Early Childhood Literacy Program

          The most important aspect of this ECL program was the creation of programs that provided a year's worth of training to caretakers and to staff on important elements of ECL. The staff training topics followed along with the caretaker training topics, so that the subject matter would be fresh in the minds of all involved at the same time. All staff, regardless of department, were required to take the training. This allows a more holistic approach to growing lifelong library users. The caretakers' ECL program also specifically encouraged all caretakers to come, and was understanding in its implementation: the same caretaker may not be available for all of the classes, so other caretakers were always welcomed to step in as well. The ECL plan presented here included programming such as StoryWalk that embraces nature, as there is much research on the benefits of nature in child development. Libraries can play a large role in that development. Tying these elements into the programming plan repeatedly, to offer consistency, development, and a set expectation, was important to create an ECL plan that expanded holistically throughout the children's department. Research from the ECL field was presented and synthesized into the programming options presented, as well as into a specific section of the ECL plan designated to describe research highlights. The research did contain holes in regards to emphasizing the importance of individual librarians taking initiative to create and implement inclusive, informed, and supportive programming. This ECL plan also provides a section on transparency regarding how all programming would be evaluated and assessed in order to ensure it was meeting goals and expectations. Insights and conclusions drawn from the presented research included that libraries embody a social model that exists to provide resources and information to any who would seek it, regardless of the amount of equity they have in an inequitable culture. Libraries are stepping up to be on the front lines of the fight for equity for marginalized peoples. An especially meaningful goal of this ECL project was to provide informed, inclusive, and supportive programming to patrons who are struggling with issues of inequity. This was accomplished through providing equitable access to nature, using family-inclusive language, focusing on topics of representation in ECL classes, and providing a years worth of cost-free, all-resources-provided, welcoming, expert-level ECL training to any who wanted to attend.

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