Bob Lewis Video Project Page

Seeing the Voices of Children & Youth

This project has developed tools for incorporating the voices of children and youth into their own child welfare/juvenile justice records through the use of video captured in six sequential sessions.
With the help of my colleagues from across the country, I developed both the protocol to make it happen within regular worker visits and sets of questions that can help a child to tell, own and claim his/her story.
For each child/youth, the video is about strengths; putting ones best foot forward, telling his/her own true story, what he/she remembers, experience(d), what he/she was told and what each of them thinks of it now and what he/she hopes for the future. It is his/her truth from that personal perspective. It is also a record of strengths, hopes and plans that can represent the young person more completely than current records and referrals.

It's about hope, healing and self determination, and of course it is always about permanence. It's a process.

Any worker can use this protocol, process and questions using little more then 5 minutes of the mandated monthly visits. The important element will be to make sure that each child or youth has someone safe, skilled and available to process the questions between visits and or video sessions.

Click here for a summary page.

Why Do It?!

Session 1: Introduction "Sample", Bob & Kashawn
Kashawn and I started making sample videos for the video project as Kashawn embarks on his own journery of self discovery and setting his own record straight.

Session 2: Before I Came Into Care... Kashawn began his story with life before foster care. All of the questions used were the first draft. The Protocol is updated as feedback comes in and/or needed.

Session 3: The Day I Came Into Foster Care... Kashawn continued his story with his memory of coming into care. At his request we went to the local county office building for him to tell this port of his story. The impact of the building, the family visiting room and the questions, despite preparation caught him off guard. Remember that the questions keep being edited.

Session 4a: In Foster Care ... Kashawn asked that we go to the residential center where he lived for almost seven years. He invited his older brother Porter, who lived there with him some of the time, to participate in this session. His recent haircut made him more comfortable in the hat.

At the end of this session Porter asked to address every child in foster by speaking into the camera.

Session 4b: In Foster Care... (Contd) Kashawn continued his story of foster care. Kashawn wanted to talk more about his experience in foster care and finish answering the questions for Session/Visit 4. The questions and process were outlined in the working draft of protocol. The questions and instructions are more tightly structure in the corrent version. The protocol keeps being updated based on new feedback from the field.

Session 5: It's Really Like This... As Kashawn said, "This session is hard." Here the questions move from the past to the present. The protocol recommends showing all the previous videos before doing this session. So did Kashawn without reading the instructions. In fact it may take some several viewings or retellings to go to this session. By this point Kashawn's "samples" had become his journey of discovery.

Session 6: In The Future I Hope... Empowered: With hope I gain courage, with courage I gain confidence and with confidence there are no limits. With the completion of Session 6. In the future I hope... Kashawn and I finished the six sample videos of The Video Project. It completed the process and went a long way for Kashawn to set his own record straight. In the process he has also fiercely adopted my saying about the promise we we make to every child we take into care.