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Building Bridges: Using Research & Partnerships to Support Early Literacy in Diverse Communities - Session

This program was one of my top two programs for this ALA.  It offered some great, practical ideas for serving patrons that I don't think will be too difficult to develop, and will dovetail nicely with what we are already doing.

Presenters:
Tess Prendergast - Children's Librarian, Vancouver Public Library
Julie Iannacone - Associate Director, Neighborhood & Youth Services, Vancouver Public Library
Rachel Payne - Coordinator, Early Childhood Services, Brooklyn Public Library
Kendra Jones - District Manager, Youth & Family Services, Timberland Regional Library

The presenters focused on ways of serving youth in early childhood not by serving children and parents directly, but by instead focusing on those who work with youth in early childhood on a regular basis: Early Childhood Educators and Public Health Agencies

Before you can start serving your diverse community, however, you have to understand it and know where your most vulnerable populations are.  In other words, turn to the research.

For this, Payne mentioned the Early Developmental Instrument - a tool created in Canada to measure vulnerabilities of children going into Kindergarten across developmental factors such as: physical, language and cognitive, social competence, communication, and general knowledge.  If you want to learn more about this, take a look at Research tab at University of British Columbia's Human Early Learning Partnership website.

I was excited to hear that this was one of the tools they used to gather information about their community, because Pasadena is already involved in gathering data through EDI.  As a community, we did it in 2013 (I think) and now we are going through the process again in 2017.  If you want to learn more about EDI, Lila Guirguis (our Lead at the Office of the Young Child) knows a lot about it, and is a great resource.  Moving forward, maybe it could help us inform our services in a way similar to how Brooklyn, Vancouver and Timberland has used it.

So, once the libraries figured out where the vulnerable communities are, they had to determine how to serve them.

Keys to Success for Partnering with Early Childhood Educators

  • Say "yes"
  • Ask questions - learn about them, what they do, what they need, before you offer help
  • get creative.
Ways to Serve Early Childhood Educators:
  • Invite them in
    • Vancouver Library has an Early Learning Center (similar to a Children's Museum) and invite partners such as nurses, etc to come in and answer questions while children play
    • After special storytimes for the Early Childhood Centers, tables can be set up where these partners can talk about what they do
    • Make them comfortable when they come visit, remember you are the host

  • Go to them
    • Remember, it's hard for preschool educators to get the to the library.
    • To serve educators where they are, bring the library books to them
    • One library created "Connect Kits" that are similar to the Book Depository program that Pat Smith started a while back.
      • Kits have 50 - 80 good condition discards in them, including bilingual items and board books

Partner with Health Agencies that Serve Early Childhood
In New York, a lot of the ways they are focusing on serving families in early childhood includes doing outreach to, and through, Public Health Agencies.

  • Diaper-changing Signs
    • Brooklyn Public Library (BPL), together with New York Public Library, Queens Public Library, and NY City Council, created a campaign to develop posters that could be put above all diaper changing stations with early literacy tips.

  • Early Literacy Kits
    • BPL has kits that include a brochure that turns into a poster, a growth chart, a rhyme book in mostly English but that includes Spanish rhymes all in a box with a handle like a "happy meal"

  • Early Literacy Bins
    • Library Branded Early-Literacy Bins with baby safe toys and books that are left in pediatrician offices, WIC clinics and passport waiting areas

  • Early Literacy Texts
    • Families can sign up to receive early literacy tips as a text once a week
    • text @rpg2go to 81010 to receive the tips
    • Learn more about this program in this SLJ article

I loved this program because it touched on so many ways that are practical and easy to implement that could compliment what we are doing now.  We already have early literacy kits that we are going to partner with Health Care Facilities to distribute -- why not put book bins there too?  Why not start our own texting service?  We should have posters above our changing tables!  Easy to do and can make an impact.

Now, who wants to start doing Early Childhood Educator workshops with me???

- Jennifer

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