Bookstart in Wandsworth
Colin Bray and Judy Ash
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Issue 23 Spring 1997 Bookstart in Wandsworth Colin Bray and Judy Ash |
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Familiar phrases for all children's librarians but as Dr Joyce Morris concluded after extensive research on the impact of early reading: the vast majority of good readers were made before the children started school.
As the only national network available to pre-school children, library services are in the best possible position to promote books for babies. Both Wandsworth and national agencies place an increasing emphasis upon early years' development, and as part of this approach, the London Borough of Wandsworth initiated their own Bookstart project last October. The essence of Bookstart is that there are 400 bookbags to give away to families with 8-month old babies. Two libraries are involved in distributing bookbags to local clinics. The bags are then given to families with babies by health visitors during the 8-month check-up.
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The contents of the bag are as follows:
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Aims and Objectives of Bookstart
We first began planning the project in late 1995 as a way to increase the use of York and Battersea Park libraries by parents and their very young children. It had been observed that there was a low under-5's membership in this area and Bookstart is part of a development of the service for the Under-5s. The two libraries share similar challenges and approaches as a result of being situated in urban multicultural estates. The awareness that the children and parents in the area need to be educated in the importance of books and libraries has led to an outreach approach to the community which Bookstart fulfils. There is only one guaranteed method of reaching all the babies in the community - the local network of health visitors.
There have been several Bookstart projects across the country in the past few years and there have been different approaches to funding and organisation. We looked at both the Community Initiative award-winning Sunderland scheme and the Birmingham Bookstart project. The commitment and enthusiasm of the people involved was a big encouragement.
The first step was to canvas for donations of materials for the bags. In this, we were fortunate in the generosity of several sponsors. New picture books were donated by Walker Books, Dorling Kindersley gave teddy-bear stickers, Random House sent us notepads, bookmarks and posters. One World Books and Letterbox Library also sent multicultural books. The canvas bags themselves were designed and funded by Wandsworth. Using donations to fill bookbags is clearly limited and the real hope of local projects must be that they initiate a political will to provide statutory funding - either at a local or a national level.
We recognised that an essential part of any success for this project was the communication with other agencies - both those directly and indirectly involved. The project needed a willingness for people to cooperate. First of all, given the nature of the distribution, we needed a direct and consistent link with the health visitors. The Health Promotion Unit served this function and gave a lot of assistance. The emphasis had to be on limiting the extra work and pressure on health visitors. This meant keeping them well-informed during the planning process. Six months before the launch of Bookstart, we organised a presentation for health visitors, teachers, community group leaders and the Book Trust. An educational psychologist and infant school teacher spoke and displays promoted the project at the presentation. The overall reaction was very positive and as a result, an immediate benefit of Bookstart was seen. From a meeting between a health visitor and early year's coordinator at the presentation, a thriving "Positive Parenting" course was established at a local school for parents. The process of bringing so many organisations into contact with Bookstart showed us just how needed and popular such a scheme would be.
Our main concern has been the method of monitoring the impact and success of Bookstart. This is particularly important if any prospect of consistent funding is to be achieved. Detailed work is being done by Barry Wade and Maggie Moore at Birmingham University to assess the educational impact of the Birmingham project. It does appear that beneficiaries of bookbags have a reading and book-handling skills advantage at the beginning of school. So how could we assess our own project? The easiest method was to mark each library membership form given away with a distinguishing "B" and keep a record of new members. By the end of January 1997, 90 bags had been given out and 13 new borrowers have been registered in York and Battersea Park libraries. The rate of new borrowers is increasing as time goes on. The health visitors are also keeping a record of all the families that are given bookbags. This will be used for a survey later in the year.
In coordination with Wandsworth Educational Psychology Service, we are looking for a student willing to conduct a research project on the educational benefits of the bookbags. Another method of increasing the impact of the project is in place an invitation to a library event in all the bags. This was seen as an opportunity for children's librarians to talk with Bookstart parents and also a chance for them to get together. The response to this has been patchy. At the end of the current project, we hope to have enough evidence of its success to bring funding in for a bigger project. Even if this is not forthcoming, the evidence will assist other projects as the concept takes root. Enquiries from other local authorities have been coming in since we began the project last October, and in all, seven London Boroughs have requested information about the Wandsworth project. This is the most encouraging aspect of the last six months - the universal support and interest in the Bookstart idea.
Anybody embarking on a Bookstart project must be aware of the time it takes to organise and prepare the bags. The Sunderland project employed a project worker to give out the bags and make home visits. If health visitors are assisting with this, the time-pressure on the libraries is diminished. The large amount of work which goes into preparation needs to be fitted into the already heavy load of work children's librarians have. This problem would largely be avoided if there were larger, funded projects.
Bookstart has taught us what can be achieved in times of tight budgets. A fundamental aim of public libraries is to encourage literacy and a love of books for all children. Bookstart fulfils the basic need for an early foundation in reading and book skills and is possibly the only way the library can be introduced to all the families in a community. As such, it is an appropriate and cost-effective way of deploying resources in a way which raises the profile of the library and benefits children.