Working With Characters You Didn’t Choose: A conversation with Curt Thompson, MD
Great stories often begin with an unlikely ensemble—imperfect people learning to work together toward something bigger than themselves. That same dynamic plays out in communities working together to better serve children and families in foster care.
Recorded at CAFO 2025, this episode features psychiatrist and author Dr. Curt Thompson in a conversation about collaboration, difference, and formation—and why God seems far more interested in who we are becoming than what we accomplish.
p.s. Join us at the CAFO Summit this year and learn from other speakers like Curt Thompson, MD live!
Resources and Guests
Feature Resource: Until There’s More Than Enough
Until There's More Than Enough
Working Together to Transform Foster Care Where You Live
Through principles and concrete practices of healthy collaboration, you’ll find a path forward to create greater community involvement, build stronger relationships, and get better results for children and families than you could working alone.
Inspired by deep compassion for others and informed from a Christian perspective, psychiatrist Curt Thompson shares fresh insights and practical applications for developing more authentic relationships and fully experiencing our deepest longing: to be known.
With a considerable dose of warmth (and surprising measure of humor), Curt weaves together an understanding of interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB) and a Christian view of what it means to be human — to educate and encourage others as they seek to fulfill their intrinsic desire to feel known, valued and connected. He understands that deep, authentic relationships are essential to experiencing a healthier, more purposeful life — but the only way to realize this is to begin telling our stories more truly.
Curt’s unique insights about how the brain affects and processes relationships help people discover a fresh perspective and practical applications to foster healthy and vibrant lives, allowing them to get unstuck and move toward the next beautiful thing they’re being called to make.
Through his workshops, speaking engagements, books, organizational consulting, private clinical practice and other platforms, he helps people process their longings, grief, identity, purpose, perspective of God and perspective of humanity, inviting them to engage more authentically with their own stories and their relationships. Only then can they can feel truly known and connected and live into the meaningful reality they desire to create.
Curt and his wife, Phyllis, live outside of Washington DC and have two adult children.
Jason Weber | Host
Jason Weber and his wife, Trisha, have been speaking up on behalf of the marginalized for over 25 years. Jason has written and helped to produce several books and other tools, including Farmer Herman and the Flooding Barn, a 2018 ECPA Christian Book Award finalist and Until There’s More Than Enough. Jason has been a regular columnist for Fostering Families Today magazine and is the host of the More Than Enough Podcast, which highlights the work of national foster care advocates. Jason serves with the Christian Alliance for Orphans and helps lead More Than Enough, a collaborative movement facilitated by the CAFO community. Jason and his family live in Plano, Texas.
