For
more than 40 years, “Sesame Street” has been helping kids tackle tough topics
like death and divorce. With one in 28 kids having a parent behind bars, the
show will now be tackling the topic of understanding jail time. NBC’s Erika
Hill reports.
The
Sesame Workshop says it created the “Little Children, Big Challenges:
Incarceration” initiative, an online tool kit intended to help kids with a
parent in prison find support and comfort, and provide families with strategies
and tips to talk to their children about incarceration.
Meet
Alex, the first Muppet to have a dad in jail. One in 28 children in the United
States now has a parent behind bars — more than the number of kids with a
parent who is deployed — so it’s a real issue, but it’s talked about far less
because of the stigma.
Alex
is blue-haired and green-nosed and he wears a hoodie – you might think he’s
just another carefree inhabitant of Sesame Street. But there’s sorrow in Alex’s
voice when he talks about his father.
“I
just miss him so much,” he tells a friend. “I usually don’t want people to know
about my Dad.”
It’s
easier for kids to hear such things from a Muppet than an adult, creators of
the initiative noted.
“Coming
from a Muppet, it’s almost another child telling their story to the children,”
said Jeanette Betancourt, vice president of outreach and educational practices
at the Sesame Workshop.
Alex
will not be part of the regular cast on “Sesame Street,” but he’s playing a
central role in the online tool kit.
Children
of parents behind bars often feel sadness, shame and guilt about the situation,
so they need to know they are loved and that the incarceration is not their
fault, said Carol Burton, executive director of Centerforce, a non-profit
dedicated to supporting families impacted by incarceration.
No comments:
Post a Comment