Behind Sesame Street, there is Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization whose mission is “to use the educational power of media to help children everywhere reach their highest potential.” Sesame Workshop utilizes on-the-ground outreach and collaborations with partners and local agencies in order to have the most impact.
Sesame Workshop’s initiatives encompass many areas and regions of the world, from Takalani Sesame in South Africa, which features a Muppet who is HIV-positive, to Families Stand Together in the United States, which focuses on families facing financial challenges.
Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration
Sesame Workshop’s most recent resiliency initiative provides resources for supporting and comforting young children whose parents are incarcerated. According to a 2011 U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, children in foster care who have incarcerated parents are not a well-identified population, but “they are likely to number in the tens of thousands.” Incarcerated parents of children in foster care face barriers in terms of reunification, due to federal laws that set timelines for child permanency. In their report, the GAO recommended that the Department of Justice “consider ways to promote collaboration between corrections and child welfare agencies” in order to support family ties and facilitate work with children in foster care and their parents.
The Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration initiative includes materials to help at-home caregivers communicate with their children about incarceration, as well as tips and strategies to encourage incarcerated parents to continue communicating with their children. These FREE materials include:
- A multimedia resource kit with a Sesame Street DVD, a Guide for Parents and Caregivers, and a Children’s Storybook, available at www.sesamestreet.org/incarceration
- Sesame Street: Incarceration app for adults to use on tablets and phones, available on Google Play, the App Store and the Amazon Appstore for Android on Kindle Fire
- Youtube.com/user/SesameStreetInCommunities featuring playlists of videos related to the initiative
The initiative in Minnesota
Minnesota has been chosen as a pilot state for a deeper implementation of these resources. If you are interested in obtaining kits or you would like additional information for your organization in Minnesota, please visit the Sesame Street Dissemination Project in Minnesota website. You can also email Dr. Rebecca Shlafer, the lead for this project in Minnesota, at [email protected].