Adrienne-So...What IS the Story?

                Throughout this project, I don’t think my ultimate goal has changed all that much. Maybe I became more aware of it, and the details became concrete, but my plan for this project remains the same: I want to educate others on the reality of Vermont’s foster care system and what life is like for the children living in it. I want to shed light on the problems in the foster care system and propose possible solutions. In the end, I’d like to inspire others to help solve these problems by educating them.

                I believe my audience is pretty broad, as foster care is something that’s rather mysterious for those who aren’t involved in it. Everyone knows about it, but few know the specificities of how DCF works or how being a ward of the state affects the life of a child. Because of my possible audience, my team and I will need to be careful not to alienate. Alienation can be caused by placing blame on specific people or groups, so this will definitely be avoided. I want everyone to be intrigued by the project.

                In terms of structure, I think it would be difficult to condense all the information I’d like to gather into a single narrative. Of course I’ll need to confer with my group members at the next meet-up, but I think maybe a couple short films would be better than one longer one. I think one on the problems faced by children in foster care would be good, and then a second one on DCF, it’s function, and the effect of recent history on the organization.  To complete these narratives, I think my team should have a set of interviews from a variety of people in the field, like social workers, foster parents, foster children, and DCF workers.

                For the narrative on foster care, I think that showing differences in life within and outside foster care would be a good springboard. A segue into discussion of various problems could follow, then some proposed solutions could finish it off.  In the second, I think my interview with Alix Gibson will be very helpful. As the director of my local department of DCF, she has several years of experience and a wealth of knowledge on the organization’s history, function, and practice. I think a brief montage of news headlines could begin this video, which would end with a clip about the death of Lara Sobel. After that we could insert part of Mrs. Gibson’s statement about the event, then something about how the public perceives DCF. After that, I think information about DCF’s function and how it operates could be tailed by changes that could be made to help the organization work to it’s best capacity. I’m not as sure about the DCF one as I am about the foster care one, though.

                I chose my initial topic because I care about the well-being of children, and I still do. I’ve said it before, but I see children as the embodiment of potential.  A child raised in a bad environment is having their potential squandered by forces out of their control, so it’s up to responsible adults to care for all children in the most nurturing way possible.

I’m working on this project because I believe spreading awareness of the problems that children struggle with will lead to others coming up with solutions and enacting them. I also think that DCF is a better organization than recent headlines make it out to be, it just lacks the resources to perform the best it can. The message I want to convey is two-fold, and rather hard to condense. Firstly, I’d like to educate about DCF’s functioning. I don’t really have an intended “message” about DCF, I just want to educate others. Secondly, I’d like to tell the public “Children in foster care are struggling with x, y, and z, here’s how x, y, and z can be solved, and here’s how those solutions can be carried out by people like you.” 

I have plenty more research to do before the project is done, but I think these goals are feasible. I can’t wait to see what I’ll be able to accomplish with my group by the time May rolls around!