Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Work continues
Ann and I have scheduled to re-shoot her interview in response to the interviews we shot together week before last. I suggested that we re-shoot her interview so that she could enter into a dialog with the interviewees on camera to clarify how what they say is related to her own story.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Be your own best advocate
We had three very interesting conversations with Tamara Grigsby, Lance Jones, and Jonathan Boyd.
Tamara Girsby is a State Representative for Wisconsin's 18th Assembly District. Her interest in Foster Care comes out of her service on the State legislature's Special Committee on Strengthening Wisconsin Families, and she is the Chairperson of the Committee on Children and Families.
Ms. Grisby brought a fresh and honest attitude to our interview on Friday. She had car trouble before reaching us, and yet did not call to cancel our interview in the midst of her busy schedule. I was very taken with her lack of campaign-style rhetoric in her interview, and her overall genuine demeanor. I found myself wishing I lived one street further east so that she was my representative.
Jonathan Boyd is the President of the State Youth Advisory Council (Their web site is currently under construction, but will be available soon at wi-yac.org) and was in the Foster Care system from "birth to eighteen." Mr. Boyd offered a lot of experience to the interview, and echoed his testimony from his appearance before the Committee on Children and Families:
"... foster children should begin to develop skills for independent living when they are 11 years old so that they are more organized and comfortable when they need to live on their own... these skills include budgeting, employment, identifying funding options for education, and taking care of one’s health... foster parent training should teach foster parents to view themselves as parents, not just paid caretakers. "
Lance Jones is the CASA Program Manager at Kids Matter. Lance was very candid with us, although he was a bit more testimonial in character than conversational (Ann and I made note of his more lawyerly style of answering interview questions) . He brought a lot of experience and a very honest and fair viewpoint to our discussion of the state of Foster Care in Wisconsin.
In trying to come up with the singular message these three interconnected people had, it would be this, in regards to aging out, Foster Parents need to be parents more and earlier. Foster parents need to be taught to prepare children for aging out beginning in the early teens and encouraging them to develop skills that will take them indepently into further education and training as independent young adults.
In this discussion of the State in relation to Foster Care, all three of our interviewees agreed that foster children need support in coming to the most important conclusion: foster children need to know and believe that they can be their own best advocate.
and Ann knows this...
Ms. Grisby brought a fresh and honest attitude to our interview on Friday. She had car trouble before reaching us, and yet did not call to cancel our interview in the midst of her busy schedule. I was very taken with her lack of campaign-style rhetoric in her interview, and her overall genuine demeanor. I found myself wishing I lived one street further east so that she was my representative.
Jonathan Boyd is the President of the State Youth Advisory Council (Their web site is currently under construction, but will be available soon at wi-yac.org) and was in the Foster Care system from "birth to eighteen." Mr. Boyd offered a lot of experience to the interview, and echoed his testimony from his appearance before the Committee on Children and Families:
"... foster children should begin to develop skills for independent living when they are 11 years old so that they are more organized and comfortable when they need to live on their own... these skills include budgeting, employment, identifying funding options for education, and taking care of one’s health... foster parent training should teach foster parents to view themselves as parents, not just paid caretakers. "
Lance Jones is the CASA Program Manager at Kids Matter. Lance was very candid with us, although he was a bit more testimonial in character than conversational (Ann and I made note of his more lawyerly style of answering interview questions) . He brought a lot of experience and a very honest and fair viewpoint to our discussion of the state of Foster Care in Wisconsin.
In trying to come up with the singular message these three interconnected people had, it would be this, in regards to aging out, Foster Parents need to be parents more and earlier. Foster parents need to be taught to prepare children for aging out beginning in the early teens and encouraging them to develop skills that will take them indepently into further education and training as independent young adults.
In this discussion of the State in relation to Foster Care, all three of our interviewees agreed that foster children need support in coming to the most important conclusion: foster children need to know and believe that they can be their own best advocate.
and Ann knows this...
Friday, April 17, 2009
Mobile Post from Jonathan Boyd interview.
Yesterday's interview with Jonathan Boyd went very well. He was a very good speaker. Ann also stepped right up during the shoot and took the lead several times.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Bumps and encouragement
Ann and I have been scheduled for three interviews on the 16th and 17th of April. Thanks to Kids Matter. They arranged some very pointed interviews. Ann and I have developed some questions from our frequent meetings, and the plan is to shoot and edit these interviews together.
That's the good news.
On the bad news side, Ann received a rejection letter from her first choice for college. She enlisted me in her appeal process, asking if we could shoot an appeal video.
It turned out to be a good lesson in planning a shoot. Of course, it is always possible to have a lucky shoot, where things work right and everything looks good and your idea executes on video just the way you envisioned it. Luck was not with us though, and the video did not meet the deadline, because neither of us had a real plan. We hadn't had the time.
It did turn out to be a good opportunity to talk about different strategies for making it to your school of choice, and for me to relate other success stories I knew that had similarities. I was surprised to find that Ann didn't know that there we alternatives, and that this first rejection and late appeal was not the end for her. As I said in the first post, it's as simple as saying no one ever thought to help her in this way. Along with that, Ann has a good deal of independence and is hesitant to ask for help as a foster child.
That's the good news.
On the bad news side, Ann received a rejection letter from her first choice for college. She enlisted me in her appeal process, asking if we could shoot an appeal video.
It turned out to be a good lesson in planning a shoot. Of course, it is always possible to have a lucky shoot, where things work right and everything looks good and your idea executes on video just the way you envisioned it. Luck was not with us though, and the video did not meet the deadline, because neither of us had a real plan. We hadn't had the time.
It did turn out to be a good opportunity to talk about different strategies for making it to your school of choice, and for me to relate other success stories I knew that had similarities. I was surprised to find that Ann didn't know that there we alternatives, and that this first rejection and late appeal was not the end for her. As I said in the first post, it's as simple as saying no one ever thought to help her in this way. Along with that, Ann has a good deal of independence and is hesitant to ask for help as a foster child.
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