From Place to Place Short Film

Paige Williams

Director(s): Paige Williams

From Place to Place The Short Film follows the lives of six young adults who recently aged out of Montana’s foster care system. After being removed from their families and placed into temporary foster. . . r care, each of them went on the all too common journey of going from place to place during their years in foster care. Rather than being connected into a life-long family, they bounced around between foster families, group homes and residential treatment centers. On their 18th birthday, they were forced to leave the only thing they could depend on. Despite the best efforts of extremely hard working and well-intentioned professionals, our system let these kids down. Even though it was too late for them, these courageous young adults decided to make this film because they wanted to make the system better for the next generation of kids in foster care. One year into production of The Short Film, Mandy and Raif were invited to Washington DC by the Senate Caucus on Foster Youth. The Caucus wanted to organize an event that would bring to Capitol Hill the voice of the typical young adult who aged out of America’s foster care system. Mandy and Raif screened the Short Film for the Caucus and participated in a roundtable discussion with some of the most influential child welfare leaders in the country. The Caucus also asked the three professionals featured in The Short Film to participate in the event; permanency expert Kevin Campbell, trauma expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk and Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Max Baer. This trip changed the path of From Place to Place. Rather than being about six young adults who aged out of foster care in Montana, From Place to Place became a feature film about America’s foster care system and the two youth who decided to change the system that raised them. While still in production, The Short Film began to spread across the country as a tool for training, education and advocacy purposes. Ultimately, the result was two distinctly different films that are achieving the six characters’ original vision, to make the system better for the next generation of kids in foster care  show more