Last month I was privileged to represent ALSC at the NBCDI Conference. What is NBCDI, you ask? Good question.
NBCDI is The National Black Child Development Institute focusing on improving and advancing “the quality of life for Black children and their families through education and advocacy” (from www.nbcdi.org/who-we-are/who-we-are on 11/1/2015). This year was the 45th annual conference held in Arlington, Virginia, that included a host of sessions on a variety of educational topics. Several national speakers were featured in the plenary sessions, including Geoffrey Canada, Founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone. On the final day of the conference, I participated on a panel for the program, Early Learning in Museums and Libraries: Tools, Partnerships, and Promising Practices.
Tim Carrigan, Senior Program Officer at the Institute of Museum and Library Services organized the program and invited the Association of Children’s Museums and the ALSC to share our perspectives and initiatives around early learning. Tim gave an overview of IMLS priorities, as well as national programs and partnerships including:
•BUILD Initiative – better integrating libraries and museums into statewide early childhood systems.
•Reach Out and Read – Prescription for Success fosters collaborations between medical professionals, libraries, and museums.
• Growing Young Minds – a call to action to fully use libraries and museums to close the knowledge and opportunity gaps.
Tim also spoke about IMLS funded projects like Every Child Ready to Read, Family Place Libraries, and LEAP into Science. All these programs are focused on supporting early learning in libraries through a collective impact model; so that by working together children will start school ready to learn to read.
Jennifer Rehkamp, the Director of Field Services at Association of Children’s Museums (ACM) presented information from the children’s museum perspective. Some of the early childhood focused programs and activities from ACM include:
- Eat Play Grow – collaboration with the National Institutes of Health on heathy nutrition and healthy physical activity choices
Museums for All – a program to ensure museum access for all with free or low cost admission.
Jen also spoke about the importance of play in the lives of young children and how play is essential in helping children develop critical thinking, problem solving, innovation, and collaboration skills.
With support from the ALSC Leadership and Staff, I presented some of our flagship programs for young children (below), highlighting not only these important initiatives, but also the everyday work that children’s librarians do every day to support young children and families.
- Babies Need Words Every Day – Helping families bridge the 30 million word gap!
- Día – Emphasizing the importance of literacy for all children.
- Every Child Ready to Read
- White Papers on Diversity and Media Mentorship
Overall we had a great discussion with the participants and they were very excited to receive the ALSC program handouts and to hear about so many opportunities to collaborate with libraries. Don’t be surprised if a community member reaches out to you to ask about ways to work together – take advantage!
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Our guest blogger today is Christine Caputo. She is the Interim Chief of Public Service Support at The Free Library of Philadelphia, where she manages youth services programming, outreach, and special projects. Chris is a current member of the ALSC Board of Directors. She can be contacted at [email protected].
Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.
If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at [email protected].
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