Jerry Moe returns today, sharing more about the resources available for children and their caregivers.
Jerry and his Children’s Program team have worked with Sesame Street to create a storyline about parental addiction.
Not only will you hear about Karli and Salia, but you will also learn more about the Continuing Care resources for children and their caregivers following participation in the Hazelden Betty Ford Children’s Program.
See full transcript of episode below.
You are listening to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. A place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host Margaret Swift Thompson.
Intro: Welcome back to episode 31. Today Jerry returns and shares more about the resources out there for children whose family includes the disease of addiction.
Let’s get back to Jerry.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast
Margaret: Are there access points to Beamer or other materials that you would recommend for parents to understand more about the impact on their children. Is there anything out there that you personally will recommend to caregivers to start learning about the impact?
Jerry: Yeah, there’s a couple of things. So, if you go to the Hazelden Betty Ford website and go to Children’s Programs you’ll see Beamer. Beamer will be there; you’ll get to get a chance to see Beamer and get a chance to see more of our program philosophy, and in the ways that we work with kids. If anybody is listening and they have younger kids, we the children’s program and myself, we have been collaborating, gosh it’s been over 18 months now with Sesame Street.
Margaret: I love this, I’m so glad you’re sharing this. This is one of the most exciting things. Tell them more!
Jerry: Yeah, so and there is a brand-new Muppet, and she’s just adorable. She’s lime green with blonde pigtails and her name is Karli. And the back story is Karli is 6 1/2 years old and mom is just about to come home from treatment.
And so, what I got to do, some of what my staff got to do is really help to develop this. I mean Sesame Street does everything in a first-class kind of way.
Margaret: Amen
Jerry: Talk about being child centered. Talk about helping and reaching kid, my goodness they’re the gold standard. And so, we partnered and I got to work on the scripts. You’ll see a series of videos. You’ll see Karli with Elmo and for the first time talking about mom having a problem and its interesting cause that first video the word addiction isn’t mentioned at all. And what Karli said was you know my mom has this grown-up problem, she’s not taking care of herself. Now she’s learning how to do that, so a nice entrée.
Margaret: With Elmo and that first vignette cause I’ve watched them all, cause as I say I’m a bit of a geek fan over this Children Program. What I loved about the language in that, was the permission to speak without necessarily going too deep. The willingness to have language because I hear it on the treatment side when I was working at Hazelden Betty Ford, parents not knowing what to say to their children about being in treatment. Would say oh they’re getting, they’re at a hospital and then the kids are looking for white coats, and they’re scared cause this, this going to mean death. Cause all they hear is COVID and people are dying in hospital, and you know all the language is so powerful. And that language of what you just shared, of her mom getting well, learning to get well and to care for herself is such fabulous language to teach for when you face that choice of going to treatment. How to talk to your children about it.
Jerry: Yeah. I was on the set of Sesame Street when we filmed. There I am in Historia, Queens NY and the other thing about that video was having, it’s very nuanced but having Karli be able to start sharing it and be really scared and nervous about what kind of a response am I gonna get from Elmo or Chris, who works at Mr. Hooper’s store that’s also in the scene.
Margaret: Right
Jerry: And so really tentative and nervous, and then when they respond in a favorable way. how she would how she started to get excited when she talked about going to her own group, so really the subtleties and the layers there. Just incredibly well done.
Margaret: Yes
Jerry: And real briefly, so there will be other videos there that you could see. There’s a story book that we worked on, uhm that, you know what that I give to folks that are in treatment and have young kids. As a way let’s send this home. Or like you say Maggie, people and not just people in treatment but parents and grandparents not knowing the words, is going to that website and showing that, ‘Lending a Hand’ that piece is called. And just showing that and having that be again the entry point to jump off of. But there’s also, and this is how we got connected to it to begin with, there’s also just a wonderful activity called the seven C’s. You can make a quilt on online in all different colors and stuff, and actually print it out, and there’s a couple of different articles there. So just really well done, and it has been years since anyone with this particular age group has really created you know what turns out to be a very rich plethora of resources. Cause you’re right, I think adults get so concerned about how do I say this, and from my point of view as a therapist, it’s how do you tell them enough to validate what they already know, without giving them too much to confuse and overwhelm them. and I’ll give you a great example.
