When Reach Out and Read began thirty-five years ago, the model was to support families with children from ages six months to five years. In the last 35 years Reach Out and Read has been sitting at the “intersection of health and education,” playing a unique role in public health.

Reach Out and Read’s new ‘Building Connections Begins at Birth (BCBB)’ initiative was implemented to offer families support starting at their very first well-child visit. Reach Out and Read providers now offer anticipatory guidance surrounding early relationships and literacy at each well-child visit from birth to 5 years. A new developmentally, culturally, and linguistically responsive book is provided to each family to keep and take home.

AAP-CA3’s Reach Out and Read San Diego program is utilizing the BCBB initiative giving our pediatric providers the tools to focus on the relationship between the parent and child beginning at birth. This connection allows us to reach children in those first critical months of life, engaging families from the start and strengthening our support for families.

Through Building Connections Begins at Birth, we:

• Engage the parent in their vial role or interacting with the newborn and beyond.
• Leverage the neural changes of a new parent that support positive adaptation to parenting and the development of parent-child relationships.
• Align our model with the National American Academy of Pediatrics’ Bright Futures guidelines that support interventions to improve the health and well-being of all children.
• Increase the dose-effect of Reach Out and Read by more visits, research shows that positive outcomes improve with the amount of Reach Out and Read visits a child receives.
• Build a larger home library for the child, which research links to academic success.
• Provide a greater opportunity to support parents in developing safe, stable, and nurturing relationships with their child – setting them up for success.
• Establish important routines that support positive parent-child and family interactions.

Our Reach Out and Read San Diego program received generous grant funding from San Diego Foundation and the Dr. Seuss Foundation to launch BCBB beginning in fiscal year 2022/2023. With this funding we offered 20 of our sites to pilot BCBB. We asked that 100% of a clinic’s providers take the revised Reach Out and Read model training with the focus on Early Relational Health and provide families with messaging and a book at the 2 and 4-month well-child visits. We then provided these sites with a year’s worth of 2 and 4-month books to launch BCBB to their patients.

“This [BCBB initiative] will allow us to expand our program to include even younger infants at the 2-month and 4-month well visits. Families that start reading with their babies at the earliest age have more opportunities for bonding and engaging with their child. We witness this every day in the office after we introduce a new book to a family.” -Reach Out and Read San Diego Pediatrician

The success of our BCBB pilot allowed us to receive additional grant funding from San Diego Foundation and Dr. Seuss Foundation to bring on another 16 sites in fiscal year 2023/2024, and another 16 sites in fiscal year 2024/2025.
Our goal is for all of our 116 Reach Out and Read San Diego clinics provide Building Connections Begins at Birth to their patients. We are already onboarding 10 more clinics for this fiscal year!

If your clinic is interested in launching BCBB, please contact Cindy Little, clittle@aapca3.org and learn more by visiting: https://rorsd.org.