support
  • ethics in surrogacy
  • compassionate care

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Egg Donor & Surrogate Solutions

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