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Summer Raffle for
Provider Training!!
To encourage your providers to complete Reach Out and Read's new, online course -- complete with video clips of doctors doing Reach Out and Read in the exam room -- let them know they can help your Program earn $100 for your Scholastic Pre-Paid Account!! Here's how:
As soon as all medical providers (MDs, DOs, NPs, and PAs) who do well-visits have completed the CME course (1.25 free CME credits, by the way), email me!
Your program's name will be put into a hat and the winning Program will receive $100 for your Scholastic Account!
Trainings must be completed by August 31st to qualify.
Don't miss this opportunity to become well-versed in our Reach Out and Read best practices and earn books for your patients! |
Reach Out and Read's effort recognized by The New York Times. Click Here
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Perri Klass, MD
Medical Director
Reach Out and Read |
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To make a tax-deductible contribution to Reach Out and Read Click here! |
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Reach Out and Read New England
New Hampshire Newsletter
Summer 2011
Serving 22,415 children at 43 Programs |
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Welcome to our Newest Programs:
Elliot Hospital Affiliated practices:
- Pediatric Health Associates-Manchester
- Doctor's Park Pediatrics, Manchester
- Pediatric Health Associates-Bedford
- Elliot Pediatrics at Londonderry
Main Street Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, Nashua |
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Regional Director's Note
Finally. Summer!
And with it comes the rainbow promise of your hand-planted seeds: gorgeously green zucchini, lettuce, and peas; ripe red strawberries, peppers, and tomatoes; preposterously purple eggplant; yummy, yellow sweet corn and summer squash. Home-grown, as we all know, always tastes best and is best!
Summer is the definition of home-grown pleasure: more time for friends and family, reveling in the simple pleasures of sun, fresh air, barbecues, and badminton. Curling up in the hammock with your sleeping baby or a good book.
Back in the day, it was common sense to read to children because there were no TVs, video games, or water parks. Yet the home-grown awareness about the pleasures and power of reading aloud is scientifically proven to be the single best way to prepare Suzie or Sam for success in school. So, while you surf the net from your screened-in porch, remember to include some of the following links in your summer reading list. (Our on-line CME course should be at the top of it!) And then share the literacy and brain information with your patients. They listen to the trusted advice of their child's primary care physician or nurse practitioner. They want their children to become successful.
Harvard's Center for the Developing Child
http://developingchild.harvard.edu/index.php/resources/multimedia/brain_hero/
Zero to Three
http://www.zerotothree.org/ (Check out the brain map!)
Also, remember to tell parents to hit the library this summer for all the free books a carefree child could ever need! Reading together is a home-grown ritual with untold rewards.
Happy summer,
Gretchen Hunsberger
Program Director, New England Region |
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Reach Out and Read at Elliot Hospital
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Elliot staff members Keturah Lawrence, Julie Brayall, Holly Neefe, MD, and Stacie Wood |
In June, Reach Out and Read approved four more Elliot Hospital-affiliated practices, for a total of seven!
This recent effort assures that all Manchester-area children served by Elliot Hospital will soon receive books at well visits and their parents will learn the incredible impact that they can have on their children's lives by talking to them early and often and reading aloud every day!
Special thanks to Julie Brayall and Dr. Holly Neefe for spearheading this final effort. And many thanks to Dr. Bulanowski for her efforts, too! (See next article.) |
Preemies and Books!
Elliot Hospital's Reach Out and Read initiative is directly related to Dr. Malgorzata Bulanowski's efforts to bring the program to her NICU follow-up patients.
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Dr. Bulanowski enticing Ashley, as Ashley's mom looks on! |
During her pediatric residency at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx, Dr. Bulanowski first learned of Reach Out and Read and immediately "got" its tremendous value. Her patients received more of their parents' precious attention and time, which in turn advanced the child's early speech and language development. And, the unexpected benefit of identifying and assisting illiterate parents, many of them new immigrants, turned Dr. Bulanowski into a true Reach Out and Read advocate - so much so, it fostered in her an idea: books in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) follow-up clinic!
