Following the release of Teen Guide to Living With Incarcerated Parents, my daughter, author Anyé Young joins forces with me to produce a documentary film empowering justice-impacted teens and young adults
As a public relations consultant and a freelance writer, I find that the most intriguing stories come from authenticity and raw emotion. These can be stories of triumph, hurt, joy, and pain. Oftentimes, they reveal deep-seated cultural issues and highlight the outliers whose need for substance motivated them to create projects that have impact. Projects with the sole aim of promoting real change.
Such is the case with an upcoming documentary film project that I am directing, which is also being produced by my daughter, Anyé Young. I have seen firsthand — and am still living through — the mental anguish that comes with being the caregiver to a brilliant human being who wants nothing more than to be able to pick up the phone or reach out to hug her Dad whenever she thinks of him.
Instead, she’s limited to a 15-minute prepaid phone call from a correctional facility and has even memorized the phone greeting that announces his call when she answers the phone, … “You have a prepaid call. You will not be charged for this call from … an inmate at … correctional center…”
For my daughter, it’s just a living nightmare to have to live with the fact that her father is serving a 12-year prison sentence for being found guilty of a crime that is definitely not murder, rape or of any other heinous nature. She’s now a sophomore attending the University of Southern California and won’t be able to have direct access to her father until she’s getting ready to graduate from college. How insane is that?
It’s this injustice that has fueled our mother-daughter duo and set us on a course to begin filming our first film project, For Kids Like Me (#FKLMdoc).
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