The Yale Child Study Center and Scholastic have launched a new joint research endeavor: the Yale Child Study Center–Scholastic Collaborative for Child & Family Resilience.
The collaborative will focus on the intersection of literacy and health across a range of education content areas — i.e. early childhood, social emotional learning and teaching, equity and social justice, and family and community engagement — with the ultimate goal of improving academic and mental health outcomes for children and their families.
“Health and literacy are deeply connected because a quality education is at the core of sustaining a healthy life,” said Linda C. Mayes, M.D., the Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology, and director of the Yale Child Study Center. “This collaborative with Scholastic allows us to reach more families and communities with the information and resources they need to engage in literacy and enjoy healthy lives for themselves and for future generations.”
“The power of narrative to support a child’s academic and social development is a longstanding belief at Scholastic and will be a driving force behind the mission of our collaborative with the Yale Child Study Center, which will support our early childhood initiatives globally,” said Greg Worrell, president of Scholastic Education.
“We want to ensure that every child and family has what they need to shape their own stories, reframing adverse circumstances and envisioning the brightest futures imaginable. By connecting literacy and health, and bringing the community into the education experience, children and their families will benefit,” said Worrell.
The collaborative is founded on the same principles that led to positive outcomes for “Discover Together,” an integrated system of programs to address rural poverty in Grundy County, Tennessee, led by the Yale Child Study Center, Scholastic, and local partners. With a focus on literacy as a critical component of health and emotional wellness, “Discover Together” has provided resources to increase social connectedness and build resilience within multi-generational families throughout the county.
The success of the initial “Discover Together” program inspired one of the first initiatives launched under the new collaborative: “Discover Together: Brownsville.” The Brownsville-based initiative takes a multigenerational approach to supporting the literacy and social-emotional development of families with young children in the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y. In partnership with “United for Brownsville,” the collaborative will work with the local community to foster pride-in-place, relationship-building, and resilience throughout spaces where people live and learn, including the establishment of a family co-op for young children and their caregivers.
The research findings that come out of the collaborative will contribute to the creation of resources, programs, professional development, and curriculum for supporting children and families.
The collaborative is led by a steering committee including Mayes, Fay Brown, and Megan Smith from the Yale Child Study Center, and Worrell, Janelle Cherrington, and Karen Baicker from Scholastic Education. To learn more about the collaborative, visit its webpage.