Please note: This event is being hosted externally and not through Exchange Wales. Family & Community external events listings are posted to inform the wider community about external events including workshops, opportunities for families, children and young people, and helpful resources.
18 January 2023
From 7pm to 8.30pm
Online event
£5.00
The event will start with a screening of the award-winning short film, Be-Longing. This powerful film tells the story of Khoji, a 9-year ‘looked after’ boy living within a foster family in London. This is a great way to open up the director Q&A and discussion with the guests Stanley J. Browne and Niki Igbaroola around foster care, the effects it has on young people in difficult circumstances, and how we can best support them throughout this process.
Stanley J. Browne and Niki Igbaroola will be sharing their own experiences of the care system and discussing the feeling of being born to the wrong family when moving around while in foster care. There will be a focus on the important issue of parents and mental health.
This session is focused on knowledge sharing, learning, and supporting each other. They want to hear about your own experiences, questions, and the problems you encounter to help make things better for you and the young people in your care. This session also provides a powerful networking opportunity in which we can learn from other people in the sector, and work together to find solutions to help create lasting change.
So, if you work with young people in care, or are care experienced, this one’s for you!
This event is designed to help those working within the care sector to:
- Share good practice
- Learn from key successes from other agencies
- Give the opportunity to ask – about your/your organisation’s biggest struggles, or how other agencies deal with particular issues and situations to learn from them
- Share your events and upcoming training opportunities
- Bring your question to the table for other professionals in the sector to respond to
- Discuss opportunities to create lasting change
About Be-Longing
Khoji has experienced the trauma of living with violent and chaotic birth parents, but is torn between accepting the trust, kindness, and security of his foster family and remaining ‘loyal’ to his birth parents, who he still loves dearly.
Be-Longing follows Khoji’s progress as he enters ‘care’ and embarks on a journey towards regaining belief in himself and adults.
Be-Longing is produced by DrumCam Films, and directed by filmmaker Mike McKenzie. Mike and his wife Carol have been fostering children for over 15 years. Be-Longing has been nominated for and won several awards at a number of prestigious international and UK wide film festivals.
To watch the trailer for this short film Be-Longing, hit play on the video below.
About the Special Guests
- Stanley J. Browne – Actor, Author and Singer-Songwriter. The Author of new book ‘Little Big Man’ talks about his time in and out of the foster care system from the age of five.
- Niki Igbaroola – an Award-winning, Diverse-owned Independent Publisher and Bookseller of Jacaranda Books.
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