Sesame Workshop Launches Caring for Each Other Initiative

These free resources are designed to help parents provide comfort and manage anxiety.

By Jennifer Swartvagher March 26, 2020

Children are facing a time of uncertainty right now. They aren’t allowed to leave their homes, attend school or play with their friends. Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street, is offering a broad variety of free resources to help children and families during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Caring for Each Other initiative marks the beginning of a commitment to support families for the duration of this crisis, with brand new content featuring the Sesame Street Muppets sharing messages of love and kindness, playful learning activities and virtual play dates launching soon. Mindful that the adults who care for children need support too, the resources are intended to help caregivers as well as children.

Sesame Workshop is offering a broad variety of free resources designed to help parents provide comfort and manage anxiety, as well as help with creating routines, fostering playful learning at home, and staying physically and mentally healthy. Families can also find an expanded offering of free on-demand episodes of Sesame Street on PBS KIDS digital platform and over 110 free Sesame Street ebooks available on all major ebook platforms.

“Around the world, young children’s lives are being turned upside down, and parents and caregivers are looking for ways to give their children—and themselves—a sense of stability in this new normal,” said Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, Senior Vice President for Curriculum and Content, Sesame Workshop. “But there are things parents and caregivers can do to face each day with optimism. Sesame Street is here to provide the caring adults in children’s lives with the resources they need to help children, and foster their healthy development at home.”

In the coming weeks, Sesame Workshop is also creating brand new content on topics like hand washing, how to cough or sneeze properly and how taking good care of yourself means taking good care of others.

—Jennifer Swartvagher

Featured photo: Alena Shekhovtcova from Pexels