In this episode
How to help kids in foster care: A Foster Kids Road To Success
Robert P.K. Mooney, Rob, to his friends, grew up all around Oahu, Hawaii, and throughout Utah. From age six until eighteen, he was a foster kid, changing homes twenty times between Oahu and Utah. How did a foster kid from Hawaii end up in Utah?
After he and his siblings went into state custody, his mother developed cancer and died. Before she passed away, she asked the state of Hawaii to transfer her children to Utah where she had family. And so, on his eighth birthday, he moved to Utah.
As a foster kid three things helped him cope with the trauma of abuse, neglect, death of beloved family members, and the lack of stability inherent to twenty home changes.
- athletics
- music
- his imagination
In each of those, he could leave the pain and loneliness of his life and take his mind and heart to another place. He read books and watched movies to take him away. The Hardy Boys, Tolkien, Goonies, Tim Burton’s Batman, even Disney’s The Little Mermaid, and his own mind and vivid dreams – they all took him to places that kept him safe.
Eventually, he decided that more than anything, he wanted his own family. He tried to become the type of person that an amazing woman would want to be with (that’s still a work in process).
In college, he got married and started a family of his own. He was determined to ensure that his wife and children never had to endure the abuse and neglect that his mother and siblings had to. So, he threw his efforts into providing for them – He got a finance degree, and then a couple of law degrees and became a very successful lawyer.
Robert’s legal career led him to courtrooms across the country and culminated with him serving as the General Counsel for one of the largest pet health and wellness companies in the United States.
For the last three years of his career, he was recognized internationally as one of the world’s leading intellectual property strategists. In 2019, he left the practice of law so that he could spend more time with his young family (with five children ranging in ages from eighteen to newly born) and to write books – inspirational books to help foster kids choose a successful life, and novels to entertain youth and adults.
