My mom is still a human being. She’s not a monster. She’s my mom.
The words of a teenager featured in the recently released film ‘Downstream: The effects of parental incarceration’ very succinctly sum up one of its main themes. For the child, their parent is gone, the larger context or the reasons why don’t matter.
But for many other people, they do matter. Parental incarceration is classified as an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) and it is one that is complicated by the shame, stigma and fear placed on incarceration by society. ‘Downstream’ is an hour long documentary made to tell the story of incarceration that we don’t hear – the story of those left behind when a parent goes to prison. Vermont children and caregivers share their experiences, revealing the complex and emotional terrain they navigate. The film is produced by Brad Salon, of Bear Notch Productions, in association with Resilience Beyond Incarceration, a program of the Lamoille Restorative Center.
The narrative of the film is anchored by multiple humbling, joyful and simultaneously heart breaking stories told by young people in Vermont whose moms or dads (or sometimes both) were incarcerated for some period of their childhood. It also includes interviews with the caregivers of those children, staff members from Resilience Beyond Incarceration, Camp Agape and Lund’s Kids-A-Part program as well as state officials, educators, and representatives from the judicial system. Their perspectives may vary but there is a message that ties them all together – We all have a say in this. We need to wrap a community of support around these kids and release them from the stigma and shame of incarceration.
Every young person in the film acknowledges that they were helped when they felt this wraparound support. From school, from a pediatrician, from a mentor but primarily from the work carried out in the community by RBI and the work inside the women’s correctional facility coordinated through Kids-A-Part.
“I participated in this project because, like RBI, KAP is committed to raising awareness of the impact on the approximately 6,000 VT children who experience parental incarceration each year,” says Jess Kell, Lund’s Kids-A-Part Parenting Coordinator who is interviewed in the film and has spoken on post showing panels. “My hope is that this thoughtfully crafted film brings this issue out from behind closed doors, into our communities, and ultimately, leads to systemic changes for these families.”
These kids are our kids. They are excited about getting a drivers license, riding bikes, eating pancakes at camp, playing card games, working hard at college, looking after their siblings. “We’re not the people those kids say we are,” says one teenage girl, referring to rumors and insults she was subjected to at school. The film ends with a joyful montage of the young people smiling. Hope is here.
The film is firmly tied to Vermont. Visually with beautiful aerial footage of verdant mountains, landscapes punctuated by red barns, falling snow and thematically with familiar New England characteristics of grit, caring for each other, a willingness to consider things differently, and be innovative underpinning the narrative. In an introduction before a recent showing of the film in Burlington, Tricia Long of RBI mentioned that there has already been far more interest than they had anticipated from people across the country, and even internationally, who want to screen the film in their own communities. This work can be, and needs to be, replicated outside Vermont.
The film is showing again in Essex on 5/7 and in White River Junction on 5/23 and will be available for online streaming over the summer. Watch the trailer here.
