Welcome Bluff City Baby!

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Past Projects

Presentations for Community Stakeholders: The Urban Child Institute staff delivers presentations to various community stakeholder audiences to provide information on the critical importance of investing in children in the earliest years of life. Target audiences include professionals, parents and other caregivers, and child care providers. These presentations are delivered at various sites in the community.

Lunch and Learn Presentations: The Urban Child Institute regularly arranges for experts in the field of child development and successful programs and interventions to speak in The Institute’s auditorium. Lunch is provided before the event, and speakers respond to questions following the presentation.

Nurturing Parenting Evaluation Study: The Urban Child Institute is working closely with partners from Early Success Coalition, Porter Leath, Seeding Success, and Shelby County Schools (SCS) to evaluate the incorporation of the Nurturing Parenting curriculum into select SCS pre-kindergarten classrooms and parent meetings. Teachers were trained in the Nurturing Parenting curriculum to infuse positive caregiving practices into classroom interactions with students, while Family Service Workers were trained to deliver the training to parents through monthly meetings. To determine whether an association exists between exposure to the Nurturing Parenting curriculum and changes in parent attitudes, classroom interactions, and/or child behavior or academic achievement, the evaluation will compare child, parent, and teacher outcomes among those exposed to the curriculum to outcomes from a similar cohort of children, parents, and teachers who receive the traditional classroom and parent engagement experience.

Touch Talk Read Play: The Urban Child Institute designed the Touch Talk Read Play (TTRP) initiative to inform and inspire parents and child care providers. Based on what we know from early childhood brain development research, babies and young children need daily doses of nurturing touch, conversational talk, exposure to reading and books, and play time with the most important adults in their lives. TTRP is being implemented in several ways:

• Distribution of materials -- e.g., t-shirts, brochures.
• TTRP workshops for child care providers -- conducted at the Memphis Public Library.
• TTRP workshops and Nurturing Parenting training for parents -- conducted by the Neighborhood Christian Centers.
• Collaborative community outreach efforts:
  • WLOK 1340AM -- weekly story time visits to childcare centers.
  • LeBonheur Pediatric Specialists clinic -- (1) Funding for the Reach Out And Read program, and (2) TTRP message delivery during well-child visits as part of a Bridging the Word Gap research project.

Books from Birth: The Urban Child Institute has a partnership with Shelby County Books from Birth. The Institute creates monthly tailored messages specifically for participating families, and Books from Birth passes along the information as part of the newsletter it sends to its extensive email list.