Q: I’d like to know about Gwinnett Building Babies’ Brains and the Building Brains Anywhere that ran in the paper. Would you tell me about these?
A: You are asking about the county-wide initiative that promotes the significance of early learning known as Gwinnett Building Babies’ Brains and the community service program called B2 Anywhere.
Entering as the county’s director of Early Learning and School Readiness, Kim Holland was asked by the superintendent and the community, “How are our kids entering kindergarten?” she said.
Looking at the whole child that included skills in academic, problem solving and social-emotional, the results gained from the assessment was stunning according to the director.
“What we found was shocking. At a bar of 70% , we only had 48% of our kids entering kindergarten scoring a 70% or higher,” Holland stated.
A diverse group of professionals came together and developed a strategy that honed in on three high points.
The first tenant addresses awareness and support of families. “Does the Gwinnett community even know this is a problem?,” she asked. “Do they understand that early learning is a critical piece to a child being successful in life?”
That is followed by quality learning programs and resources that families can access.
Pulling together as a community, the last approach is collective. Coming together from different organizations, pooling resources and moving in the same direction to help children to thrive.
The resulting website provides information about child development, resources categorized from 0-3 months to 5+ years and an event calendar. Resources cover childcare, programs outside the home, learning centers, health, things to do at home and tips are also part of the site. The website is offered in English, Spanish and Korean.
B2, Building Brains Anywhere, is one of the flagship programs. The aim is to serve parents, caregivers and children in providing safe and engaging activities offered throughout the parks and vary in subject matter. “Shape Lab is STEM-related, Puppets in the Park cover literacy and Playground Detectives are about exploration and science,” the director explained.
“As a collective approach, we share lesson plans and the key standards that we are working on so they are reinforced in each thing that a family might attend and we also advertise for each other.
“We know that learning begins at birth and so we want to make sure that parents know that they are their child’s first best teacher and anything we can do as a community to help parents achieve that goal, that’s what we want to do,” Holland said.
For more information, visit https://buildingbabiesbrains.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/BuildingBabiesBrains.Gwinnett/
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