Lights, Camera, Action: What is The Reel Hope Project?
Have you ever heard of The Reel Hope Project? For all you Wyoming anglers, this reel isn’t related to fishing. It’s all about creating feelings of love and home through connecting children with foster families. It’s a national organization and growing. Read more below to get inspired by their incredible work!
Article Contributor:
Abby Marino, Director of Operations + Outreach
The Reel Hope Project
What is The Reel Hope Project?
The Reel Hope Project is a faith-fueled organization that was founded in 2016 in direct response to the foster care crisis. What started as a Minnesota nonprofit now operates in eight states across the country, including Wyoming! Their team creates two-minute profile recruitment videos (reels) for youth in foster care awaiting adoption, and each video serves as a critical supplement to the otherwise limited information available to prospective adoptive families.
The Reel Hope Project is often the only child welfare video recruitment resource of its kind in their focus states, and they travel anywhere within those states, ensuring that youth in metropolitan and rural areas alike have access to their own reel.
Their reels are 100% free to the child, state, referring agency, county, social worker, or adoption recruiter. Zero percent of the cost to coordinate, produce, and distribute a reel transfers to the child’s team.
Each of their reels is appropriate to that child’s biological and developmental age, gender, and interests - custom tailored - inclusive of the location, activity, gift, interview questions, and general aesthetic/music selection for the final reel. Adoption recruitment efforts require compassion, nuance, and individualization.
Who does The Reel Hope Project serve?
On an average day, there are approximately 400,000 kids in the United States foster care system, 100,000 of whom can no longer return home. The Reel Hope Project serves these children — whose parental rights have been terminated and now face one of two realities: remain in the foster system until they age out at 18 or find an adoptive (forever) family. Their innovative approach amplifies the voices and stories of kids in the foster system, allowing them to be seen not as a statistic, but as a child deserving of family.
What are a few reasons that the number of children in foster care has increased over the past years?
Children can find themselves in foster care for any number of reasons, including but not limited to neglect, parental abuse, substance dependency, incarceration, and/or loss of one or both parents. In particular, the opioid crisis has dramatically increased the number of youth entering the foster care system over the past decade.
Why are the reels so helpful and effective in helping children find adoptive parents?
Reels provide a meaningful glimpse into each child’s personality and story, filling in critical gaps that a photo or case file could never convey. In many states, prospective adoptive parents can’t meet a child until they have already committed to them — a safeguard to prevent youth from feeling like they’re “auditioning” for a family, but a deterrent towards the ultimate goal of ‘adoption’, nonetheless. Without a Reel Hope Project reel, adoptive families are given only a picture of that child and a file that often outlines their trauma, medical needs, or other challenges.
You can help!
How can people take part in The Reel Hope Project?
Share reels! Not all reels are able to be shared publicly due to privacy concerns, but The Reel Hope Project invites you to share those that are on their website and social media pages! You never know who in your network might be open to foster care adoption.
Fund reels. The Reel Hope Project is entirely privately funded by generous supporters who believe in their mission of a forever family for every child.
Just a little more information on this hard-working organization…
- Since launching in 2016, The Reel Hope Project has made 495 reels for 531 kids and teenagers (includes sibling group reels). Approximately half of these kids have been matched with their adoptive families!
- Misconceptions linger surrounding youth in foster care. According to a recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, 51% of Americans believe youth are placed in foster care because they have done something wrong. This belief is both false and harmful, resulting in widespread misperceptions of foster care adoption. The Reel Hope Project’s video reels help dispel misguided information about foster youth.
- Data indicates that children who age out of foster care are disproportionately susceptible to homelessness, incarceration, trafficking, and teenage pregnancy (Annie E. Casey Foundation). Additionally, each child that ages out of the system without an adoption plan can cost taxpayers an average of $300,000 due to these social outcomes (Cost Avoidance: The Business Case for Investing in Youth Aging Out of Foster Care. Jim Casey Youth). The statistics surrounding teenagers who age out of foster care are a driving force behind The Reel Hope Project’s work.