Big Mama

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Description

This Academy Award-winning documentary profiles a devoted grandmother's struggle to raise her grandson under the watchful eye of a complex and unsympathetic social welfare system. The film follows Viola Dee for 18 months as the 90-year-old cares for 9-year-old Walter in South Central Los Angeles. While contending with her own declining health and Walter's behavioral and psychiatric problems, Dee fights-with limited success-to keep Walter out of foster care. Called "a great teaching tool" by the Council on Social Work Education, the video brings to light the challenges and concerns of the all-too-common phenomenon of elderly people parenting orphaned or abandoned grandchildren.