Sesame Street’s When Families Grieve

Source: Rough Notes

One in 20 American children under the age of 15 experiences the death of a parent. For military families, the rate is even higher.

Tomorrow night (April 14) Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, will present an hour-long special on losing a parent. It airs on PBS at 8:00 PM ET/PT (check local listings).

Katie Couric will host the special. Her daughters were two and six years old when she lost her husband 12 years ago. The program, called When Families Grieve, is designed to aid communication between adults and children on this difficult subject.

Sesame’s outreach initiatives harness the power of the Sesame Street Muppets to aid the communication between adults and children through strategies and language that are child-appropriate and useful for the whole family.

Here are a few video previews.

Additional videos can be viewed on YouTube.

Free kits available online

Sesame Workshop will be providing almost a million free multimedia kits, both to families and to those who provide grief services. The kits are bilingual (English and Spanish), and there are two versions, one for military families and one for the general public. In addition to a DVD, the kits contain print material, including a children’s storybook designed to comfort children who are dealing with the death of a parent.

The kits will be available beginning April 15. For the general public, the website for free kits is www.sesamestreet.org/grief. For military families, the website is www.MilitaryOneSource.com. Military families can also obtain a kit by calling 1-800-342-9647.

Thanks to PalliMed for advance notice about this program.

UPDATE (4/14/10): This was hard to watch, but well worth it. The program talks to four families who lost a parent. Two military families – one husband who died in action, the other a returning vet who committed suicide. A firefighter who had a heart attack while on the job. And a mother who died of breast cancer. I can imagine that watching this program as a family would help children and parents talk about their feelings and help children realize they’re not alone.

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