Foster Care Video Series
The complete Foster Care Video Series is available below. You can also view a brief description and link directly to individual videos in the next section below.
Video
For Foster Parents
Mental Health:
- Managing Mental Health in Foster Care—Ash shares about their own experiences with mental illness and how foster parents and professionals can support young people struggling with mental health issues.
LGBQ Youth in Foster Care:
- Supporting LGBTQ Youth in Foster Care—Ash talks about how foster parents and professionals can support LGBTQ young people who are living in the foster care system.
- How to Ask for Gender Pronouns—Asking someone's gender pronouns is an important way to affirm the identity of transgender and nonbinary people. Ash talks about how to respectfully ask for someone's gender pronouns.
Aging Out:
- How to Support Youth Aging Out of Foster Care—Kelsey, LCSW, discusses how foster parents and professionals can support youth as they transition to adulthood and how to make higher education attainable for foster youth.
General Advice:
- Supporting Youth in Foster Care: Gabrielle's Advice—In this video, Gabrielle talks about how foster parents can support foster children, particularly as they are preparing to age out of the system and transition to adulthood.
- Advice for New Foster Parents—Mark and Paisley adopted their son from foster care and are fostering to adopt another child as well. They had a lot of advice and wisdom to share with new foster parents.
- Advice for Foster Parents
- Advice for Foster Parents: from Melissa and Jazz—Melissa and her daughter, Jazz, share their advice on how foster families can connect and grow stronger together.
- General Advice for Foster Parents
- General Foster Care Advice—Kristen, LCSW and foster parent, shares her experience with being a foster parent and offers her advice for other foster parents.
How to's:
For Youth
Parenting:
- Parenting After Foster Care—After aging out of foster care, Gary became a dad. In this video, he talks about his experience of parenting after living in foster care.
Aging Out:
- Advice for Youth Exiting Care
- Advice for Aging Out Foster Youth from Those Who Lived it Firsthand—Five former foster youth share what it was like to age out of the Montana foster care system and pieces of advice that they think young people preparing to transition to adulthood should know.
- Aging out of Foster Care: Allen's Story—Allen lived in the Montana foster care system for 2 years. He has a lot of wisdom to share with young people living in foster care
General Advice:
- Advice for Youth in Care
- Advice for Aging Out Foster Youth—Kelsey, LCSW, has some advice to share with foster youth who are preparing to transition to adulthood.
How to's:
- 7 Important Things to Have When Aging Out of Foster Care—There's a lot to think about when you are preparing to age out of foster care. Here are 7 documents to make sure you have by the time you transition out of care.
- Who Are All These People? Workers and Their Roles—Youth in foster care have a lot of people involved in their lives - caseworkers, CASA's, guardian ad items, transitional living workers, attorneys. This video discusses the roles of workers that foster youth commonly have involved in their lives.
- Pros and Cons of Emancipation—Many young adults in the foster care system think about emancipating. With the freedom of emancipation comes a lot of responsibility. Here are just a few of the pros and cons to consider.
- Testifying Your Best—Many foster youth have to testify in court at one point or another. Testifying can be nerve-wracking for anyone. These tips will help you put your best foot forward in the courtroom.
- How to Get Your Drivers License—Here's an overview of how young people in foster care can get their drivers license.
- Healthcare Advice for Youth Aging out of Care
- Tips for Aging Out of SSI - Foster Youth
Advice for Professionals
- Reflections from Working with Foster Youth—Kelsey, LCSW, reflects on her experiences working with children and families involved in the foster care system.
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Personal Belongings of Foster Youth—Jazz, a former foster youth, discusses how you can help kids in the foster system with no personal belongings.
Stories
- Fostering Success: Gabrielle's Story—Gabrielle entered foster care when she was 13 years old. She is now 21 and works with youth aging out of the foster care system. This is her story.
- Creating Family: Foster to Adopt Story—When Mark and Paisley met Tayvin, they knew he was their son. Although Tayvin is often mistaken for being biologically related to his parents, this family knows that they share something way better than blood - love.
- Finding Home: Jazz's Story—Jazz shares a little about her journey to getting adopted by her mother Melissa. She has some comforting words to share with other kids and young adults that are living in the foster care system.
- Melissa & Jazz's Story—Melissa has always wanted to be a mom. When she started fostering Jazz, she knew she'd found her daughter.
- Aging out of Foster Care: Gary's Story—Gary spent from 18 months to 18 years old in foster care. Gary shares about the struggles he faced when aging out of foster care and reflects on how the transition could have been made easier.