Community Engagement

Overview of Early Childhood Community Engagement

Libraries play an important role in encouraging and supporting parents and caregivers of young children. While the library can provide great learning opportunities for children, it is the families and caregivers who are positioned to be the first and best teachers. Library programs can empower and give families and caregivers ideas for how to teach and practice important early literacy and developmental skills, and are another facet to keep in mind when designing and planning programming.

Serving Parents and Childcare Providers

The library serves many different kinds of parents and caregivers with different levels of early childhood development understanding. Based on their needs, schedules, and availability, you may need to package information and support for these adults in a variety of ways.

A good way to figure out what the adults in your community want is to directly ask. You may find that you have a regular group of parents and caregivers who come to the library and are happy to share their thoughts and experiences, especially if the goal is so you can better support and design programming for them and their children.

You can also seek out early childhood networks and parent organizations to expand the library’s reach into the community. If you are able to attend meetings regularly and make connections with people there, that can greatly assist you when you are looking for partners in the future.

Partnerships

Identifying and working effectively with partners can greatly enhance the impact a library has within a community. Your library already has wonderful partnerships with other organizations, but it is always good to keep an eye out for new opportunities for collaboration and cooperation. Many libraries find it easy to partner with local early childhood groups, schools, daycares, and organizations in the community as these organizations have similar goals when it comes to early literacy, educational opportunities, and family support. Chances are that your library already has partnerships in place with some of these organizations that you can continue.

If you are not sure where to start with community partnerships, a good starting point can be to reach out to those existing partners to introduce yourself and get to know the organization and staff directly. When forming new partnerships, it can be easier to reach out to other organizations with a specific purpose or project in mind. For example, you can offer to provide storytimes at local HeadStart programs and circulate titles at those locations.

Outreach

Outreach in Early Childhood involves finding children and families where they are: daycares and preschools, parent groups like Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) or a breastfeeding advocacy group like La Leche League, grocery stores and playgrounds, etc. Advertising to these populations and providing pop-up programs when possible may reach new groups that are most in need of your library’s services but don’t have access to your building. Young families in financial need may not be able to afford preschool or extra books in the home and need the most assistance in ensuring their children are prepared for school. Collaborating with community partners can provide the most successful and rewarding outreach opportunities for you.

Parent Groups

• Target audience: Individual parents.
• How to present:  Meeting in conference/meeting room or storytime area.
• What to cover: Ask parents to identify topics of interest. Meetings could cover what’s new in the library:  books, music, videos/DVDs, and toys/puppets; a parent leading a discussion on a topic; or inviting local agencies to present on themes such as nutrition, behavior management, or choosing a preschool or daycare. Always leave time for parents to talk amongst themselves.

Library Resources

• Target audience: Parent groups, day care providers, students in early childhood programs, social workers, health care providers, individuals.
• How to present:  Host an open house in the entire library, a workshop in a conference room or on-site, or a small group in the children’s area.
• What to cover:  Reference and circulating books, special collections, magazines, computer databases and early childhood games, library website and links, community information file, music, videos/DVDs, toys/puppets. Highlight any unusual items available for parents to borrow or check out.

Storytelling

• Target audience: Parent groups, day care providers, students in early childhood programs, social workers.
• How to present:  Workshop in meeting room or on-site, parks, or community centers.
• What to cover:  Different types of stories, how to engage audience, tips for memorizing story, how to use props. Depending on your community’s makeup, oral traditions in different languages may be especially relevant.

Special Group Storytime

Invite daycare groups to visit the library on a regular basis.  Present a storytime and encourage individual book browsing. Or schedule and present storytime at their location and bring milk crates or special bins that can be used to drop checked-out books or other materials to be rotated regularly.

Curbside Pick Up

Allow care providers to call a few days ahead with a list of needed items available for curbside pick up.  You might even create special cards for daycare providers, preschool teachers or other community service groups with young children in their care that allow for no overdue fines, or extended check-out periods on books to encourage the use of library material.

Early Literacy Workshops

Offer to provide training for staff of a center on-site or for daycare providers at the library.  Your presentation could include show-and-tell of various materials available through the library, techniques and hands-on activities with story reading, puppetry, fingerplays, etc., and services available throughout the library.

Suggest Resources

Share information about resources daycare staff might find useful. Packs of developmental information and book lists can be made available to daycares for them to distribute to families. The Reimagining School Readiness Toolkit from the Bay Area Discovery Museum and California State Library helps librarians guide families in activities and learning opportunities that support children ages 0-8 in preparing for school and life. Activities that develop a growth mindset and critical thinking skills are done with parents that can be replicated outside the library.