Studer Community Institute Labors in the Brain-Building Business

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I often tell people that I work in the construction business. 

But instead of building residential or commercial structures, I help build babies’ brains, the most important construction project we have in our community.

As project manager for Studer Community Institute’s early brain development division, my objective is clear: help more children prepare for kindergarten, school, and life.

Science shows that 80 percent of brain growth happens by age three. Beginning at birth, young brains develop like little muscles, getting bigger and stronger the more we interact with a child.

SCI has been in the brain-building business since 2015, with a mission to improve the quality of life in our community and a goal to make Pensacola America’s first Early Learning City. 

It all started a year before, with the release of the 64-page Pensacola Metro Report commissioned to see where we stood as a community.

The report showed that our No. 1 priority should be education. 

That’s the linchpin for each of the 16 metrics in our community dashboard, created to measure the economic, educational, and social well-being in the Pensacola Metro area.

A common saying is, “What gets measured, gets focused on.” And one of the things we agreed to focus on is kindergarten readiness.

In Escambia County, the 2021 kindergarten readiness rate is a dismal 42 percent, which means fewer than half of our children show up ready for school.

We know that a child who gets a good start has a better chance of doing well throughout life, and it will help them avoid the pitfalls of getting pregnant, dropping out of school, and ending up a burden on society before they can start a fulfilling, productive life.

People don’t tend to think of early brain development as an economic investment, but it absolutely is. In fact, it may be the most crucial investment a community can make in its future.

James Heckman, an economist and Nobel Laureate at the University of Chicago, makes it clear and simple: Every dollar invested in early childhood can save 13 dollars in long-term costs associated with remedial education, criminal justice, and welfare payments.

That’s among the reasons we partnered with the University of Chicago TMW Center to ensure that parents of every baby born in Escambia County get an early intervention to educate them on the brain-building benefits of talking, reading, singing, and playing with infants and toddlers.

John A. List, former chairman of the University of Chicago’s Department of Economics, said SCI is right on target with its programs and content.

“There’s really is one, and only one, reliable economic indicator for the long-run vitality of a community and indeed the broader society: optimal development of a young child’s brain,” he said. “Without proper programs in place at birth, we not only miss a key driver to enhance economic growth, but also the chance of equal opportunity for our children.”

To be sure, early brain development is key to the foundation of a child’s readiness for school and ultimately for putting that child on a path for success in school and life.

At SCI, we’ve developed programs, tools, and content to build on that foundation. They are designed with researched-backed strategies to help parents understand why it is important to talk more with their children and how that is the key to building a brain, building a life, and building a community.

These program tools include:

Brain Bags

Our cornerstone early brain project. More than 20,000 have been shared with birthing mothers since the Spring of 2017. Brain Bags are early literacy gift bags given to mothers before leaving the hospital. Included is a video lesson, delivered by iPad, to mothers reinforcing important early brain teaching points. The peer-reviewed video is based on a two-year research partnership with the University of Chicago’s Thirty Million Word Center. The video is shown to every family who receives a Brain Bag and can be used in prenatal education as well.

Basics Pensacola

This partnership started in 2019 with Harvard University professor Dr. Ron Ferguson’s Boston-based Basics Learning Network. The Basics is centered around five fun, simple, and powerful principles that help give every child a great start in life. It includes an online repository of videos, activities, handouts, and other materials designed to provide daily interactions for families and children.

Basic Insights

This is a twice-weekly, evidence-based text messaging program to help parents talk and interact with their children under age 5, as part of The Basics.

Parent Outreach

This is a partnership with Area Housing Commission to reach parents in underserved communities. The program, created in 2017, includes weekly lessons focused on the importance of parent talk and interaction in healthy brain development and sessions on life-building skills, self-sufficiency, and building parent capacity.

Sibling Brain Builders

Sibling Brain Builders encourage older siblings to read and interact with younger siblings. Launched in Escambia County elementary and middle schools in 2019, the program promotes literacy interactions between siblings in innovative ways that are both educational and maintain an element of choice that generates new links between home and school.

In many ways, SCI is a work in progress. Our “construction” projects are organic and fluid, growing and changing as we create new strategies, develop new partners, and dig up more research.

Our mission to improve the quality of life is a long-term process, one in which we won’t always see immediate results.  

As a sturdy building needs a strong structure, we are laying a strong foundation — one child, one parent, one family at a time —to make Pensacola America’s first Early Learning City.

 

Reggie Dogan joined Studer Community Institute as a research fellow in 2014. Now as program manager, he implements programs to reach parents and families directly in homes and schools. The programs offer mentorship, coaching, and support to families, siblings, and caregivers to help boost family engagement across generations. He also cultivates community partnerships to expand SCI’s footprint in the community.

 

 

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