Meet Me Where I'm At
This entire video series is now available to view and share via our DCF YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vw7PlkyFmA&list=PLp-nvy7cCVxGwTHv_WGjqbf178RL7t4-C
As November comes to a close, we see the conclusion of a very special time at the Department with National Adoption Month winding down. This month, through our partnership with the Superior Courts for Juvenile Matters, many of you, and families across the state, we were able to finalize 142 adoptions this month with a more scheduled for this week and into December.
That is a tremendous achievement that we would not have attained without the support of so many of you! While it is a time to celebrate this success, we also recognize that achieving permanency for more of our children and youth in care is a priority all year long.
As part of this month’s celebration, the Department is very excited to announce the launch of Meet Me Where I’m At, a foster and adoptive parent recruitment campaign featuring our own youth in their own words. This video series is the product of the Department’s Youth Advisory Board (YAB), whose members advocated for the opportunity to speak for themselves directly to current and potential foster and adoptive parents. For those of you who attended the DCF Racial Justice Summit in October, you got a sneak preview but we wanted to circulate the video, now officially launched through a targeted campaign as part of Adoption Awareness Month.
Meet Me Where I’m At consists of 13 videos, highlighted by a collaborative introductory poem, and features 9 of our youth who felt so passionately about this project that they were willing to step in front of the camera and share some of their experiences from being in the foster care system. In this campaign our young advocates address both the stigma that accompanies them as youth in foster care and the misperceptions about who can be a foster parent. I could not be more proud of them.
In celebration of National Adoption Month, two of these videos will be shown in movie theaters across the state (Majestic 6 Stamford, Brass Mill 12 Waterbury, Buckland Hills 18 IMAX Manchester, Cinemark North Haven, Plainville 20, and the Waterford 9) along with DCF Heart Gallery spots from mid-November through the end of the year. The entire video series is being made available to our staff and our external partner agencies responsible for recruiting foster and adoptive parents. Additionally, each of the 13 clips will be highlighted on DCF’s social media pages on Facebook and Twitter from now through early December. We encourage you to check them out and share them with your friends and family to spread the message!
Starting this month, the entire video series is now available to view and share via our DCF YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vw7PlkyFmA&list=PLp-nvy7cCVxGwTHv_WGjqbf178RL7t4-C
It our sincere hope that the work of our YAB youth advocates will translate into a positive measurable impact on foster and adoptive parent recruitment and we are excited to invite your participation in this effort! Please share these videos widely and often, and with your help, we will have more adoptions to celebrate all year long.