Artist's Statement

Overall, as artists it is important that we speak for those who are unspoken for, and in doing so speak for ourselves. Approaching the Foster Care System in this manner not only connected my own experience to the people I hoped to lend my expression to, but resulted in a personal exploration that allowed me to connect other lives to mine. In many ways, the system is unspoken for, directly as less than well understood, and indirectly as the focus of many unjust assumptions. With this project, my partner and I hoped to raise a small bit of awareness about the challenges faced by her as she ages out of care. It also allowed us both to reflect on our paths up to this point, and where those paths lead into the future.

This process, a creative process, allowed us to lend our voice to those in and involved with the system. In the words of the interviewees, this process allows the system to be it's own "best advocate."

This project's research is based on a series of 4 interviews conducted as a team: Myself, Ann (my partner, just about to leave the system and head to college, and Megan Bruzan of Kids Matter, Inc.).

Filmmaking is a collaborative process when at its best- pulling resources from life itself and distilling them into a specific and directed consciousness. Doing this allows us to explore complex topics in a concentrated form. This kind of collaboration in combination with community involvement is exactly the purpose of creating a project like this.

The research for this project was conducted almost entirely by personal investigation with and "Ann", a 17-year old young woman who was preparing to age out of the system. With Ann and Megan, I conducted 2 hours of conversational interviews and met with Ann and Megan on an almost weekly basis to discuss how we might create a film covering issues related to Ann situation.

In the end, this project is not quite what I had envisioned, and I believe it is not quite what Lisa or Megan may have either. However, Ann definitely received an experience in real world independent film making, and did approach the telling of her own story, which is at the heart of all good film making, at least in my opinion, and I think in the opinion of the Film Department of UW-Milwaukee. I repeated a lot of the best of my experience that I gained traveling and making films abroad, and was able to at least partially apply that in this research.

This project definitely altered my views of Foster Care, as well as making me aware of the need for volunteerism, especially in the current economic times. The current crisis can only increase the need for responsible people to pay attention to what they can do for Foster Care. After all, we need to realize as a society that Foster Children are our children. It is possible that we can and should be better parents.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Final Impressions

My final impressions from the interviews Ann and I conducted, plus conversations with her along the way are variable, but it is possible to summarize many of the concepts for the future direction Foster Care and aging out of Foster Care that we came across from these four people so very involved with the process.

First and foremost, all of the interviewees and Ann herself speak extensively to the need for greater stability in Foster Care.

All of our interviewees have the same plan in mind, teach children in Foster Care life skills earlier.


Increasing the age at which Foster Care ends also appears to be key to success.


In the end, a combination of stability in placement, longer placement and instilling life skills earlier would go a longer way towards improving the outcomes for Foster Children everywhere. In the end, as I've stated elsewhere on this blog, we as a society need to remember that Foster Children are our children. As such, we need to take better care of them longer, so that everyone has a chance to succeed regardless of where they start from. This video project as presented here is a beginning to what I hope to make a larger, one piece documentary. I hope that anyone who reads this blog or sees these videos and wants to tell me their story would feel free to contact me. Thank you to everyone involved for sharing their stories and ideas with Ann and me.
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