TITLE:
“Mommy, I Want to Talk to My Dad”: Exploring Parental Incarceration, Bibliotherapy, and Storybooks
AUTHORS:
Avon Hart-Johnson, Geoffrey Johnson, Renata Hedrington-Jones
KEYWORDS:
Bibliotherapy, Parental Incarceration, Reading Circles, Stories about Prison
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.10 No.11,
October
24,
2022
ABSTRACT: Parental incarceration often involves caregivers
explaining the absence of a significant attachment to a child. Developmental
scholars suggest that bibliotherapy and storybooks can provide both
illustrative and explanatory frameworks for
caregivers to discuss difficult topics with children. Storybooks paired
with caregiver wisdom might help children to understand and adjust to the loss
of a parent. However, scientific-based derivatives of caregiver experiences and communication practices integrated into
storybooks are largely absent from the literature. To address this gap a
qualitative community-based action research study was carried out in three
contiguous phases, with 22 caregivers during 8 focus groups in the Washington,
D.C. Metropolitan area. Phase one entailed exploring caregiver-child
communication practices related to parental
incarceration. The second phase involved creating topic-specific stories integrated with bibliotherapeutic principles drawn from caregivers’ perceptions
and narratives. The third phase included developing a web portal to host
digital storybooks and companion resources. Catalytic validity was established
through collaboration with the project team. Data analysis resulted in a robust
theoretical framework and grounded theory entitled, Caregivers’ Family Relations
Assessment and Communication Strategies (C-FRACS). Findings assert caregivers’
prerogatives on child well-being as a priority as it intersects with communication practices and epistemological
concepts of explaining jail, prison, and parental incarceration to
children.