Margaret: Yeah, that’d be great.
Jerry: So, I met with a dad in treatment here at the Betty Ford Center, a couple months ago and he had a four and a five-year-old. And so, we met because they were concerned, where’s dad you know. And again, often if I don’t know what to say I’m not gonna say anything and so and what became clear Maggie was the boys didn’t really know about his drinking. I think that was very reasonable, so they didn’t see the alcohol but in this particular case they saw the ‘ism
Margaret: right
Jerry: you know and so dad was on the couch a lot, dad wasn’t playing with them. And so the way we framed it I mean what I always tell people to say the little kids is that you’re in school right now. you’re going to school
Margaret: totally,
Jerry: you know you got teachers you got homework. you even do PE every day you eat in the cafeteria. And so, in this particular case not only did the dad say that but he said let me tell you what I’m studying at school. I’m studying how to be a better dad because when I come home. I wanna play with you, the whole family benefited from that explanation. So how do we keep it simple, but I wanna validate what kids already know or they’re thinking you’re not telling me the whole deal here. what else is there? And occasionally I’ll do and again during the pandemic could get real creative and so in some instances where I’m sitting right now there will be a patient in the chair, I’ll be on I’ll be kneeling right next to them, and we’ll get the kids on the phone or we’ll do a zoom call.
And I’ll say you know I’m one of your dad’s teachers (laughter)and I did that a few weeks ago and the 9-year-old girl’ cause then you can see them, and there’s something about being able to see people. 9-year-old girl said how is he doing? Is he behaving? (laughter) and I said, ‘Well I’m glad you brought that up because I think most of the time he keeps behaving but I’m watching him very closely”. Which she just giggled
Margaret: I bet
Jerry: with delight, so
Margaret: I also loved about the Sesame Street, the young lady whose personal story is wrapped into all of the puppet stories.
Jerry: Salia
Margaret: Salia, what a young woman, what did little girl. She was just fabulous and is that’s something that continues in all of them that she’s a part of?
Jerry: Well, she was a part of that focus because here she is as another kid. And Salia’s story and you and if you go to the website, you’ll see Salia with Karli, but you also see a segment of Salia with her parents, especially with her mother. And they live in in Orange County so they’re not far from here and I think again it’s that message of hope. People do get better. People go to treatment. People get well, people get their families back. People move on in their lives.
March 13th, 2020 I was supposed to be honored at a dinner and it was cancelled the day before. I mean ’cause you know it, but pandemic just hit and all of a sudden our governor in California said we can’t have a crowd of more than 250 people, I think they’re gonna be like four 400 people there. And this ties into Salia because what we had worked out was Salia was going to be there and Salia was going to talk about me and invite me to come up on the stage, and so I hope when all this is over, we still get to do that. She’s an incredible, she’s incredible young woman I guess now, I can’t call her a little kid anymore. But she’s also the embodiment. Look what happens when we have services specific for kids. But yeah, they worked it out and you know they said who would you like to introduce you, oh Salia’s got to introduce me.
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Margaret: Perfect that a child would introduce you or a young person because you have touched so many children. I mean we love you as adults but it’s different.
Jerry: Absolutely, you’re absolutely right yeah.
Margaret: So, Jerry obviously there is hope and we want people to know there’s hope, and there’s healing and help but you also have very difficult circumstances as we all do because this disease is progressive, chronic, and potentially fatal. So do you offer, do you experience, probably a very dumb question. Children who come back and there are tragedies and resources for that part of the story, because that is a big part of the story?
Jerry: Sure, you know, and it happens all the time. You know one of the things Maggie that I hadn’t mentioned is that you know after kids go through that four-day process or that two-day virtual now, we do a stage two program and a stage three program. So, kids can come back for a second look, to reinforce the messages. When it’s not pandemic times stage two is 2 days just for kids and in virtual, it’s three hours just for kids. And we hear all the time about there’s relapses, you know my parent is incarcerated, you know mom has some serious mental health challenges going on or here’s some of the things that have happened.
So, it’s not atypical for us to have kids go back through our four day program a couple of times between 7 and 12 because there are at different points in their life, with different issues in their family.
