Digital Stories: Voices from Foster Care Youth

Digital Storytelling is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories. As with traditional storytelling, most digital stories focus on a specific topic. The Children’s Bureau, within the Administration for Children and Families, in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has created a series of digital stories about youth who have been impacted by the child welfare system.  A primary theme of these stories is to focus on well-being and positive youth development is intertwined throughout this series. Each of the stories in this series contains real life experiences and personal stories of overcoming tragedy or diversity.

Here are just a few examples of the stories you will find:

	Jimmy shares his experience as a gay youth in the foster care system.
	Michael helps us understand the emotional impact placement has on children and youth.
	Sheldon’s story shares his journey through the foster care system and the supports and services he received to achieve this goals.

Digital stories usually contain some mixture of computer-based images, text, recorded audio narrative, video clips and/or music that the young people select as representative of the story they are sharing. The topics that are used in Digital Storytelling generally range from personal stories to the recounting of historical events, from exploring life in one’s own community to the search for a better future, and everything in between. Each story is about two to four minutes and only contains what the youth themselves felt comfortable to share.

It is the collaboration of the National Resource Center for Youth Development (NRCYD), the National Resource Center for Permanency and Family Connections (NRCPFC) and a group of eight young leaders who experienced the foster care system throughout the state of Oklahoma, California and Nevada.