‘Sesame Street’ Focuses On Opioid Addiction & Foster Care With New Character, Karli [Video]

Sesame Street‘s Muppets will be focusing on a new and important storyline affecting families all over the U.S. Through its Communities project, the show will be focusing on a young green, yellow-haired muppet named Karli, who is living in foster care due to her mom’s struggles with opioid addiction. In its latest segment, Sesame Street revealed that Karli’s mom needs help in learning to take better care of herself, which is why she’s been living with her foster parents Dalia and Clem (old friends of Elmo’s dad).

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There are an alarmingly 5.7 million children under 11-years-old who live with a parent struggling with substance addiction. According to Sesame Workshop more than 443,000 children are living in the foster care system today and every 47 seconds a child is abused. While this particular issue is not widely represented on children’s shows, Sesame Street would like to change that and provide children with the tools to cope. These resources will include videos, storybooks, art activities and tips for foster parents.

Sesame Street’s new initiative will support children in foster care, provide free resources for caregivers and tackle touch issues like substance abuse and homelessness. The initiative also hopes to help the caregivers in children’s lives by letting them know that their work is important.