Customer Reviews

Aging Out

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

The dvd contains three documentaries about young people who are transitioning out of foster care into independent adult living. The main feature is the story of David, whose mother was mentally ill, Risa, who was sexually abused by her stepdad for several years, Daniella, whose family was physically abusive, and her orphaned boyfriend, who is also a foster care recipient (although his story is not explored in-depth like the others). There are two additional stories in the "extras" section; Keely, whose parents died of AIDS and Thomas, who was sexually abused both in his home and in foster care.

While you are being introduced to these young people and their stories it is easy to make guesses about who will make it and who will not make it. However, I found myself continually surprised by how they handle all the situations that come up; drugs, depression, homelessness, pregnancy, the challenges of college, yearning for family love and support but knowing there is none. I thought Risa's story was the most heartbreaking. She described how she and her sister were sexually abused for years in their own home and their mother knew about it and did nothing. Then when they were teens they called the police on the stepfather and he was taken away. The mother said to them "As soon as he gets out he is coming right back here." Risa is so overwhelmed by the memories of sexual abuse and her mother's betrayal that even though she tries hard she is not able to keep going. These young people seemed to need a lot more psychological counselling than they received.

In the epilogue, Daniella and her husband find employment in D.C. at an agency for former foster care recipients. Perhaps with more feedback from people who have been in the system it can be reformed in all the ways that are necessary to really help.

I like this video -- it captures the spirit of a rare breed of activitists, some of the challenges of aging and the charm of friendships among women. Great for use in a course on aging, social work, etc.

N.B.: It is as important to watch the two segments in the extras as it is to see the 3 people discussed in the documentary. It's unclear why all 5 ppl weren't incorporated into one movie.

This documentary focused upon three individuals who were "aging out" of the foster care system. They looked at a male and two females; a white, a Latina, and a Black with an Asian romantic partner, so the subjects are diverse.

This film is so frustrating because each person shoots him- or herself in the foot. The Latina turned to illegal drugs to deal with her family's abuse, rather than seeking out counseling which I imagine would have been available at the schools she attended. When she was at UCSB, she seemed surrounded by students who were of a different class and race than her. I wonder would she have had more support if there were other low-income Mexican Americans around her. (Hello, affirmative action-lacking California! Wake up!) The male interviewed said he wanted to go to Japan and be a ninja. How dumb and unrealistic is that!? This guy gets denied admittance to the military because he has too many psychological problems. Too many young males think the only requirement to join the military is to be heterosexual and thin. The American military denies people for all kinds of reasons, so young guys should not assume they will be automatically enlisted.

All three of the former foster kids are upset by rules that are meant to help them and that young people with parents often follow. They gawked, "You want me to stay in school just so that I can get X benefit!?" Yes! People with parents have rules too if they want college paid for or a roof over their heads. Get over it! Again in fairness, these people take risks that many young people do. However, they don't have parents to act as a safety net like most of us, so their bad choices have worse consequences.

In all fairness, I think the poor decisions of the three reveals the downfall of not having consistent parents. I hate to be Freudian, but maybe if adults had guided them or supported them from day one, then they wouldn't have chosen the dumb options that they did.

The ending will surprise and upset many. Go grab the tissue if you are an emotion viewer. If you enjoy documentaries about marginalized and oppressed youth, like in "Girlhood" or "Born into Brothels," then you will enjoy this.