Then we’re always looking at how do we partner with other wonderful children services. So, someone has passed away, you know is there a practitioner, is there a program around loss and grief. Or sometimes the kids will come and what we’ll see is boy they experienced a huge amount of trauma maybe they need to be an individual therapy or maybe there needs to be family therapy so, it looks like all of those things. And even when we do continuing care it’s open ended, come and go. So, we might not see a family for 6,7, 8 months and some challenges come up again rear their ugly head, well boom they’re right back cause they know they could come back and do that.
Margaret: And what does continuing care look like after someone goes through the Children’s Program?
Jerry: What continuing care looks like it’s you know, we’ll have typically a group for 7,8,9-year-olds meets for an hour 1 evening a week, they’ll be a group for 10,11,12-year-olds. We’ll take our teens that went through the children’s program, and we’ll partner, and we’ll have a couple of Alateen sponsors come in, and they’ll do Alateen meeting.
And then where I’m often at you know. taking my professional hat off is for all of the caregivers, for all of the grownups. They’ll be an Al-Anon meeting at the same time, but Al-Anon meeting with a real focus on parenting. We call Wednesday evening, kid’s nights and so getting everybody involved and part of the process, so people will come and go.
Margaret: are you able to do that virtually or is that something that’s in person?
Jerry: We do virtual continuing care, it’s Wednesday evenings. And now we’re having kids you know if it was if it were here at the Betty Ford center we have local kids, and now virtual continuing care as we have kids from Canada. We’ve got kids from Florida, and so the reach is greater, and again a teen group 7,8,9-year-olds in a group 10,11,12-year-olds in a group typically, and then on a different night of the week will do caregivers cause you don’t need to do it all at the same time.
Margaret: Right cause they’re not driving them there.
Jerry: Exactly, yes.
Margaret: That is one of the things that I remember also very distinctly when I went through the program, was the overnights were with their caregivers offsite.
Jerry: Yep.
Margaret: And then coming back the next day with having stories about how they did play. Cause that was what they were designed to do, go play whether go swim.
Jerry: That was their homework, go play.
Margaret: Yes and do it with your family. You know and then they come back and talk about how that was. So, it’s very rich that it gave the family and that was also encouraged while your youngsters are here go check out some meetings. Here’s a list of options in the area, you know again just a holistic approach to resources for everyone in the family, was one of the profound experiences of witnessing that it was a very well designed and inclusive program.
Jerry: Yeah, thank you.
Margaret: So, I know you have story upon story that are amazing about your experience with children. Um, and you get to watch them grow up and hear back from them. And is there one or two that you’d want to share before we close, just so people can hear the hope of what the power of implementing some of these wonderful resources and tools to children can create for them and their family.
Jerry: Yeah, let me tell you one, and there are there are plenty, but let me tell you one that’s that that’s more current.
Margaret: Great
Jerry: Something that happened just in the last month that that really knocked my socks off, because children are the best teachers and if I’m just open and humble and willing to listen, boy can they guide me in a lot of different ways.
And so, there was, there was a kid that went through our school program and again I don’t want to complicate this for the listeners
Margaret: Sure
Jerry: but we also do school-based programs. We do virtual school programs
Margaret: Fabulous!
Jerry: Yeah, “go to where the kids are, don’t wait for them to come to us” that’s Mrs. Ford’s motto so often, I can hear her. And so, there was a kid who came through the two-day virtual program and again it’s six hours. We’re used to working a lot longer, but you can still build relationships even in a virtual space and kids will still get emotional and open up. And there was this one little kid who really related to Beamer, and Beamer learning that his parents’ addiction was not his fault. And you could just look at this guy, this little guy, nine years old and you could see that he wasn’t buying it. He wasn’t believing it, you could just see it on his face. And so, he goes through the second day of our virtual children’s program and you could see it again. You can just see it. And so, I got permission to talk to him, I talked to grandma who had signed him up and then spent a few minutes. What he said are you are you positive that it’s not my fault? Are you positive but it’s not my fault, that I didn’t do anything wrong? That I’m not a bad kid?
