General Bio

Rebera Elliott Foston, M.D. MPH.MATS, DMin., an expert on adolescent issues, is one of the finest speakers you will ever hear.  Drawing from the wealth of knowledge she has accumulated while becoming a doctor of medicine, a doctor of ministry, a master of public health, and a master of theological studies, Dr. Foston manages to weave her entire message through her powerful poetry.  She routinely receives standing ovations, and leaves her audiences, young and old alike, inspired through their tears.  Dr. Foston uses all of her gifts to tell of the pain of the children, and how that pain can be treated.  Each time she accepts a speaking engagement, her main goal is to sensitize her audience to the plight of the adolescent.  Through her workshops, her main goal is to teach the participants about the “addiction to hopelessness” that affects so many of our young people. Through her two-day training in Holistic Mentoring, Dr. Foston’s main goal is to train interested adults to become Holistic Mentors who can then work more successfully with teenagers. Through her  consulting work with educational systems entitled HOPE (Holistic Opportunities for a Premier Education), her main goal is to prepare parents, teachers, administrators, and the community to become that village again that can love, raise, and educate a child. To accomplish this, Dr. Foston provides the critical interface between the philosophy of “holistic education” and the philosophy of “holistic mentoring.”  She has been blessed to train the administration and staff of the DC Charter Schools, Muskegon Heights, New Orleans and Poughkeepsie school districts. For twenty five years, Dr. Foston has brokered for teenagers who were medically disenfranchised.  Now as a minister, she brokers primarily for teenagers who are spiritually disenfranchised.

Recently honored for her writing ability at Morehouse, Princeton, Medgar Evers and Howard University, Dr. Foston has received numerous awards for her humanitarian efforts and grant writing.  While serving as the first female Health Commissioner of her city of Gary, Indiana, she conceived and wrote the Healthy Start Initiative, a $7.5 million, four-city effort to reduce infant mortality.  This was one of only fifteen grants approved in the country that year, and for her efforts she was honored in a Rose Garden ceremony with former President Bush.  As a family practitioner, Dr. Foston helped over 16,000 teenagers learn the benefits of preventive health in her Foston Adolescent Care Center for “Teenagers Only.”  While directing the Foston Adolescent Workshop Inc., she helped over 2000 teenagers write and perform three original musicals; fourteen television episodes, a gospel album, and latch hook a twenty-five square yard tapestry that says “Don’t Do Drugs.”

Dr. Foston was the valedictorian of Gary Roosevelt High School in 1966. She was a Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude 1970 graduate of Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, and a 1974 graduate of Meharry Medical College also in Nashville.  In 1981, she received her Master’s degree in Public Health with a concentration in Health Administration, from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. While at UNC- Chapel Hill, she was elected to Delta Omega, the honor society for Public Health.  She completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Michigan State University in East Lansing in 1984.  In that same year she served as chief resident, completed her Family Practice Residency and became Board Certified. In 1999, Dr. Foston simultaneously completed her Masters of Arts of Theological Studies and her Doctor of Ministry from United Theological Seminary, in Dayton Ohio.

Dr. Foston is the author of 23 books, The Conversation, a murder mystery, I-65: A Lonely Road, an autobiography, Peace On Earth, a daily devotional for women, and  twenty published volumes of poetry entitled, “The Collection” and features her most famous poem, “You Don’t Live On My Street”.  She has also recorded You Don’t Live On My Street (Volume I) available on CD and cassette.

Dr. Foston is married to Dr. Will Foston, an emergency physician and artist.  They have two sons. Their older son is a composer, Certified Project Manager and a Computer Systems engineer with his Masters from Howard University. Their younger son is a poet, electrical engineer with an MBA in Finance also from Howard,  a Masters in Urban Planning from New York University and is now a doctoral student in Sociology at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

Preaching Bio

Dr. Foston is a non-denominational evangelist, who answered her call to the ministry in 1996. She attended the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH where she simultaneously received a Masters of Arts of Theological Studies, and a Doctor of Ministry with emphasis in Social Crises Ministry. Her background of thirty five years as a medical doctor with a Masters in Public health helps her as she brokers for the spiritually disenfranchised. She has been blessed to preach in New York, California, Virginia, Kentucky, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, Michigan, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.

Dr. Foston feels her main job in the ministry is to help young people establish their own personal relationship with God. Teenagers are faced with too many difficult decisions to rely on "Grandmama’s Jesus." Adolescents must be encouraged to meet Jesus for themselves and know that Jesus will walk with them through any circumstance.  She has been called to minister to the 35,000,000 teenagers who have never set foot in a church. Her Christian message of hope is simply that God is Love, and Jesus died so that we could be made whole.

She has constructed a Theology of Adolescence, and conducts the Foston Institute, a training program for Holistic Mentoring. Traveling both nationally and internationally, Dr Foston trains adults how to minister more effectively to young people. Holistic Mentoring requires that the mentor be more whole than the mentee. She has conducted her workshop in over 150 cities.

