Group addresses COVID-19 challenges for children with an incarcerated parent
28th September 2020 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
The COVID-19 pandemic has been rough on everyone in New Orleans, including school-age children who have been forced to cope with the strangeness and stress of virtual learning and online classes.
It’s also been tough for parents, many of whom have to now monitor every step of their kids’ socially-distanced learning on top of the jobs and employment that pays the rent and puts food on the table.
But for some children and their families, there’s an added psychological and logistical challenge—the incarceration of a parent in the prison system. And with that parental absence comes an array of potentially crippling obstacles, like shame, isolation and lasting trauma.
However, Daughters Beyond Incarceration, a local organization dedicated to provide all forms of support for such struggling families, has stepped up its game as the pandemic drags on. On Aug. 31 and Sept. 14, the group held a pair of town hall workshops focused on listening to girls’ worries, fears and frustrations with their situation.
Titled “Supporting Children—Trauma, COVID-19, Virtual Learning,” the sessions brought together online via Zoom students, parents, teachers, administrators, experts and counseling professionals to discuss the challenges facing daughters of incarcerated parents during the coronavirus crisis.
Dominique Johnson, executive director and co-founder of DBI NOLA, told The Louisiana Weekly following the town halls that the goal of the town hall series “was to shape the needs of children impacted by incarceration.”
The first session on Aug. 31 involved discussions with several local children of different grade and school levels. Panel participants listened to and processed the kids’ comments and feelings.
Six-year-old Karly, a second-grader, said not being able to hug and be with her classmates has been extremely difficult. She said distance learning reinforces that separation.
“When I see people online, it makes me miss them even more,” Karly said. “It really does make me sad.”
But Karly also knows that the pandemic quarantining has been difficult for adults, too.
“I know that anyone in the city does not like it,” she said.
Jarian, an eighth-grader, told the workshop attendees that while she misses school, she also worries about contracting COVID when she’s around other people, including her classmates.
“It makes me feel unsafe,” she said.
Jarian added that virtual learning has been difficult, especially transitioning in-class to online studies, especially having to forgo her fulfilling extracurriculars like band. It’s also been disappointing to not be able to gather with her friends, counselors and tutors at DBI, because she relies on their help and support.
But she added that other children of incarcerated parents shouldn’t stop striving for success.
“I would give them courage and tell them that they will make it through this, and they will pass eighth grade,” Jarian said.
Troynyah, a 10th-grader whose father is incarcerated in federal prison, told the panelists and audience that she worries for her father and his safety because so many people in prisons and jails have contracted the coronavirus.
Troynyah said that “ I barely get to talk to my dad,” and she added that she often thinks about how his absence has made life hard for her and the rest of her family.
“Sometimes I just sit back and think about how some kids have their daddy with them to help while their mom is getting stuff to help,” she said.
Troynyah said that often teachers place too much pressure on her and other students in their classwork, and she added that “sometimes that’s challenging because you don’t have nobody at home to help you and to motivate you and push you.”
Also taking part in the first session was Aaliyah, a freshman at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette who also competes for the ULL track team on scholarship. Aaliyah, whose mother is incarcerated, said it hurt not being to enjoy a traditional high-school graduation ceremony because of COVID. She said she was nervous when she started college last month, and she missed being able to share her educational transition with her. Arriving on campus was especially hard.
“I wanted my mom here more than I thought when move-in day came, and it was very emotional for me,” Aaliyah said. “I was excited, but my mother wasn’t able to see this moment.”
She added that all facets of college life have been disrupted because of the pandemic; she said having online classes in her dorm room have prevented her from going out on campus and meeting new people, and the requirements of safety and social distancing have made track practice extremely challenging and even awkward.
Aaliyah said that she and her mom come from “a family of worriers” and that they each have anxiety and fear for what the other is going through. But, partially through Zoom sessions with her mom, she and her mom are slowly building a solid relationship of trust, understanding and love, so much so that they’re realizing how much they share and how they can support each other during these trying times.
“We don’t have the mother-daughter relationship that I’d hoped for,” Aaliyah said, “but we’ve started to gain a relationship. She can feel when I’m down, and I can tell when she’s down.”
She said prayer and the support structure offered by DBI have helped them when they get overwhelmed, dismayed or exhausted.
Johnson told The Louisiana Weekly that the Aug. 31 session had over 100 attendees, who were all impressed with the girls’ maturity and insight.
“Many of the audience expressed their gratitude to the youth for advocating for the right to speak and to be included in decisions about their overall wellbeing,” Johnson said. “In addition, they spoke about how they wish parents wouldn’t put so much pressure on them and for some of them virtual learning is difficult to adjust to.”
The second workshop on Sept. 14, zeroed in on ways adults — parents, teachers, counselors and other role models and influences — can take what they heard from the children on Aug. 31 and form them into collaborative strategies for providing support for girls with incarcerated parents, especially during the pandemic.
Perhaps the most impactful comments during the second session came from educators and school administrators. Rachel Lewis, director of student support at the Travis Hill School in New Orleans said that teachers can learn to understand that often, a child’s unruly or disruptive behavior and inattention to schooling is actually the child’s way of calling out for help and understanding.
“To me, support looks like treating all student behavior as communication,” Lewis said. “So when a student is asking a question or expressing a concern, don’t see that as ‘disrespectful,’ rather, try hearing what the student is actually saying and being responsive to that.”
That extends to attendance, Smith said. When a student switches off their monitoring and checks out during an online class, she said, instead of upbraiding them for skipping class, find out the reason they couldn’t continue the class.
“If a student doesn’t show up for class,” Lewis said, “ask them if they’re OK, rather than accusing them of skipping class. Instead of punishing children who are already going through so much, try to understand them and figure out what they need to be successful.”
Eveta McCann, a third-grade teacher in New Orleans school, offered similar sentiments. McCann stressed that teachers are in the same unfamiliar, uncertain situation as students during the pandemic and the implementation of virtual learning.
“Everything that kids are feeling, I can assure you your teacher feels the same way,” she said.
McCann added that there are a few key actions and courses of action teachers and parents can take when figuring how best to offer support to children in school and undertaking the learning process. One is to tell your school principal if problems are arising with distance learning; for example, tell administrators that an hour is too long for children to stay tuned in to an online session, and take advantage of the administrative support systems already in place.
A second key action is a willingness to be open and honest with students and children. If parents and teachers and other adults can show kids that adults have vulnerabilities, anxieties and emotional challenges just like kids do, it will encourage youth to not be ashamed at their own fears and traumas and to talk those challenges out.
“We’re all here for the children,” McCann said. “If you can build that relationship with teachers, and if we’re all telling administration the exact same thing,” then students will benefit.
This article originally published in the September 28, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
