Minnesota Heart Gallery
InCommons Collaboration Challenge
Minnesota Heart Gallery
“What I really wish for most is a family because I need one. I’m not giving up! Don’t you give up on me, either.”
-Maria Lopez at age 17, when she was waiting to be adopted
This quote explains perfectly why Ampersand Families exists. There is nothing that can more poignantly stir a sense of how important it is to have a place and people to which you belong than to step momentarily into the shoes of a 17-year-old about to face the world with no family, no unconditionally committed adults, no financial supports, and a childhood filled with rejection and hurt. This is the path of 600 teenagers here in MN, who leave foster care each year, unsure of where to call home or whom to count on. What happens next is sobering and tragic: Research tells us that many become homeless, pregnant, incarcerated. Many don’t finish high school.
Ampersand Families is raising awareness about the longest-waiting and oldest youth in foster care and is helping to recruit adoptive families for these waiting youth. The MN Heart Gallery, a traveling photographic exhibit and online gallery, was created to find permanent families for kids in foster care and increase awareness of older youth adoption.
The Heart Gallery (www.minnesotaheartgallery.org) is a community outreach project of Ampersand Families. It’s a statewide effort that harnesses the talents of volunteer professional photographers to take personality-capturing photographs of children and teens who are awaiting adoption. Heart Gallery photos generate community interest in the lives of young people awaiting adoption.
Contributor
Jen Braun2010-10-21 10:56
1 Comment
About You
About You
First Name
Jen
Last Name
Braun
Country
United States, MN, Hennepin County
About Your Organization
Organization
Ampersand Families
Organization Website
Organization Phone
612.605.1904
Organization Address
681 17th Ave. NE, Suite 101
Organization Country
United States, MN, Hennepin County
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Your Story
Collaboration Title
Minnesota Heart Gallery
Country your work focuses on
United States, MN
Describe your locally-based collaboration and the problem it sought to address
“What I really wish for most is a family because I need one. I’m not giving up! Don’t you give up on me, either.”
-Maria Lopez at age 17, when she was waiting to be adopted
This quote explains perfectly why Ampersand Families exists. There is nothing that can more poignantly stir a sense of how important it is to have a place and people to which you belong than to step momentarily into the shoes of a 17-year-old about to face the world with no family, no unconditionally committed adults, no financial supports, and a childhood filled with rejection and hurt. This is the path of 600 teenagers here in MN, who leave foster care each year, unsure of where to call home or whom to count on. What happens next is sobering and tragic: Research tells us that many become homeless, pregnant, incarcerated. Many don’t finish high school.
Ampersand Families is raising awareness about the longest-waiting and oldest youth in foster care and is helping to recruit adoptive families for these waiting youth. The MN Heart Gallery, a traveling photographic exhibit and online gallery, was created to find permanent families for kids in foster care and increase awareness of older youth adoption.
The Heart Gallery (www.minnesotaheartgallery.org) is a community outreach project of Ampersand Families. It’s a statewide effort that harnesses the talents of volunteer professional photographers to take personality-capturing photographs of children and teens who are awaiting adoption. Heart Gallery photos generate community interest in the lives of young people awaiting adoption.
Tell us about the community in which this collaboration took place
The MN Heart Gallery, part of a collaborative project of Heart Gallery of America, is one of 120 Galleries in the US designed to increase adoptive families for foster kids. Galleries exist in most states and have secured an amazing number of adoptive homes. The MN Heart Gallery works with kids and volunteers throughout MN; portraits of foster kids have been taken in every corner of MN.
Issue Selector
n/a
Partnership
Who was involved in co-creating or implementing your collaboration (other organizations, leaders, community members, etc.)?
In 2005, a group of community members brought the MN Heart Gallery to life as a grassroots effort. For 2 years it traveled to art galleries statewide. The volunteer-run project recruited 100+ photographers around the state, and 100 kids had photos taken. We undertook this community outreach project in 2008, after the primary volunteer knew it was time to reinvigorate the Gallery with new focus.
To what extent does your collaboration involve partnerships that are outside or cross traditional organizational or sector boundaries?
The Gallery brings together unlikely collaborators: kids in need of adoptive families with the arts community. Our collaboration with photographers (who volunteer their time and talents) and foster kids helps us create a striking visual - real faces of kids who need a family. This moves the community to understand that no matter how old, you always need a place to belong - even if you’re 17.
Innovation
What makes your locally-based collaboration innovative and unique?
The Heart Gallery truly puts a face on the issue of kids in need of permanent families and we couldn’t do it without 2 components: the talents of our volunteer photographers, and the kids themselves who bravely offer to serve as the face of this problem. The Gallery connects kids with the photographers who help them choose a setting that will say something about who they are. Divonte picked a basketball court; you can see the concentration on his face as he shoots. Emanuel strikes a dance pose, full of joy and grace.
