Award-Winning Festival Standout “Unadopted” Documentary to Premiere Nationally on PBS- (Graphic: Business Wire))

YR Media’s acclaimed youth-led portrayal of the U.S. foster care system makes national debut during National Foster Care Month - A film that both raises awareness and demands action by exploring one long-standing question — what happens when you're “too old” to get adopted?

OAKLAND, Calif. USA -- (BUSINESS WIRE)

Thursday April 29, 2021

On any given day, there are nearly 424,000 children in foster care in the U.S. Additionally, despite the common perception that the majority of children in foster care are very young, the average age of kids entering care is 8 and a third of them are people of color. By the time they are in their teens, they are all but invisible within a system that has given up finding them a forever family. But why?

This May, in conjunction with National Foster Care Month, YR Media’s Unadopted documentary explores that very question with a national debut on PBS. The award-winning nonprofit and one of their youth employees, 22-year-old Noel Anaya, co-produced the film that both raises awareness and demands action by exploring one long-standing question — what happens when you're “too old” to get adopted? It happens all too often, as in 2019 alone, more than 20,000 young people aged out of foster care without permanent families. The effect can be life altering as research has shown that those who leave care without being linked to forever families have a higher likelihood than youth in the general population to experience homelessness, unemployment, and incarceration as adults.

Anaya’s own story forms the basis for the 33-minute documentary, as he investigates both the social welfare system’s silent but pervasive systemic bias against families of color and “older youth,” as well as his own life experiences as a child who spent 20 years in foster care before fighting to recover his own records and ties with his biological family.

After a highly successful festival run — including being named an official selection of Virtual Crossroads 2020, “Honorable Mention: Audience Choice” of the Salute Your Shorts Festival, and receiving the James Madison Student Journalist and Platinum AVA Awards — Unadopted will air May 1, 2021, on KQED, and will air nationally on PBS local affiliates throughout Foster Care Awareness Month. Please check local listings for air times.

“The making of Unadopted is my effort to educate the public and push for real change for the next generation of children and young adults growing up in the broken foster care system,” said Anaya, now a college student in Oakland, California. “I hope that we’ll soon see a system that allows all children and young adults to get a chance to find loving, supportive, and stable homes. Everyone deserves that."

“We are grateful to Noel for his continued leadership on this issue and for all of the young people profiled in the film who refuse to be rendered invisible in the face of a pervasive problem,” said Kyra Kyles, YR Media CEO. “Their stories need to be heard.”

Funding for Unadopted was provided by the Ford Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Pivotal Ventures, May and Stanley Smith Charitable Trust, and The Jensen Family. Licensing for Unadopted is available through Good Docs. For more information on the film, please visit www.unadoptedfilm.com.

YR Media, formerly Youth Radio, is an award-winning national network of diverse young journalists and artists from underrepresented communities who create content for this generation. Headquartered in downtown Oakland, California, our nonprofit has spent 25 years helping future generations build crucial skills in journalism, arts, and media. We produce journalism, music, graphic design, podcasts, and documentaries that disrupt and shape the mainstream narrative.

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