Foster Awareness: Movies, Fiction, Memoirs, Podcasts, etc

This documentary explores the lives of LGBTQ youth in California's foster care system.

FOSTER takes an unprecedented look at an often-misunderstood world and upends some of the most enduring myths about foster care and those involved in the system. It is a revealing look at the foster care system as seen through the eyes of those who know it best.

Navigating the transition from adolescence to adulthood is challenging for even the most mature and privileged youth. For three young people in New York and Los Angeles, making the transition to independent living is considerably more difficult as they "age out" of the foster care system.

A short documentary on problems that affect youths in foster care through transitioning out of the system, including the rist of human trafficking.

Fresh out of foster care at age 18, a young drifter turns to petty crime to survive, and discovers an impossible love in an unlikely friend.

A 20-something supervising staff member of a residential treatment facility navigates the troubled waters of that world.
Also available on DVD through Summit

A teenager journeys through a series of foster homes after her mother goes to prison.

Formerly wealthy widow must move in with the foster family living in a house she owns in order to establish residency prior to selling it.

Dr. Maureen Brennan is a psychiatrist at the residential treatment facility where America, a 16-year-old biracial boy, arrives.

An award-winning short film following the emotional journey of a nine-year old girl who is taken from her abusive birth home and placed in the tumultuous foster care system. (13 min.)

Follows Zoe through a visit with her birth mother and family court. Sequel to ReMoved. (23 min.)

The close bond of a mentally-challenged father and his daughter is threatened when she is removed from his custody and placed with a foster family.

A black, homeless teenager meets a white socialite in Memphis, and both lives are transformed.

A musical written and acted by youth in foster care.

Teenager Callie Jacob is placed in a foster home with a lesbian couple and their blend of biological, adoptive, and foster children.

A couple feels a void in their lives so they foster three siblings. They go through the trails of learning how to care for foster children. It shows the importance of patience when caring for children who have been through the system.

The journey of a young African American girl who navigated over 30 foster homes and psychiatric facilities before age 18, and the one woman, Jeanne, who believed in her.

"Written by more than 100 adult alumni of foster care, FLUX is an honest, useful, and juicy look at what it really means to become an adult after growing up in the system"--Page 4 of cover.

The poignant memoir of the first sixteen years in the life of Anna Michener. Committed to various mental institutions by her physically and emotionally abusive family, Anna was finally able to escape her chaotic home life and enter a foster home. As an effort toward recovery and self-affirmation as well as a powerful plea on behalf of other abused children, Anna wrote this memoir while the experience was fresh and the emotions were still raw and unhealed. Her story is a powerful tale of survival.
Read an excerpt.

Rhodes-Courter spent nine years in foster care after being taken away from her mother. She endured many caseworkers, moving from school to school and manipulative, humiliating and abusive treatment from one foster family. See how she survives and eventually thrives against the odds.

A follow up to Three Little Words: A Memoir, Rhodes-Courter expands on life beyond the foster care system, the joys and heartbreak with a family she's created, and her efforts to make peace with her past

Who are the children of foster care? What, as a country, do we owe them? The author, a foster mother herself, spent five years immersed in the world of foster care, looking into these questions and tracing firsthand stories. The result is this work, an unforgettable portrait that takes us deep inside the lives of foster children at the critical points in their search for a stable, loving family.

The author's account of horrific abuse at the hands of his mother until age 12 when he was removed from home and placed in foster care.

The sequel to A child called 'It', the author's experiences ages 12-18 when he was in foster care.

Kathy Harrison recounts her efforts to help foster children who have faced horrifying pasts, discussing how helping the children she took in helped her heal her own emotional scars.

A single Black woman who was looking to adopt exposes the racism and sexism she experienced while trying to adopt. Austin’s goal is to change the stereotype that motherhood through adoption is only a white experience.

A young man receives an out-of-the-blue phone call from his oldest sister, years after their family has been split into separate foster homes following their mother's horrible crime

In 1939 Sweden, two Jewish sisters wait for their parents to join them in fleeing the Nazis in Austria, but while eight-year-old Nellie settles in quickly, twelve-year-old Stephie feels stranded at the end of the world, with a foster mother who is as cold and unforgiving as the island on which they live.

Madge is seventeen, biracial, and has had a chaotic upbringing before moving in with her aunt in a small town full of prejudice. On a visit to New York City, she befriends a small boy with skin the color of her own and no one to care for him. On impulse, Madge takes the boy back home with her. Ultimately, she finds that caring for a child isn’t easy, and neither is finding a middle ground between love and indifference.

Growing up in foster care, Muir has lived in many houses. And if she's learned one thing, it is to Pack. Light.
Carry only what fits in a suitcase. Toothbrush? Yes.
Socks? Yes.
Emotional attachment to friends? foster families? a boyfriend? Nope! There's no room for any additional baggage.
Then she meets Francine. And Kira. And Sean. And everything changes.

It all starts when six kids have to meet for a weekly chat—by themselves, with no adults to listen in. There, in the room they soon dub the ARTT Room (short for "A Room to Talk"), they discover it's safe to talk about what's bothering them.

When Jack meets his new foster brother, he already knows three things about him: 1) Joseph almost killed a teacher, 2) He was incarcerated at a place called Stone Mountain, and 3) He has a daughter. Her name is Jupiter. And he has never seen her.
What Jack doesn’t know, at first, is how desperate Joseph is to find his baby girl.