And for some of our kids, these are the few photos they have documenting their childhood. No one keeps an album of their baby photos. No one buys their school pictures.
Perhaps MN Gallery founder Julian Micko puts it best, “To me, the Gallery means that people are coming up with creative ways of making real the large numbers of kids who need homes by visually breaking down the statistics to one child at a time. The photographs are indisputable proof that they are individuals in their own right, kids with fully developed personalities, pleasures and needs. I think it's harder to ignore their plight when you've observsed them this way - up close and personal."
Did you take risks in establishing this collaboration? Explain
Our risk is that, quite simply, there is no public funding available for the MN Heart Gallery. We rely entirely on the generosity of private grantors, corporations, and individuals to step up and support this cause financially. The Heart Gallery has been a part of Ampersand since the beginning, and we continue to believe that we can raise the funds needed to keep this important project going.
How did this collaboration differ from the normal way of doing your work?
The collaboration’s social justice message is different: Belonging to a family is a basic human right.
We put kids in foster care to protect them. In the US annually, 30,000 foster kids “age out”: They’re on their own. Heart Gallery gets kids adopted so they have a family. Forever.
Impact
How do you know your collaboration has been effective?
Heart Gallery groups are making more people aware that older kids need adoptive families; this has been proven nationally.
Not only do Heart Galleries do that but they also, as their name suggests, create an opportunity for empathy and connection. Many kids and teens who would normally be challenging to place - because they are more than 9 years of age, or because of their racial background, or they are a member of a sibling group - have found homes as a direct result of these exhibits. Nationally, the success and spread of this project has surpassed even the hopeful expectations of its founders.
In MN we know that we are making an impact because every week we receive requests through our Heart Gallery website from community members asking for information on adopting older kids.
What progress or impact has been made?
The MN Heart Gallery’s goals are being met:
1) to introduce potential families to the youth awaiting adoption (nearly 50 kids’ photos taken; we plan to double that number in the next 6 months)
2) to support the voices and dignity of kids, and to honor them by including them in decisions about how their portrait is displayed
3) to raise community awareness via traveling exhibits and online
Next Steps
How would you go about continuing, expanding, or replicating this collaboration?
This type of collaboration has been proven nationally and we continue to carry on the work of the MN Heart Gallery in partnership with photographers, kids, and county social workers. We plan to increase the numbers of kids who are receiving photo shoots and increase the number of public exhibits that occur statewide.
Since taking on the MN Heart Gallery a little over two years ago, Ampersand has revitalized relationships with dozens of volunteer professional photographers throughout MN, and have located new photographers to help in our efforts.
Ampersand also collaborates with county social workers; we’ve created a user-friendly system for social workers to request Heart Gallery photos for their clients. Together with the hired assistance of a database developer, we have created a web-based application where these workers, upon registering their youth with the mandated online web-listing of waiting kids, may request that a Gallery photo be taken. This has begun to dramatically improve the quality of photos on the mandated website (and, thereby increase the dignity in how waiting youth are introduced to the community).
Describe the current stage of implementation and desired next steps
Ampersand launched the Heart Gallery website after a study of every online Heart Gallery in the nation. The result is that our site and online gallery is one of the best in the country: user-friendly, dynamic, inspiring.
One work-in-progress is our touring exhibits. We’re creating a system with 4 regional coordinators to bring together photographers and kids and organize showings of the photos. In working with the coordinators, we’re interested in developing statewide relationships to increase the odds of finding families for kids in their home communities.
We’re working with Skyline Design (who have given pro bono services of their time and design talents) to create museum-quality exhibits for statewide touring. Exhibits will include easy-to-assemble kits for smaller venues such as cafes/churches, and large display exhibits for venues such as museums/art galleries. To date, we’ve brought hundreds of people through a few events, and families HAVE stepped forward to learn more about adoption: The Heart Gallery works, and 10 years of experience with Galleries around the country shows that this does lead families to decide to adopt waiting kids. We will arrange even more adoption events and shows in upcoming months so that hundreds more can come learn about adoption and view the photos.
In summary, the MN Heart Gallery is a way for young people to have a chance to express themselves in beautiful works of art, and teach the public something about what it’s like to be in their shoes. Through Heart Gallery, youth help build a better future for themselves and other foster kids in the same boat. Who better than the kids themselves to understand how crucial this work is, and how urgent the need? Who better to collaborate with than photographers who can tell their moving story and truly put a face on the issue?
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Comments
So happy to see this important work being done
Ampersand and the Minnesota Heart Gallery help us see the young people who are so often overlooked. I love this collaboration and I'm so glad you exist!
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