Home / Blog / 2026 / Nursing Program Alumna: One Decade, 50 Children, and a Commitment to Foster Care

Making Room for a Calling: One Decade and 50 Children

How an Anderson University nursing alumna followed her faith into foster care after her OrR Fellowship

“They walked home to an empty house. There were no parents there. There was no dinner. Her sister went to make some cereal,” recalled Anderson University nursing alumna Sarah Michaels ’15. “And that was her birthday.”

It was an immediate burden on Michaels’s heart that day as she faced the reality that a childhood birthday was nothing short of a normal school day for her Little Buddy, a first-grade girl with whom the nursing student was paired once a week for a campus ministries’ after-school mentorship program at Park Place Church of God.

Although Michaels had set out that afternoon with the sole intention of walking the Little Buddy and her fifth-grade sister to their home, which was just a stone’s throw from Anderson University’s campus, leaving the two of them there alone on what should have been a celebratory day didn’t sit well with her.

After receiving permission from the girls’ parent, Michaels did what she could to make a memory for the birthday girl and her sister—she took them to AU’s all-you-can-eat campus dining area, the Marketplace, for a warm meal.

“Those two girls thought it was the coolest experience ever, and she's like, ‘This is the best birthday ever,’” recounted Michaels. “... I think it (was) there (that) I really saw there's this need all around us.

Sarah Michaels ’15

Chief Clinical Officer at Kinetiq Health

“Those two girls thought it was the coolest experience ever, and she’s like, ‘This is the best birthday ever,’” recounted Michaels. “… I think it [was] there [that] I really saw there’s this need all around us. This was literally a home [within] walking distance to campus, and yet those girls were going home and had no one to go home to and no food on the table.”

That ever-present, palpable sense of need is something that would remain on Michaels’s heart, even as she rounded out her college experience. Though she didn’t know it at the time, God had a plan to bring that passion to the forefront of Michaels’s life in an astounding way just a few years later, but not before taking a leap of faith that would shape her career.

Although a junior-year summer internship focusing on youth psychiatric care had set Michaels up nicely with a post-graduation job offer from the University of Iowa Children’s Hospital, she felt called to a far less traditional route—one no nursing student had tread before.

AU’s Center for Public Service introduced Michaels to the Orr Fellowship, a two-year post-undergraduate fellowship in Indianapolis designed to mentor and prepare future business leaders and entrepreneurs as they transition out of college.

“That was super intriguing to me because I always wanted to take a business class, I always wanted to do more, but I couldn’t because of my clinicals,” said Michaels. “… I applied thinking there’s no way they’re gonna take a nursing student in this prestigious business fellowship, and I kept making it through another round, another round, until I was actually selected.”

Michaels remains the only Registered Nurse to go through the Orr Fellowship.

“When I finished that fellowship, it was the same time that Riley (Children’s Hospital) was looking to move their inpatient psych unit from (IU Health) Methodist (Hospital) over to Riley. … So I was one of the very first nurses hired to be able to help move that unit over, create a curriculum, and actually start from scratch 10 years ago,” said Michaels.

It was there at Riley Children’s Hospital that Michaels again felt the tug of a calling. As a pediatric nurse, she saw realities some can hardly stomach the notion of: abuse, neglect, and, as she would come to witness time and again, children waiting and forgotten in the gaps of the system.

Michaels described the inpatient psychiatric unit as a holding ground for teenagers under the care of the Department of Child Services—teens who did not need to be at the hospital any longer, but for weeks would remain there with nowhere else to go as they awaited an opening at a residential facility, group home, or youth shelter.

“That broke my heart because these were incredible kids, but because they had a mental illness, even as simple as depression or anxiety, none of the foster homes wanted to give these kids a chance,” said Michaels

Sarah Michaels ’15

Chief Clinical Officer at Kinetiq Health

“That broke my heart because these were incredible kids, but because they had a mental illness, even as simple as depression or anxiety, none of the foster homes wanted to give these kids a chance,” said Michaels. “… They just looked at the label, and so when you get to know the kids beyond that label, I wanted to do more.”

Twenty-three-year-old Michaels approached her manager with that desire in her heart and an extra room in her home, and she advised her to take the next step: get licensed and become a foster parent.

“I was licensed within 45 days,” said Michaels.

Since that day nine years ago, Michaels has welcomed more than 50 children into her home, many of whom have been teenagers, including six teenage girls she fostered at the same time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At first, Michaels now admits she was naive, imagining that she would be keeping each foster child for a few weeks at a time. Now, with almost a decade of experience under her belt, Michaels estimates it’s more like 15 months that she gets to house each juvenile who walks in her door.

During the time she has each child, she enjoys getting to provide them with new experiences and opportunities, like visits to Disney World for some, as well as shorter trips to her hometown of Chicago.

“A lot of kids have never left the state of Indiana. … They’ve never seen a city, and you just watch their eyes just absolutely light up and have motivation of like, ‘I wanna work here one day. I wanna live here.’ And so I think just giving kids opportunities is what I love the most—creating as many opportunities as I can every season has always just been my goal for foster care.”

Throughout her fostering journey, Michaels has developed a particular heart for teenage mothers, of whom she’s been able to foster nearly a dozen.

“I saw that a lot of times in the foster care system, those teenagers were actually separated from their youth, … because there was not a home willing to take both. Most homes only want babies or only want teenagers; they won’t take both,” said Michaels. “… When those teen moms were in my home, we had a 100% success rate at keeping mom and baby together, and to me that’s the greatest story you could tell of when you can just teach these young parents how to parent and … change that cycle.”

Michaels views foster care as a ministry, not just for the children, but also for their families; she supports and encourages parents, rides through the highs and lows alongside them, and helps ensure they’re getting the services they need, as she does with their child.

“I think DCS would say I have a really high rate of successfully reunifying families, which I take a lot of pride and joy in,” said Michaels.

What started as a single open room has become a life defined by showing up—again and again—for children who need stability, advocacy, and a place to belong.

“This is all a God thing because I could never do this on my own, especially as a single parent, but the way God has just guided my career has given me the opportunities in my professional world to then be able to give back to the youth in the ways I have,” said Michaels.

While taking on the role of foster parent, Michaels has transitioned from full-time hands-on nursing to the corporate world, for which the Orr Fellowship had well prepared her. Her rise through the ranks at Apex Benefits, Indiana’s top employee benefits advisory firm—from contributor to manager to director to vice president—recently culminated in Michaels being named Chief Clinical Officer at Kinetiq Health, a former subsidiary of Apex Benefits.

In March, Michaels experienced the highlight of her career thus far—speaking at the New York Stock Exchange.

“I do this work for my kids. I work hard every day to show them the life that they can build for themselves and cycles that they can break, and how they can do this on their own.”

Sarah Michaels ’15

Chief Clinical Officer at Kinetiq Health

“My career has taken off, and I think a lot of that has to do with fostering because you become so good at balancing your life. You become so good at understanding where your priorities are,” said Michaels. “… I do this work for my kids. I work hard every day to show them the life that they can build for themselves and cycles that they can break, and how they can do this on their own.”

Written by Jacey Crawford Williams ’21 with m dash media.