"LOOKING AHEAD"
by Paul Petersen

If you're short on time, here's the link:
http://www.actorsfund.org/human/LOOKING%20AHEAD.htm

THIRTEEN YEARS we've been here, this merry band of former kid stars who literally grew up on movie and television screens in front of the world. We've learned a lot, and as the 100,000 visitors to our site know, we've done our best to share this information with today's working children and their families.

The installation of our AMC Visitor Counter in April of 2000 coincided with the natural evolution of this Industry's amazing "turn-over-rate" that sees 20% of the major theatrical union's juvenile membership leaving the ranks of working children, who are replaced by another 20% of NEW hopefuls under the age of Eighteen. This is a Five Year cycle. The point is that we are now entering our 3rd "generation" of kids and their parents who are new to the Business and have worked at least two jobs, which means that our education campaign must be reinvented every five years. In many ways we seem to duplicate the difficult educational task seen in AIDS Education wherein just when you think you've reached everyone with the crucial information needed for survival you discover that an entirely new group of people have entered the Risk Zone.

Enter, The Actors Fund of America, one of the bedrock organizations of Show Business that provides aid and assistance to the entire Entertainment Industry, and has since 1882! Think of that; 121 years of service…everything from finding the money for burials of indigent actors, to the creation of hospices for AIDS victims. The expansion of The Actors Fund to the west coast from its home base of New York City put this organization into direct and immediate contact with a sub-population of the Industry that had historically been under-served, namely, the children who work in the Entertainment Industry. We have ten times the number of young performers as the rest of the country combined, and their unique needs soon came to The Actors Fund's attention, thanks to A Minor Consideration's unceasing efforts to help educate people about what lies ahead for a majority of these working kids.

I repeat, it's not the work that is so troubling to these high-profile children. It's what happens NEXT. Simply put, it's a bad idea to imperil fifty or sixty years of adult achievement for juvenile success…in the Entertainment Industry or in Sports. This is about excess…excess ambition, excessive fixation on fame and riches at any cost, and an excess of competitive pressure that ignores what is best for that extraordinarily gifted child.

There will always be children in the Entertainment Business. The risk factors are now well known, and documented. The question is, "What can we do about it?

A Minor Consideration has developed several preventative strategies since that moment in time when we shifted our emphasis from Intervention to Prevention. Much of our success cannot be measured because when we succeed the result is nearly invisible. In short, the families we reach do not make headlines. The kids we affect, whatever their level of Fame, manage to keep their balance and move into their adult life with far less drama.

We have come to that point in time when we need to systematize the transfer of lessons learned and educate our target group in those potential measures that reduce the risk to high-profile youngsters. This is not so simple as it may appear because the range of support services needed to make this work is not only unique in character, but in scope as well. The nature of the modern family has changed. One child's benefit may be another's child's risk. Some working kids lose sight of their educational needs while others may suffer from a lack of social interaction with their peers. Some parents are financial illiterates while others have a flair for money management. The complicating factors such as what a kid is famous FOR, the number of brothers and sisters, the composition of their management team, not to mention that moment in time when the onset of adolescence appears make this an ever-interesting puzzle.

When The Actors Fund first proposed its ambitious "Looking Ahead" program three years ago we who have been working in this field were overjoyed because of all the specific areas we've identified the crucial Transition Period is the one that causes us the most trouble.

"Those who ignore History are doomed to repeat it." That is our catchphrase. It is one thing to identify a problem, but quite another to put that knowledge into the hands of the people who need it most…and do so on a permanent basis.

With a significant grant from the Industry itself, The Actors Fund is moving forward with an ambitious program supported by not only A Minor Consideration, but the joint Young Performers Committee of AFTRA and SAG, and several major players acting as Advisors and Mentors.

You can learn more about "Looking Ahead" by going to http://www.actorsfund.org/human/LOOKING%20AHEAD.htm. Read who is involved, starting with Richard Thomas who serves as Chair of the Advisory Board that boasts of Henry Winkler and the President of AFTRA, John Connolly.