Alex Ballantyne thought he’d lastly discovered some stability after spending a lot of his adolescence trying to find a house the place he felt secure and accepted.
Then, shortly after he collected his highschool diploma, his longtime foster household within the Santa Clarita Valley kicked him out.
He discovered himself homeless, growing old out of the Los Angeles County foster care system — which cuts off many companies at 18 — and not sure the place to show.
“It was tough, and I suppose it nonetheless is,” Ballantyne says in an intimate new documentary that follows two Los Angeles teenagers in foster care from age 14 to twenty. “Attainable Selves,” directed by Shaun Kadlec, will make its streaming debut this month on PBS SoCal Plus.
Ballantyne’s battle to get again on his ft after highschool is without doubt one of the most heartbreaking moments in a movie that gives a uncommon, insider’s perspective on the challenges going through foster youth — together with childhood trauma, looming insecurity, dad and mom battling habit and the stigma hooked up to the foster system, all of that are addressed with an unfiltered openness that solely teenagers may obtain.
However even on the level when his future appeared not sure, Ballantyne was insistent: “This isn’t the top of my story.”
And it wasn’t.
Now, virtually 4 years after the cameras stopped rolling, Ballantyne is selling the movie and sparking discussions about foster care, all whereas pursuing his affiliate’s diploma from Pasadena Metropolis Faculty. His targets have modified a bit from his teen years — when he needed to be an expert musician — and turn out to be extra formidable: The 24-year-old plans to get his bachelor’s diploma in enterprise, hopefully at UC Berkeley, then get a regulation diploma to work in public coverage.
Reaching this might defy the percentages for former foster youth, who statistically have a few of the lowest outcomes in the case of ending highschool, pursuing a level and graduating faculty.
Ballantyne’s aspiration for “Attainable Selves” is extra modest: He hopes folks come away with a greater understanding of foster care and the wraparound companies these youth want.
“What I actually need folks to take out from it … we’re not all super-troubled youngsters,” Ballantyne mentioned. “We’re simply regular those who simply so occur to be in [foster] care.”
“Younger folks in foster care, they’ve plenty of companies, there plenty of fantastic applications that present all this assist,” mentioned Kadlec. “However for all of them to work, you really want folks to deliver their hearts and present up and join with younger folks. As a result of in any other case you get misplaced.”
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
He hopes that different youngsters within the foster system — or those that face different challenges — notice they aren’t the one ones going by means of powerful instances.
“I don’t need folks to really feel as alone and remoted as I did after I was,” he mentioned.
Kadlec mentioned he desires viewers to contemplate getting concerned within the lifetime of a susceptible teen.
“Younger folks in foster care, they’ve plenty of companies, there plenty of fantastic applications that present all this assist,” mentioned Kadlec, who produced and filmed in addition to directed the documentary. “However for all of them to work, you really want folks to deliver their hearts and present up and join with younger folks. As a result of in any other case you get misplaced.
“So many individuals may turn out to be a mentor to a foster youth, and it may completely change their life,” he added.
The hourlong documentary follows Ballantyne and Mia Derisso, each a part of the First Star UCLA Bruin Guardian Students Academy, a school prep program for foster youth that gives assist, mentorship and entry to one of many state’s premier universities. For one month each summer season, the teenagers reside on the UCLA campus, constructing a group, learning and envisioning what life might be like as a school pupil.
Derisso, 24, mentioned that with out the First Star program, she would probably by no means have thought of faculty.
“I genuinely consider it was the start line of my instructional profession, seeing that I may do extra,” mentioned Derisso, who’s now learning Italian in Milan. She hopes to complete her pc science diploma at an Italian college, having accomplished the primary two years at San Francisco State College. “Each summer season I used to be in a position to discover who I used to be as a person.”
These summer season academies have been a time when she didn’t have to fret about becoming into a brand new foster household’s expectations or guidelines and have been a break from stressing over what residence or problem may come subsequent.
“I genuinely suppose it helped me to proceed to reside life,” Derisso mentioned. “I used to be so depressed, I used to be so down … however I seemed ahead to each summer season.”
California’s foster care system serves about 42,000 youngsters, most of whom have been faraway from their dad and mom’ residence after abuse or neglect. Many find yourself returning to their households; others are adopted or, like Ballantyne and Derisso, age out of the system. Foster youngsters within the state are disproportionately Black and Native American and are available from low-income households, and people who age out with no safe household construction face a singular set of hurdles with a restricted security internet.
“Attainable Selves” debuts Might 11 on PBS SoCal Plus.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
About 60% of California foster youth graduate highschool, in contrast with 86% of non-foster youth, in line with the California Division of Schooling. They’re additionally extra more likely to drop out, be chronically absent and change faculties steadily.
These statistics drove the event of First Star, which started at UCLA in 2011 and has since expanded to universities throughout the nation.
“These youngsters are the accountability of the state,” mentioned First Star Chief Government Lyndsey Wilson. “Our state ought to need each one of many foster youngsters to graduate … however that’s not taking place.”
Extra necessary than the educational assist, Wilson mentioned, the First Star program gives fixed check-ins with teenagers, social-emotional assist and a group that understands and values them. Whereas foster teenagers typically change faculties, houses and social employees, “our organizations are the one fixed,” she mentioned.
California doesn’t preserve statistics on faculty commencement charges for former foster youngsters, although the state has offered growing assist for this inhabitants, together with free tuition at some state faculties and devoted on-campus sources. Nevertheless, the state’s information present that foster youth enrolled in school inside a yr of highschool commencement 20% much less typically than non-foster youth.
A latest research of former California foster youth discovered that by age 23, about 10% had accomplished a school diploma — regardless of greater than 60% attending faculty. Lower than 4% accomplished a four-year diploma, in line with the California Youth Transitions to Maturity Examine.
“Constant adults matter when folks have had hostile childhood experiences and trauma after trauma,” Wilson says within the movie.
First Star doesn’t have information on its college students’ faculty commencement charges however mentioned their highschool commencement price was virtually 100% final yr.
Despite the fact that the documentary dives into a few of the teenagers’ worst moments and biggest insecurities, Derisso and Ballantyne are each overwhelmingly happy with the movie.
“I received to see how a lot I’ve grown and my progress,” Derisso mentioned. “I hope that this motivates different foster youngsters to make their desires come true.”
A free screening of the documentary, adopted by a panel dialogue that can embody Kadlec and Ballantyne, will likely be held Saturday at 3 p.m. on the Los Angeles Central Library.
On PBS SoCal Plus, the movie premieres Might 11 at 9 p.m. within the L.A. space and might be streamed nationwide on the PBS app.
