During the last year we’ve been working with Arts Council England to identify the library journey children should experience from the time they are born onwards. We’ve identified key points in the journey where public libraries should have some kind of special offer to children - for example Rhymes Times for the under-fives, Summer Reading Challenge for primary age children. One of the areas that we have not tackled nationally is the pre-natal time - and engaging with parents to be around the importance of sharing books with tiny babies, singing to your bump etc. These are the presentations and notes from the one day workshop held on 21 March 2016, aiming to discuss and help shape the library offer to parents-to-be.
Our next steps are to draw together all the thoughts from the day and make some recommendations about how we develop the offer for the first stage of the journey.
Kate Freeman Lead Communication Advisor for Early Development, ICAN - the children’s communication charity. Engaging with children and parents pre-birth
Kelly Walsh, Head of Research, Booktrust. Bookstart Bump
Katherine Hodges, Digital Lead, Baby Buddy App, Team Best Beginnings. Baby Buddy app
Margaret Street, Early Years Librarian, Hertfordshire Libraries. Case Study: Black and white book-making
Annabel Gittins, Library Commissioning Manager for Children and Young People, Shropshire Libraries. Case Study: Baby Shower
Notes from discussion sessions
Further information from Bookstart:
Bookstart bump evaluation executive summary
Bookstart Bump Research handout
Brain Development Review, executive summary