When she is not preaching, or training, Dr Foston is involved in her ministry of poetry. It allows her to interact with young people both nationally and internationally.  She has been blessed to visit numerous schools, colleges, prisons, domestic violence shelters, and youth groups all around the country.  She has appeared on BET and numerous cable stations. Her most famous poem to date is entitled, “You Don’t Live On My Street.” Dr. Foston has published twenty books of poetry, and an inspirational journal entitled Peace on Earth.  She has also published two novels, I-65: A Lonely Road , an autobiography, and The Conversation, a murder mystery. She has completed four more manuscripts entitled, The Early, The Middle and The late Adolescent and Holistic Mentoring.

Greek Bio

Dr. Foston  is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.  She was initiated in 1967 in the Alpha Beta Chapter at Fisk University.  She is the immediate past president of the Clarksville Alumnae Chapter, Clarksville, TN, and chairs the Health Committee for the Southern Regional Leadership Team. She has been invited to speak at the National Delta Sigma Theta Conventions in 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and in 2004 she was a featured author in the Literary Café.  Dr. Foston has been the Founders Day Speaker for the Kentucky State Founders Day and the following alumnae chapters, New Orleans, Toledo, North Charleston, Jacksonville, FL, Clarksville, and Dayton, OH.  She has been the featured artist for Arts & Letters programs for Moss Point (MS), Muskegon Hgts, Chattanooga, Prince Georges County, Mid Hudson Valley, and Gary. She has worked with the Teen Lifts or Delta Academy for Mid-Hudson Valley, Bronx, Brooklyn, Prince Georges County, Moss Point, Nashville and Clarksville, and in 2000 Dr. Foston conducted workshops for the National Delta Academy participants and their chaperones. Dr. Foston is currently a poet/evangelist and resides in Clarksville, TN with her husband, Will. She has published  two novels, The Conversation, a murder mystery, I-65: A Lonely Road,  an autobiography, Peace on Earth, an inspirational journal, and The Collection, a twenty volume set of poetry. Her most famous poem is “You Don’t Live On My Street.”

Performance Bio

As a poet and spoken word artist, Dr. Foston’s poetry is powerful and riveting.  At one of her recent readings in New York, a recovering cocaine addict admitted that she gets the same rush from reading Dr. Foston’s poetry that she used to get from cocaine.  Each of Dr. Foston’s poems tell a story, but her poetry recitals weave her message into an even bigger story. Dr. Foston has performed on BET, and cable markets in New York and Chicago.  When her poem “You Don’t Live On My Street” was played on a radio show in Washington, DC, it was the most requested “song” of the day. When she appeared on a radio show in Nassau, Bahamas, her readings were so moving they snarled traffic on several islands.

Dr. Foston has performed at national conventions for the National Urban League, National Medical Association, Student National Medical Association, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Black Woman Sisterhood in Action, The National Girls Caucus, National Council of School Health Social Workers, National Association of Addictionologists, National Black Woman’s Health Project and the National Urban Coalition. She has also performed for Head Start Region I, the Ohio Conference for Minorty health, the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and the New York State Department of Alcohol and Drug Prevention. She has performed at the Spring Arts Festivals for Howard and Fisk University. Dr. Foston has also performed at Morehouse, Princeton, Medgar Evers, Spelman, Wilberforce, Indiana University, Austin Peay, University of Southern California, Tennessee State, Purdue, Indiana State, Illinois State, Georgia Tech, University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff, University of Chicago. Marist, SUNY at New Paltz, Catholic University, and Earlham College.

When she is not performing, Dr. Foston is preaching, or training. She has been blessed to train the  administration and staff of the DC Charter Schools, Muskegon Heights and  Poughkeepsie school districts.  Her most famous poem to date is entitled, “You Don’t Live On My Street.” Dr. Foston has published twenty books of poetry, and an inspirational journal entitled Peace on Earth.  She has also published two novels, I-65: A Lonely Road, an autobiography, and The Conversation, a murder mystery. She has completed four more manuscripts entitled, The Early, The Middle and The late Adolescent and Holistic Mentoring.

Awards and Honors

While serving as the first female Health Commissioner of her city of Gary, Indiana, Dr. Foston conceived and wrote the Healthy Start Initiative, a $7.5 million, four-city effort to reduce infant mortality.  This was one of only fifteen grants approved in the country that year, and for her efforts she was honored in a Rose Garden ceremony with former President Bush.  Dr. Foston has also served as a consultant to the National Office of Juvenile Delinquency Prevention.

Dr. Foston was valedictorian of her high school class and graduated Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Fisk University. She is also a member of Beta Kappa Chi, a scientific honor society and Delta Omega, the honor society for Public Health.  In past years she has been named the Alumni of the year, for Fisk University, and Alumni Magazine. Dr. Foston has also been named “Woman of the Year” by local chapters of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Sigma Gamma Rho, and Phi Beta Sigma. In 1991 Omega Psi Phi named her their local and regional Woman of the Year. She received the Black Achiever award in Literature from Howard University, and Princeton. Dr. Foston has twice been named the distinguished lecturer at Medgar Evers University, and they continue to air her performances on their cable channel for years after.