Tim Morrison

In Short Term 12, the abused but irrepressible heroine Grace leads us into a typically hidden world: the foster care group home. In doing, she helps illustrate how steep the hill is that confronts youth in the child welfare system.

By Tim Morrison Leslie Mendoza found herself put out of school for angrily reacting to a teacher who singled her out in front of a noisy freshman algebra classroom, despite the fact that she had been one of the few paying attention.

By Tim Morrison When children are removed from their homes, foster care agencies prefer to place them with caregivers who are related, often grandparents. Unlike adoptive parents, however, nearly nine out of 10 of these grandparent caregivers who are eligible for benefits that support children newly in their care do not receive them, and in most cases purposefully reject them, because of the way they are administered.