The Foster Care Chronicles project creates an annual production crafted from the stories of the performers’ real experiences in Foster Care. During the Fall Semester they will be rehearsing and meeting weekly at Greensboro Project Space. 

http://fostercarechronicles.wp.uncg.edu/

The goal of the Foster Care Chronicles project, primarily funded by theHRSA JMSW Behavioral Health Training Grant through the Department of Social Work at UNCG, The UNCG School of Theater, and Triad Stage, is to help people in the Foster Care System create and perform a production based on their first person accounts. It will give regional youth aged 15-25 who are or were in Foster Care a unique opportunity to use the arts to boost their overall psychological well being.  A program like this gives kids purpose: They learn to share their experiences, support each other, act, become confident public speakers, and develop into advocates and teachers through theater. They form a new support network, increase their sense of belonging, and ultimately begin the transition to becoming healthy adult members of our community, all while having fun. Our participants transform themselves and the future of our community as they teach others what it is like to walk in the shoes of a “Foster Kid.”

What goes into this project?

Annually, around ten youth are chosen for this project to share their individual experiences with other youth in foster care, a licensed social work clinician, two Masters of Social Work student interns, and a professional playwright. Some previous Foster Care Chronicles participants will serve as mentors to the current youth involved in the production. They will all participate in outdoor retreats to connect with each other and become a team. The playwright will then meld the incredible stories of the youth in foster care into a script and mount a full-scale production at Triad Stage’s Upstairs Cabaret in Greensboro, NC, in the spring semester.  UNCG Theater students will help the youth bring their stories to life on stage through set, props, sound, and lighting design.