PRISON LULLABIES Addresses AECF’s Core Results

Launched in March 2001, the Making Connections Media Outreach Initiative (MCMOI), funded by The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) offers vital media-based resources and strategies to the Making Connections Network. Outreach Extensions will assist public television stations and their partners by identifying relevant content within MCMOI productions and by creating outreach materials that can be used as resources to address AECF’s Core Results. This will enable stations to collaborate with the Casey site teams to help them reach their goals – and link their efforts to the long-term development of neighborhoods and families.

Core Results

AECF hopes that children will be healthier and do better in school; that more parents will be working and have good jobs; that more families will be able to save for the future; that more residents will be involved in community groups and activities. It also hopes people will feel safer and more connected, and as importantly, have a voice in decisions that affect their families and communities. To achieve these kinds of results, the local Casey sites are moving toward specific, measurable results for children, families, and neighborhoods.

The following information suggests “matches” for PRISON LULLABIES that can assist stations/sites in achieving specific Core Results related to Economic Opportunity, Social Networks, and Quality Services and Supports. This documentary is produced by Brown Hats Productions.

Families have increased income and earnings.

Teacher (in training session at the prison): So these are your standing accounts. All your assets are in your saving accounts. All you have is your balance.

Anne Marie: I want to learn Excel [computer program] before I leave here. I’ve only got like four weeks left.

Anne Marie: I want to make sure that I can provide a home for myself and my child, that I can support me and my child. That I don’t need, you know

Families have increased assets.

Joann: ’87 I started using crack, and then I just noticed how much money I can make making it….If I quit doing it and was just selling it, then I would make a lot of money. So I did. But it ain’t worth it, it’s not worth it, cause now, you ain’t got nothing. Nothing to prove for it.

Anne Marie: I thought I’d own my own home, happily married, having a couple of kids. I thought I would own my own restaurant someday.

Amy: Obviously, it’s no secret, that I am the captain of the [nursery] floor now and I do not like my position, because I have a hard time giving orders….I tried to step down. Ms. Baisden told me I couldn’t. I really need this in my life because I’ve always been in abusive relationships where I was always controlled, and now I gotta start having a little bit of control.

Families, youth, and neighborhoods increase their civic engagement.

Neighborhoods support families through informal supports and networks.

Families have increased access to quality services and support systems that work for them.

Joann: I don’t mind being in prison, because when I was on the street, it seemed like I was in prison, too, you know, because I never got to do anything by myself. For myself. Only, and then, when I had the chance, I would get high.
Monique: One day I came home with a black eye. And my grandfather and everybody went crazy. “Monique, what’s the matter with you; what’s the matter with you?” I said, “don’t worry about it; don’t worry about it. I fell. I fell.”

Amy: I was two months pregnant when I got incarcerated. I wouldn’t have known I was pregnant because I was on the run for the six months before that. So, of course I wasn’t going to go to no public doctor. Because of my drug use, my menstrual cycle was really messed up for over a year.

Monique: I wanted someone to love me so much, you know. Love I’d never had. And he gave it to me. As far as violence is concerned, that’s all I saw in my life. Violence. So, I figured that’s the way they show their love.

Ms. Baisden (to Anne Marie): Your thinking process is maddening. Here you are believing that this rapid heartbeat is signaling that you got a great mixture [of illegal drugs]. Your ears are ringing, people are dying around you, and you’re trying to figure out, how can you get that stuff. Is that not insane? [check tape to see if she’s talking to Anne Marie]

Children are healthy and ready to learn.

Joann: But in my house, there was no boundaries, no boundaries at all. At 8:00 o’clock, I am trying to get them to bed. Here it is, 3:00 o’clock in the morning and they are still up playing. I mean, they’re wearing me out. And between me using my alcohol, using my drugs, and taking, and trying to take care of the kids, it was just overwhelming for me and it was just bad. I couldn’t handle it.

Monique: I want to try and give my son better things I never had. I’m trying not to get into [violent] relationships like that, you know. Because I don’t want him to witness that.

Amy (after the birth of her daughter Carissa): I’m fortunate to be able to take her back with me, but it’s not like we are going to be able to walk out with her father and go home, you know….Someday, she’ll ask where she was born.

Anne Marie: I took a hit [of crack cocaine] in the hospital, right before giving birth to my daughter. I felt like such a [fool] afterwards, but I was so scared, you know….I think the biggest thing that was going in my head was that the baby was going to be born cocaine toxic.

Emanuel (Carissa’s father, who is visit the prison every weekend): Yeah. Every weekend. Trying to keep in touch with my lttle one. Not to see her [Amy] now. Just to see the baby.

Amy (about her baby Carissa): She is 100% dependent of me and I like that. I like taking care of her.

The value of utilizing AECF’s framework for PRISON LULLABIES and other MCMOI campaigns is that it directly links our outreach efforts to the core work of the neighborhood sites. We then share a common structure to develop and implement projects, establish project goals, and evaluate results, as well as communicate success.