Alumna Shares Messages of Hope for Teen Foster Children on TikTok May 12, 2021
Posted by Mia Moody-Ramirez in : Uncategorized , trackback
By Mia Moody-Ramirez, Ph.D.
Brittany Burcham launched her first video on teen foster care in April, and she has since blown up on TikTok.
“TikTok is cool…sixty seconds is the longest you can effectively share a message, so you have to be creative,” said Burcham, who graduated from Baylor in 2007 with a degree in public relations and a minor in political science and world affairs. She is now a senior manager of franchise communications at Marriott.
Burcham became an emergency care foster parent in Alabama two years ago. She uses her social media skills to organize donations for emergency supplies for foster parents to give to children and to raise funds for movie days.
She became interested in focusing on teens after noticing that she was constantly getting calls asking her to take in teen girls for a night or two. People are more open to adopting or fostering babies, but not so much for teens, she said.
“Teens come into the office with trash bags,” she said. “This series provides insight into why you should foster teens instead of babies.”
Burcham’s informational videos on TikTok include adoption photo listings. “Foster the Teens” focuses on encouraging foster parents to foster teens. She says TikTok provides a cool opportunity to educate people.
“TikTok is a new medium for me,” she said. “Within about a week, one of my videos had 1.3 million views.”
Burcham had more than 17,000 followers in a little over a month.
Burcham has long been interested in helping others who are less fortunate. Amanda Sturgill, Ph.D., of Elon University, remembers taking Burcham and other students to Kenya on a Baylor vocational mission trips in the early 2000s.
“She used her journalism skills to, among other things, tell the stories of an orphanage for babies and toddlers orphaned by HIV/AIDS,” Sturgill said.
“TikTok is an incredible medium for more than goofy dancing. It has a powerful way of bringing people in than just pictures. It plays with ability to connect with people,” Burcham said.
The link to Burcham’s TikTok profile is https://www.tiktok.com/@fostertheteens
Comments»
no comments yet - be the first?