Removing Judgement: A New Lens on the Foster Care Approach

Dec 15

Removing Judgement: A New Lens on the Foster Care Approach

Media content has the power to shape perceptions and views on a mass scale. Unfortunately, media portrayals of youth in foster care are often negative and perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes. In this special blog series, The Center for Scholars and Storytellers is exploring this topic from multiple perspectives to inform and inspire the creation of accurate, empowering, and socially responsible media portrayals of foster care.

I had the privilege of talking with the filmmakers of the recent, moving documentary, FOSTER, on HBO, as well as the doc’s featured social worker (and former youth in foster care), Jessica Chandler. This documentary does an incredible job of showing how complex the foster care system is, and shines a light on common misperceptions and stereotypes. This is part one of our conversation. For content creators, hearing different perspectives about the foster care system will only serve to benefit and inspire stories that are more reflective of what actually happens, and create media that educates and moves the needle in a positive direction.

“I grew up in a family with some of the same issues that bring children into foster care,” reflects filmmaker Mark Harris when I asked him why he wanted to make a documentary on the subject. Thinking back on his childhood and the mental illness within his family, it became clear that if his family had been poorer or less privileged, he could easily have ended up in the foster care system.

Indeed, even though there are over 400,000 children in the foster care system right now, the number of children who could enter into the system based on the situations they’re in is of course extremely high. We often hear about extreme, horrible cases of abuse, but the majority of children enter the foster care system because of neglect. Neglect covers a wide range of issues and severity, including parents with the best of intentions who are simply in situations where they can’t provide their children with the kind of care they need and work enough to pay the bills.

So why do parents end up in these situations? Here are a few reasons:

- Systemic inequality

- Lack of mental health treatment

- Prescription drug crisis

This goes far beyond the foster care system, “Disrupted childhoods from these issues and more are far too common,” explains FOSTER doc filmmaker Deborah Oppenheimer. “We desperately need a new model of care -- a public health model that helps all families in need of support. A model that is preventative rather than punitive.”

One step in the right direction is referring to the system as “Child Services” rather than “Child Protection.” This is something Harris and and Oppenheimer were encouraged to do in their documentary, “because protection implies that children need to be protected from someone, rather than supporting the family as a unit.”

“As it currently stands, the system intervenes at the time of crisis. We wait for something to go wrong,” explains Harris. “But these families need help before they go into crisis.” It’s worth noting that it’s a lot more effective (both in cost and outcome) to have a preventative model-- this has also been found when addressing issues such as homelessness in various cities around the world. “It also can’t just be social workers involved- we need a multifaceted approach including health care workers, teachers, community members, and more,” says Oppenheimer.

“Through the situations and stories they create, content creators have the opportunity to provide the context needed for understanding the realities behind why so many children enter the foster care system,” Harris explains. “For instance, picture a single mother with no support. She needs to get a job to keep a roof over their head (or her child could be taken away). So she goes out to a job interview and the child stays unattended at home. If the police spot this or get alerted to it, that could be cause for the child being removed depending on the child’s age. The other problem is that unconscious biases, particularly around race and poverty, too often play a role when a judgment call is made on whether or not a child should be removed.”

Social worker Jessica Chandler, who was featured in the FOSTER documentary, shares these sentiments. “We need to rethink how and when foster care is implemented. Of course, in cases where kids are being abused, they should be removed. But in the cases where parents have the love and good intentions and just need some help, money could be better spent going to support that family so the children can remain in the home.” Indeed, if they didn’t already have a problem, as soon as you remove a child from their home they definitely do.

“People can’t buy into or believe these things if we don’t show them what it looks like,” explains Chandler. “And media can show these outcomes.” For example, the pediatric neurologist treating the infant in the FOSTER documentary told Harris and Oppenheimer that he now views mothers who use drugs during pregnancy differently after watching the documentary.

So how exactly can content creators help? Jessica Chandler has multiple actionable insights for content creators:

Don’t demonize the birth parents. We need to understand them, and we do this by humanizing them.
Show how the best thing for the child is not always taking the child away from their birth family.
Portray successful reunification stories so people understand that is the goal of foster care system, and see what that looks like.

Colleen Russo Johnson, PhD

Senior Fellow of the Center for Scholars and Storytellers

This blog series is supported in part by the UCLA Pritzker Center for Strengthening Children and Families.

Disclaimer: The the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog belong solely to the author or those quoted, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Pritzker.