Filmmkaer Kathryn Hunt is interested in telling the stories of people on the margins. In this piece for Crosscut, Hunt writes that the people in her films "were tangled up with three social institutions that rarely touch the lucky rest of us: foster care, criminal justice (courts and prisons), and what we used to call [...]
Actor, playwright and composer Patrick Burns brings his personal story of resilience and tragedy to the stage. In "From Foster Care to Fabulous" Burns brings the audience along with him through four foster families he lived with as a teenager. You can watch a trailer for his show below: Learn more about Patrick Burns on [...]
With the start of a new school year, there are many times when adopted children may be faced with challenges. These challenges may be everything from dealing with assignments such as creating a family tree, or bringing in a baby picture to class, or science projects that involve assumed biological-relatedness (see here for an example). [...]
[Uncredited photo from Governing Magazine] On August 13, 2013, Jonathan Walters looks at the myths and challenges of kinship care for children in the child welfare system for Governing magazine. In Agencies Taking a Second Look at Kinship Care, Walters relates a commonly uttered phrase when caseworkers hesitate to place children with relatives, "The apple [...]
Foster Focus Magazine is currently featuring a photo and short descriptive gallery of former foster alum's thoughts about what how it felt to be in foster care. Foster Focus Magazine is the only monthly magazine that is solely focused on the issues around foster care. Owner and Editor Chris Chmielewski, himself a former foster alum, [...]
Writer Cris Beam's new book, "To The End of June: Stories from Foster Care" offers in-depth stories of foster children and foster parents. Beam, a foster parent, spent several years with foster families, social workers, former foster children and other professionals who work with foster children. In an interview with Publisher's Weekly, Beam states, We [...]
Regina Calcaterra spent time in foster care, and in 1980, emanicipated herself at the age of 14. In her book, "Etched in Sand," Calcaterra describes her chlidhood of abuse and neglect and advocates for adoption, not aging out of foster care. In an interview with Caroline Linton for Women in the World, Calcaterra shares, Now [...]
KLEW-TV in Washington state created a three part series on foster care. The series starts with a personal story of one youth's experience bouncing around foster care and eventual stay in a residential facility. In Part 2 Melissa shares how she ended up in the system as a foster child, and the broken promises foster [...]