Since prematurity is a well-known risk factor for abnormal language development, and with the first four years of life being critical to the advancement of receptive and expressive language, it seemed like a natural fit. So she brought Reach Out and Read along with her to her fellowship in neonatology at University of Rochester Medical Center where she conducted a research project on Reach Out and Read and the premature infant population.
Two years ago, when Dr. Bulanowski moved to New Hampshire, she was equally eager to institute Reach Out and Read at the Elliot Hospital NICU and its brand new NICU Follow-Up Program. Over the following year, the affiliated practices started coming on board, thanks to her interest.
As part of its Reach Out and Read Program, the Elliot NICU has also established it's own lending library for parents of babies still hospitalized in the NICU. This early literacy orientation has already helped establish a foundation of consistent parental book-sharing and reading aloud among this at-risk patient population.
Dr. Bulanowski and her team, lead by Pamela Bedford, RNC Neonatal Developmental Care Nurse/NICU Follow Up Program Coordinator, have been dedicated to training the entire NICU staff of nurses, nutritionists, and physicians in introducing Reach Out and Read to parents. Bravo! |
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 Federal Funding Update
After ten years of strong, bi-partisan support at the federal level, Reach Out and Read has lost all its federal funding ($6M). We are not alone: Reading is Fundamental and Teach for America did too, as well as many other national programs serving children.
We continue to work with legislators to carve out a sum for the new fiscal year; we will keep you posted on our efforts.
This summer, you can help by inviting your Washington legislator for a site visit. Let's keep Reach Out and Read in front of them! If interested, please contact me. Gretchen.hunsberger@reachoutandread.org . |
CME Course
 A Reach Out and Read Requirement
Our new, online CME course is accessed at www.myROR.org. (Provider passwords required.)
Please make sure all medical providers are "re-trained" - or trained for the first time - using our online CME course no later than August 31. Free CME credits (1.25) are offered. If providers don't know their password, please email avery.borreliz@reachoutandread.org.
See sidebar for CME Course RAFFLE information!
Now, more than ever, we must assure all our funders that our physicians and nurse practitioners are practicing our model with fidelity. They choose to fund us because of our strong evidence base. Reach Out and Read is about parental engagement and literacy promotion offered by medical providers; it is not a book give-away program!
Children must enter kindergarten with foundational literacy skills in place, ready to learn, and on par with their more affluent peers. When books and anticipatory guidance are repeatedly offered, behaviors change at home. Parents speak to and read more frequently with their children. Vocabularies are enriched. Expressive and receptive language skills show marked increases. Together, we can assure positive outcomes, but only when Reach Out and Read providers are versed in and educated to the model. Strength-ening your individual program benefits the children in New Hampshire!
Let us know when this requirement has been met. Thank you. |
Site Visiting
It's been a while since I've seen most of you, so my next round of site visits has begun; I've already been on several! Such visits are an opportunity for me to offer you new posters and literacy resources, as well as information on our new, fully online CME course. And it's an opportunity for you, too - so save up your questions or concerns! Look for my upcoming email. Summer's a nice time to be on the road. |
Fundraiser in Nashua for Lamprey Healthcare
On June 6th, the Nashua-area Jewish Women's Giving Circle raised over $2,000 at their "Breakfast and Books" event to benefit The Nashua Area
Health Center's Reach Out and Read program. The coffee hour was full of information about the importance and impact of early literacy.
Nashua Area Health Center provides medical care to over 5,000 people each year and is moving to a new location in the fall. In addition to funding books for the program, part of the money raised will also provide the new children's waiting room with a table and chair set, book rack, and other needed items.
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Standing left to right: Rabbi Jon Spira-Savett, Lisa Porter, Mara Friedman, Wendy Kolopsky, Denise Chazin, Jessica Bladd, Sharon Weiss. Merle Camus hands checks to Vanessa Kortze (Lamprey Health Care) and Gretchen Hunsberger (Reach Out and Read). |
The Jewish Women's Giving Circle began over three years ago with members from Hollis, Nashua, and Amherst, NH. They meet monthly to educate themselves on community needs and then hold fundraisers to support their chosen organizations. Kudos and enormous thanks! |
Learn about Reach Out and Read's "Summer of a Million Books" campaign at www.reachoutandread.org/summer ! Help us guarantee one million books into the hands of one million children before Labor Day. |
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