Product Details

• Actors: Jay O. Sanders
• Directors: Maria Finitzo, Roger Weisberg, Vanessa Roth
• Writers: Roger Weisberg
• Producers: Maria Finitzo, Roger Weisberg, Vanessa Roth, Deborah Clancy, Hilary Klotz
• Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Docurama
• DVD Release Date: June 27, 2006
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000FBFZ1I
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #116,234 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Aging Out" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

AGING OUT - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gritty look at a side of foster care everyone wants to avoid thinking about...., April 26, 2008

By 

MG - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Aging Out (DVD)

As a Guardian ad Litem who has worked with many teens I can say this documentary accurately depicts how poorly we prepare foster youth for adulthood. So many fall through the cracks of the broken system and are so likely to repeat the family cycle that brought them into the foster care system as children or youths. The states that take these children away from their parents to give them a better life need to start working on means to assure that outcome. Many of the youths in the documentary describe the devastating effects of being moved again and again from home to home. They painfully share the fragmentation of their emotional attachments to anyone who cares for them, leading to their inability to care about or for themselves.

As to the reviewer above who mentioned the extra features pieces, I think the decision as to who they could include in the main documentary was probably based on the length of time they could follow the youths in question.

The epilogue of the documentary is heartbreaking. People who are upset with the outcomes should seriously think about giving back to their community and becoming mentors, Guardians ad Litem or Court Appointed Special Advocates for our foster youth. The children in foster care need advocates.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Educational, August 15, 2010

By 

Shannon (Phoenix, AZ) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Aging Out (DVD)

I purchased this video as an educational training for foster parents parenting teenagers in their home. This was a great way to give parents some perspective on what it means for our foster children to age out of foster care and how important it us for us to try to teach them the tools they will need to live as independent young adults.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars outstanding, poignant documentary, October 12, 2009

By 

Matthew G. Sherwin (last seen screaming at Amazon customer service) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Aging Out (DVD)

Aging Out is a powerful, well made documentary that showcases just how poorly foster care children are prepared for real life when they "age out" of the foster care system between the ages of eighteen to twenty-one. While foster parents and legal guardians try their best, I was nevertheless struck by the lack of adequate professional counseling for these young people to ensure that they can have a happy, productive life after leaving the foster care system. Life isn't easy especially for children in foster care; and that becomes abundantly clear as this film progresses. Often foster care children bounce from home to home, or from treatment program to treatment program, sometimes with so little emotional attachment to their "families" or guardians that they are ill prepared to cope with life and take care of themselves properly. In addition, the cinematography is terrific and the young people we meet have their stories presented in touching, well thought out ways that make it easy for me to empathize with them all; I identified the most with Risa but the stories of David and Daniella and her boyfriend touched me also.

For David, it's all about getting out of the system and being a man as soon as possible; but his foster care guardian in a type of group home tries hard to make David realize that he's still got some growing to do. David was taken from his mother when he was roughly one year old because his mother was schizophrenic and apparently either sleeping on the streets or getting close to it; with this background David stands a high chance of becoming seriously mentally ill himself--severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia are usually inherited. David also reaches out to a foster care family who took good care of him for quite a while in the past; but eventually even they have serious trouble with David as he disappears for days on end and gets into trouble with the law. Will David learn that he has to work to improve himself--and can the foster care system as it exists ever truly help him accomplish this?

Daniella can't wait to get out of the system, either. Blessed with a fiercely independent spirit even at the tender age of twenty, she wants to get out of the system and raise her newborn child with her boyfriend, the child's father. Daniella was taken from her parents because her father was physically abusive and the home environment was less than nurturing, to say the least; Daniella's mother was not able to prevent her father from abusing Daniella even more. Will Daniella and her boyfriend, who is also in the foster care system, be able to get out of the system a few months early to raise their son as they please in their own home--and what happens to them after that? Watch and find out.

Risa, the young woman with whom I sympathized the most, had a most abusive father and her family was so scattered and fragmented that she's not even sure how many siblings she actually has. We see Risa struggle to save enough money for college; she will be the first in her family to graduate high school and her foster mother is proud of her. But when drugs enter Risa's life, especially when she's away at college and out of the foster care system, how will Risa cope--and still earn enough good grades to keep her scholarships? What happens to her will move you.

In addition, we get two extras about two more people aging out of the foster care system; and I would agree with the reviewer who writes that the most likely reason we don't see their cases in the main portion of the film is that the filmmakers didn't have enough time to get to know them.

Overall, Aging Out is a sobering, no punches pulled documentary that leaves you with quite an emotional impact; you won't forget this film and the stories of these young people anytime soon. I highly recommend this film for people interested in the foster care system and the children who are in foster care.