Margaret: Aw
Jerry: I said absolutely positive that that’s true. And he takes this big deep breath Maggie, and he sighs. And he says I was convinced it was my fault because when mom started drinking again, dad sent me to grandmas to live there. He was still there. And he said and what I thought was, if I leave mom and stop stressing her out maybe she would get better. And it was just a powerful lesson to me again the importance of explaining things to children
Margaret: Right.
Jerry: And you know in talking to dad two or three days later and saying, hey I love how you sent him to grandmas where it would be safe.
Margaret: Right
Jerry: And him to not watch all of the, you know, destructive dancing that that you and your wife and her disease were doing. But you got to explain it to help him understand, I sent you there to be safe not because I thought it was your fault. So just an example
Margaret: Yeah
Jerry: but powerful
Margaret: yeah
Jerry: what he had told himself for it all to make sense
Margaret: Do you think that is one of the biggest things children struggle with? Believing it is their fault, out of all of the aspects is that one of the most?
Jerry: It’s one of them you know I think it’s one of them. I think two it’s that I’m not alone because I think so many kids, I mean we’re talking about almost one out of every three kids in America loves someone in their family who has a substance use disorder. And the sad irony is so many of those kids think they’re the only one.
Margaret: Right
Jerry: I always think and cause my mind is incredibly simple and so I always think in threes. So, if I could only tell you a couple of things:
it’s not your fault and you’re not alone.
But then I want to give you a piece of the solution and that there are safe people in safe places that can help you.
And therein lies the hope.
No matter how old we are when we hear those words for the first time.
Margaret: And even though it is absolutely beautifully true for children and what they need, so does everyone in the family with this illness.
Jerry: Absolutely Yep you got it.
Margaret: oh, Jerry you inevitably make me cry
Jerry: I make myself cry. (laughter)
Margaret: every time I’m with you but you know what I love that about you because one of the things that you’ve shown me as a professional in the field with the level of passion you still have, and I don’t doubt always will have is that you can express your feelings.
Jerry: Oh yeah!
Margaret: You know that it’s OK as the professional in the room, cause I remember that in the Children’s Program again. you know would it be OK if I cried? It was one of the questions to the children and they were like yeah. Yeah, it would you know we all have feelings, and it’s just that normalization that even though we may be the professional in the room that we are impacted and that we take care of ourselves. it’s not their job but that they have feelings, and we have feelings.
Jerry: Someone needs to model it to them.
Margaret: Right
Jerry: or how are they gonna know?
Margaret: I would love to have just a few of the kids that have been touched by your program to share their experience, and I think that the reach of that. I recently read and a person who went through the children’s program now going into medical.
Jerry: Uh there’s been a couple, there’s been a couple of there’s been a couple of med students here on campus for Summer Institute for Med Students who were graduates of the children’s program so yeah.
Margaret: Just gives me shivers right like wow
Jerry: Well, there’s at least two people employed at the Betty Ford center right now today that are graduates of the Children’s Program.
Margaret: Really
Jerry: Oh, absolutely yeah coming back
Margaret: Yeah continuing to give to others what they were given
Jerry: absolutely paying it forward
Margaret: so beautiful, that’s what the message is with recovery, isn’t it?
Jerry: Most definitely!
Margaret: Well Jerry, I thank you so much.
Jerry: you got it, my pleasure Maggie this is fun!
Margaret: It was fun!
Jerry: Time flew by.
Margaret: It does it always does, we could go forever I have a feeling.
Jerry: Let’s do it again
Margaret: Oh, don’t tempt me. (Laughter) You take good care, enjoy your day!
Jerry: You to, my love to you and your family.
Margaret: You too.
Outro: Jerry’s passion is so evident when he shares, isn’t it? I picture children watching Sesame Street and hearing Karli share and having a sense of not being alone, and that gives me the chills. I have resources for children, teens, and adults on my website embracefamilyrecovery.com
I’ve also included links to the Hazelden Betty Ford Children Program and Sesame Street in Communities to help you, parents, grandparents, guardians find more resources. Please check out the transcription of this episode found on my website for those links and resources.
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story.
Please find resources on my website embracefamilyrecovery.com
This is Margaret Swift Thompson.
Until next time please take care of you.
