Truth to Transformation

This film is a celebration of love, and every child’s need and right to be with their family, as seen through the eyes of three extraordinary people -- Dashaan, Tamia and Kayann -- who were impacted by the NJ foster care system. They were keen to share their experiences in order to spark change. That was my goal too: to bring viewers on a visceral emotional journey through their stories to capture the harm and racism inherent in how our society breaks families apart and show the urgent need to support families to keep them intact. Eighty percent of children in foster care are not in danger of abuse and belong with their families, and black children are twice as likely as white children to be put in foster care. Dashaan, Tamia and Kayann had the strength to break intergenerational cycles of systemic harm and create love and family with their own children, so their experiences also offer hope, uplift and a positive path forward, for individuals with lived experience in the foster care system, and the system as a whole.

I was also deeply inspired by the Commissioner of Children and Families in NJ, Christine Beyer, who believes we can’t fix something unless we’re honest about the problems. This is reflected in the film's title, TRUTH TO TRANSFORMATION, and her initiative to co-design a family well-being system with people who experienced foster care from the inside. Beyer encouraged me to tell her and our subjects’ raw, powerful stories of struggle in their fullness, because the only way to create change is by first changing the attitudes and behavior of people in society; the people who work within the public child welfare system; and the families who are affected by it. I’m deeply grateful that she, Dashaan, Tamia and Kayann had the courage to tell their stories so openly with that mission in mind, and that Commissioner Beyer and others in NJ are listening to, learning from and amplifying experiences from the front lines of foster care in order to transform it.