Spotlight on: Mobilizing Support for Change

Fostering Media Connections

The Challenge

Media surrounds us and ever expanding technology facilitates our ability to stay connected wherever we go. The daily onslaught of information and news influences our understanding and awareness of issues — from public policy to politics to entertainment. The foster care system, however, typically escapes the regular consciousness of the presence in the media. The shortage of media stories limits public understanding of challenges in the foster care system and its profound impact on youth — the human cost of a fractured system. The public and legislators will not be mobilized to take a critical look at the foster care system and make change without awareness created through sharing stories, challenges and solutions.

Through FMC, [Daniel] Heimpel and [Eytan] Elterman are making it easier for journalists to cover foster care issues by literally handing them the stories, the context and the data

Amy Delpo and Lauren Mogannam, Youth Law News

About Fostering Media Connections

The Fostering Media Connections (FMC) project is a targeted media campaign that brings the stories of the foster care system, specifically the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008, to major national media markets. The project builds a groundswell of grassroots support for systemic change. FMC engages editors and reporters in select media outlets to heighten awareness of the foster care system, share solution-based stories, and form a network of media outlets that can be called upon to elevate stories to public attention. In addition, FMC develops stories and templates for the media to help the public and legislators understand the foster care system by telling the stories of youth in care, exposing existing challenges, and sharing what a transformed system could look like.

Results to Date

• Supported the passage of the California Fostering Connections Act through mobilizing media outlets in California, regularly developing and disseminating hard copy and video stories, and making connections between the bill and the lives of foster youth.
• Shared groundbreaking data on how poorly foster youth are performing in school, compared to non-foster youth, and began a national dialogue on this issue
• Developed and maintained a publicly accessible website that catalogs FMC news stories, videos and blogs. Utilized social networking tools, Facebook and Twitter, to spread information and create “viral hubs” for wider spread of FMC materials.
• Placed nearly 50 stories and Op-Ed pieces in media outlets in California and Washington. Highlights include: King 5 TV in Seattle and La Opinión in Los Angeles, the largest Spanish Language daily newspaper in the nation. .

For more information or to get involved, please visit: http://fosteringmediaconnections.org/