The Complex Reality of America's Foster Care System

Brut America

"Being in a group home is like lockdown… It's like having a big old chain attached to your leg." This new documentary reveals the hidden reality of the children, parents, and caretakers inside America's foster care system.

Transcript

00:00I was born a drug baby. I got taken away right away and put into the foster care system.

00:05It's like you're just bouncing from place to place to place to place to place.

00:23I didn't know that I could actually be loved again or ever.

00:27The first question I asked is, are they going to take my daughter from me?

00:30We spent two years researching this and getting acquainted with everyone and getting them to trust

00:38us. We wanted to dispel some of the stereotypes and myths about foster care. A lot of people

00:45approach foster care with judgments, judgments about the kids, that the kids are judgment about

00:52the parents, social workers. When people read the sensational dramatic headlines,

00:57they turn away in despair that the problems just seem insurmountable. And we hope that

01:02with this film to stimulate engagement, expand awareness and even impact policy.

01:08Being in a group home is like lockdown. It's like having a big old chain attached to your leg.

01:26You go and if it don't work out, you go somewhere completely different.

01:32When I asked Asani why he wanted to be in the film, why he would be willing

01:36to tell his story, he said he wanted people to know that he went from zero to hero.

01:42They wanted to share with other people for various reasons, because often they had felt alone

01:50in their struggles and they wanted other people who were having the same kind of

01:56struggles to understand that they were not alone.

02:07A lot of the work that I've done has been about children dealing with problems created by adults

02:13and I'm very interested in how children cope with that.

02:17Often, drug addiction, mental illness, incarceration, racism, lack of opportunity,

02:31lack of education, all these result in children being taken away from their families and their

02:38families not abusing them so much as being unable to be good parents, unable to take care of them.

02:47I hope that we can expand to understand a greater context and insight into who people are

02:54and what they do and why they do it and to have a greater compassion.

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