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High-Tech Library Storytime Links Kids with Imprisoned Parents

By Camille Bautista | September 16, 2015 10:42am
 TeleStory, a free video conferencing service connecting incarcerated parents with their children, is offered by the Brooklyn Public Library and will expand to three new branches this fall.
TeleStory, a free video conferencing service connecting incarcerated parents with their children, is offered by the Brooklyn Public Library and will expand to three new branches this fall.
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Gregg Richards

BROOKLYN — Starting next month, more Brooklyn public libraries will offer a city program that lets children read with their incarcerated parents using video conference technology.

TeleStory,” a free video conferencing program from the Brooklyn Public Library, will be offered at Bedford-Stuyvesant’s Macon branch, the New Utrecht library in Bensonhurst and East New York’s New Lots branch by the end of October, according to a BPL representative.

The service originated at the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza in spring 2014, allowing kids to read books with their jailed parents through a live video feed.

The program is specifcially structured to allow parents and children to read to each other, and not meant o replace regular in-person visits, according to Nick Higgins, director of Outreach Services for BPL.

“The library is a really good spot for technology like this. It’s a community space that is welcoming to all folks, no matter what their background,” Higgins said.

“It’s part of an extended relationship that you can create not only between parent and child, but the family and the library.”

Through a partnership with the city’s Department of Correction, the New York Society for Ethical Culture Social Service Board and Cisco Systems, BPL has provided visits for more than 120 families since the program’s inception, Higgins added.

The televisits reach all facilities overseen by the DOC, he said, and offers relatives up to one hour together, depending on the schedule.

Ideally, the parents on one side of the screen have the same books as the child in order to read along.

TeleStory is tied to the library’s other programs aimed at helping incarcerated parents, such as an early literacy class that teaches the importance of reading to children.

While the initiative primarily focuses on kids and their moms and dads, it can be altered on a case-by-case basis depending on families’ situations.

One grandmother was able to engage in the TeleStory program with her teenage grandson who was on Rikers Island, Higgins said.

In order to qualify, the participating child must be informed that their parent is incarcerated prior to the scheduled televisit and be accompanied by a caregiver to the library location.

Video units for TeleStory will roll out at the three additional branches next month and may be accessible on laptops and tablets at other sites in the future, he added.

For more information, contact BPL’s Outreach Services Department at 718-230-2745.