The HBO Film “Foster”: Vulnerable Children, Social Work Grit, Impossible Odds
by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD
“There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” Nelson Mandela
It is the deepest pleasure and privilege to write to you about the HBO documentary Foster, which more astutely than any film or documentary I have ever seen illuminates why social work has been accurately called an impossible profession, but that despite this, many of us persist in work essential to our very being. Foster celebrates the best of our proud and historic profession and our collaboration with other professionals in interactive determination to serve vulnerable children in a country where one in eight children endures abuse or neglect, and at the end of 2017, 443,000 were in foster care. It demonstrates “what it is like to be in a social worker’s shoes,” “that the job is hard as hell,” and why the tiniest victory on behalf of a suffering child makes us jubilant.
A two-hour reality-based documentary that premiered May 7, 2019, during National Foster Care Awareness Month, the film centers on the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the largest county child protection agency in the U.S. In doing so, it illuminates social workers, lawyers, judges, and foster care parents, who function with devotion in a flawed system of grossly inadequate resources, harsh rules that must be followed, and children born with thunderous strikes against them.
The film does not shirk from horrific realities that those in protective service know well - the impact of poverty and the rejection and loss of family; the desperation to belong and be loved; and how illusive this longing proves to be, as personality conflicts, drug use and addiction, and abuse in placements - coupled with desperate, misguided attempts to find love - cause children to move from family to family or be assigned to group homes and facilities, where further abuse and cruelty may well be imposed and where some children will die.
While the film respects the empathic, highly skilled professionals who give their all to vulnerable children, it illuminates in shivering accuracy the enormous gaps and lack of proper services offering placement and protection, as social workers, lawyers, and judges are bound by inflexible, punitive laws. Their smashed capacity for confidence and longing for love, belonging, and protection is both haunting and palpable. We see the children’s faces. We hear their voices: “Something is wrong with me.” “No one will want me.” “I could never be loved again.” “No one made me feel like I could be anything.”
It took veteran film writer-director Mark Jonathan Harris, who won Oscars for The Long Way Home and Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (shared with producer Deborah Oppenheimer), four years to create Foster - two devoted to diligent research and two to meticulous documentation of five stories of three foster care children; one foster parent; and one adult who was brought up in the system, broke the cycle of hopelessness and abuse, and is now an MSW social worker devoted to other children she understands so well. Approximately 35 adults had to sign off on each child filmed. This extraordinary collaboration led to producer Oppenheimer’s riding with social workers dealing with late night emergencies and gaining access to court hearings.
The person we meet first is a dream foster parent (27 committed years and going strong) and human being, Earcylene Beavers. Meeting Mrs. Beavers is reason enough to see Foster. The captured Mother’s Day this film provides should be shared in every house of worship and faith community in our troubled, divided world. Earcylene Beavers does not judge a child’s skin color, or retreat from their disabilities. She saves lives and is as worthy of a Nobel as anyone who has ever received one.
We also meet 16-year-old Dasani, who at age four saw the man he called his father kill his mother. And we meet infant Kris’Lyn, whose mother Raeanne tested positive for cocaine at her baby’s birth, while in a seemingly stable relationship. Eighteen-year-old Mary, a “drug-baby” abused at home, has been in “16, 17, 18?” foster homes and is a poet by nature.
Jessica Chandler, now a degreed social worker in the foster care system, takes us on the heartbreaking, inspiring journey of her life, including her deep hatred of the system she grew up in. Her mission is to find other Jessicas – “to find me, to save me.”
The inspiration for Foster began with one child: more than 25 years ago, the film producer, Deborah Oppenheimer, volunteered at a public school and met a 6-year-old child, Patrick, who lived in a Hollywood orphanage. Thus began an enduring relationship between Patrick and Oppenheimer, a constant in each of their lives.
Writer/director Harris and producer Oppenheimer have stated that their goal has been to provide a hopeful film. However, written updates about each child at the film’s conclusion underscore the uphill battle of bringing stability to castaway, abused children. The film shouts - scratch that - screams that fault lies in a system cruel and unresponsive to all that our most vulnerable children endure and all that must be given for them to survive.
Why hasn’t the wisdom of countless evidence-based studies led to necessary reform? Why hasn’t the union of experience and common sense prevailed? A primary reason is that abused children hold no political power. Most of their parents do not vote, much less contribute to political campaigns. In this climate, voices of child advocates pointing to countless studies, as well as needless deaths, can be ignored, and there is miniscule pressure on city, state, or national leadership to bring reform.
This said, Deborah Oppenheimer has shed light on a magnificently effective direction that can translate into political power and change. Most people do not know about our nation’s suffering, vulnerable children. Oppenheimer surely did not, until she met Patrick. Following her path, other volunteers can be given the opportunity to learn about, meet, and bond with our most vulnerable children. This direction can lead to scholarships, privately provided mental health grants, and privately initiated mental health centers.
Patrick, now 31, served in Iraq and is attending college. There are so many Patricks out there, longing to be found. If members of every faith community and house of worship, as well as those who support theatres and art centers in our country, saw Foster, volunteers as well as foster parents, hungry to be trained and find greater purpose in their lives, would sign up in droves. And through knowing and loving, these efforts can morph into necessary activism on behalf of all discarded and invisible children.
SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD, whose private and pro bono clinical social work practice is in Philadelphia, is a certified group psychotherapist and family life educator. She is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (2004) and the Social Worker of the Year (2018) from the Pennsylvania chapter of NASW, and the 2013 NASW Media Award for Best Article. In 2018, she was one of five graduates of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice selected for the school's inaugural Hall of Fame. SaraKay is the author of Whoever Said Life Is Fair, Setting YourSelf Free, and Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work. Her writing has been published in peer-reviewed journals, newspapers, and blogs. SaraKay's professional life continues to be devoted to highlighting destructive societal forces through communication, advocacy, and activism. Read more about her work at SaraKaySmullens.com.