Scan the media landscape and you’ll find literally hundreds of stories published per day about traumatic injury. The immense attention being given to brain injury in particular, is fueled by the large numbers of veterans who are experiencing some form of TBI due to their deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The stories are often filled with the great hope surrounding treatments, research and funding.
But someone very unique leap up out of that landscape today – Elmo. Yes, that little red Elmo, along with his Spanish-speaking Sesame Street friend, Rosita.
Sesame Workshop, the non profit organization behind the generation-traversing television show Sesame Street, today launched Talk, Listen, Connect: Deployments, Homecomings, Changes, a colorful multimedia, bilingual “kit” aimed at helping young children in military families cope with catastrophic injury and the changes it brings into their young worlds. The kit includes downloadable posters, videos, music, magazines and adult resource guides. Specific topics separated for children and adults; cover homecomings, deployments and “changes.”
The initiative is actually phase II of Sesame Workshop’s military outreach program, and aims to help young children between the ages of two and five who are experiencing the effects of injury, deployments and the changes in parents returning from the front lines. The success of the first phase of the TLC project, which was called Talk, Listen, Connect: Helping Families During Military Deployment was so successful Sesame Workshop enthusiastically launched its second phase.
The TLC kit is designed specifically for families now living with war-related injuries and for the purpose of helping caregivers build a sense of stability and resiliency during times of separation and change. According to the Workshop, its goals are:
• Reduce the level of anxiety children may experience during homecomings after multiple deployments
• Help parents with ways to cope with multiple deployments
• Help young children gain an age-appropriate understanding of a parent’s injury by including them and the entire family in the rehabilitation process
• Reassure children that they are loved and secure and that together with their families, they can learn new ways of being there for one another and having hope for the future
Sesame Workshop will produce and distribute 500,000 DVD kits at no cost to families, schools, caregivers and facilitators. The TLC web site also contains much of the DVD material. The DVD kits include videos, print materials and postcards, all featuring the loved Muppet characters. The initiative serves the estimated 700,000 children between two and five who have a parent in the military. An enhanced TLC web site is also planned for unveiling this coming Fall.
While this initiative was created with some of the unique issues military families face in mind, we believe any family facing the challenges of separation and changes due to catastrophic injury will benefit from this wonderful project. We salute Sesame Workshop and their partners!
The TLC website is located here.
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