Tuesday, March 11, 2014

ReMoved- Through the Eyes of A Foster Child

I came across this award-winning, short flim  (13 minutes) and thought it was very well done:


ReMoved from HESCHLE on Vimeo.

A few personal comments/reactions:

- What a great young actress.
- What's up with that first foster family?!
- So grateful for organizations who donate bags or backpacks- basically anything other than A GARBAGE BAG for foster children to carry their belongings in!
- Surely some will identify more with the little girl or even the bio parents in this film than with the case worker, police, or foster parents, but I felt so bad for the second foster mom (the nice one) who was just doing her best only to be "rewarded" with anger and resentment.  And yet . . . behind every outburst is a reason so you have to learn not to take things personally.
- The anger Zoe had reminded me of what was perhaps our most difficult placement when we fostered a 3 year old girl, "Precious", as an emergency placement for about a week until she could be placed with kin.  As with Zoe, Precious had a tremendous amount of anger and even rage which would come out at seemingly random (to us) times but she seemed to use her anger and resistance as a way to protect herself from getting hurt any more than she already had been.  Despite the angry outbursts, yelling, and whining, Precious was also in desperate need of love and validation (what child isn't, right?) and fortunately, when she was calm enough, she would accept the validation and nurturing from me without pushing me away.
- Caseworkers have a hard job.  You could sense the stress and frustration on the caseworker's face after each removal and during the supervised visit.
- Keeping siblings together is SO important! Watching Zoe take on the role of mother to her younger brother at the beginning of the film was both touching and hard to watch.  Hearing her voice her concerns about being away from him was heartbreaking.
-And speaking of the role of a parent, Did you notice how Zoe's mom ran after her boyfriend (or husband?) when he was arrested rather than checking on her children?  Ugghh!

2 comments:

FootPrints said...

i tried watching this yesterday but i was at the ballet studio and didnt want people to think i was a freak for crying!
Maybe i'll give it another attempt!

Melia said...

Thank you so much for sharing. I let my teenaged girls watch it so they could see what so many kids go through. And I agree about the mom! I was yelling at her to check on her daughter! And I wanted to hug the 2nd foster mom for not giving up, but for calling to get the brother.