The student side hustle solving communication barriers for prisoners and their families
In Ireland there are plenty of barriers to communication in prison. Travelling to meet face-to-face can be costly and stressful, and prisoners cannot receive phone calls. The invisible victims of these circumstances are often the prisoners’ children, many of whom develop strained relationships with their incarcerated loved ones over time.
In Ireland however, it costs prisoners nothing to send letters to loved ones. Stephanie Connolly, the first student to win a D&AD Side Hustle Pencil, used this fact to create LittleTalks and bridge the gap in communication. Essentially a letter writing kit for children and parents in prison, LittleTalks includes a workbook, a ‘how-to’ for the carer outside and a guidebook for the person in prison – all A4 mailer size to ensure everything fits in the post. Here, Connolly talks about how she used inspiration from her own life to help facilitate meaningful communication between children and their parents in prison.
Finding inspiration in challenges
“From my own experience of my dad having gone to prison, I knew the biggest thing that was missed out on was the everyday life stuff,” says Connolly. So when she was faced with finding a new problem to solve for her 2018 graduate show at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Connolly decided to find a way for children to share the little details of the day-to-day with parents in prison.
“Over time, relationships between parents and their children are vulnerable and easily weakened when a loved one goes to prison,” says Connolly. “Often, the ‘little talks’ that surround everyday life are missed out on, which can be vital in keeping the bond strong.”
LittleTalks, Stephanie Connolly
Creating memories through fun and games
Far from just a pack of paper and envelopes, LittleTalks helps to create memories that exist outside of the prison experience. An important element to making these shared moments memorable is to make them fun and playful.
Prison visits are often crowded and offer few child-friendly facilities, let alone toys – and so LittleTalks encourages children to play games with their parents through post instead. Together, they can co-create a story, one sentence at a time, or play drawing games like The Combination Man and the Paper Fortune Teller. The parent and child can also embark on a research project, working together to find out more about climate change, mental health or diversity.
These activities relieve the pressure of figuring out what to say to one another. As Connolly recalls, “One of the hardest parts of writing letters is knowing what to say." They also help the parent and child to develop a shared interest and learning experience – which can be used as a topic of conversation as well.
LittleTalks, Stephanie Connolly
Drawing on experience to forge emotional connection
LittleTalks enables interactions that are unique to the families of prisoners by encouraging the parent and child to share things that are going on in their lives. They are prompted to answer questions such as, “What did you do today?” and “How did you feel today?”
Journaling helps children to become aware of their feelings and gives them things to talk about when they write to their parent. It also helps to create moments where the child can feel like the sole focus.
“What I know, from experience, is that someone asking how I am and not how my loved one in prison is, first, is more important than you can imagine,” Connolly says.
“Communication that supports the parent-child relationship doesn't rely on each being fully informed about each other. The pressure that can put on a relationship which is already strained can be detrimental.”
LittleTalks, Stephanie Connolly
Bring lightness and warmth through design
LittleTalks helps to facilitate lighter conversations about the mundane, in a situation where talking about the day-to-day can be the most difficult thing of all. But it also conveys lightness and warmth through design. “The hardest part to deal with in this project is the feelings that come with it when a loved one goes to prison,” says Connolly. And so, using her own experiences as a starting point, she sought to address them.
The children of prisoners often end up feeling misunderstood, rejected and invisible – feelings that are compounded by the stigma attached to families of people in prison. “When someone goes from ‘civilian’ to ‘prisoner’, this label never changes back. It goes from ‘civilian’ to ‘prisoner’ to ‘ex-convict’,” says Connolly. “This is the same for the families, they go from a family, to the family of a prisoner, to the family of an ex-convict.”
Letter writing helps to shift the attention back onto the relationship – for both sides. For the child, it injects fun and positivity into a relationship which is all too often subject to public scrutiny. And for the parent it gives them insight into their child’s life.
While LittleTalks helps to facilitate communication between families and those in prison, the kit also communicates its own message to those using it. Subtly, the copy, design and illustration work together to send an implicit message – that they are understood, and not alone.
Accessibility matters
Each programme is non-age specific for both the prisoner and child in order to undo the stigma that is attached to illiteracy in adults. In many cases, the children of people in prison have higher literacy levels than the adults themselves.
The typography has been set to a clear grid which allows for larger type sizes for legibility and tracing over the pages. The minimal colour scheme and playful illustrations provide a counterbalance to one another – helping to convey a child-friendly (but not childlike) look and feel.