Ms Carol McKinnon1,2,3,4
1Hunter New England Local Health District, Tamworth, australia, 2Tamworth Regional Library, Tamworth, Australia, 3Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, The Dollywood Foundation, Sevierville, USA, 4Uniting Way Australia, Sydney, Australia
SWISH, Australia’s Country Music Capital and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – The Tamworth Model.
A true Community Partnership built through Newborn Hearing Screening. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library puts books into the hands and hearts of children across the world. How Tamworth SWISH partnered with the Tamworth Library and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to provide a hand-selected, age-appropriate, high-quality book each month to children from birth to age five.
¹Purpose is to introduce Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library and how connecting through the UNHS program with Health, Local Government and Charity has led to Community building since 2019.
²The reasons behind the Imagination Library, Uniting Way Australia & Tamworth Regional Library wanting to launch a pilot DPIL in the Tamworth area and the partnership built by our DPIL Champions through Newborn Hearing Screening to connect with the community and our babies.
³The challenges of how to reach and enroll babies with their family approval into the program which delivers free books every month to a child from birth until 5 years old to keep (60 books in total). The Tamworth program is privately funded by charities with Tamworth Council assisting. We developed a new Model of engagement, where families with a newborn having their hearing screened, are invited to participate in DPIL. The program is introduced to the family, how to use the books and the layered benefits of reading to babies explained. The Tamworth Model developed over 6 months as families with a new baby found it difficult to get to the local library to enroll.
⁴Almost 3000 Tamworth LGA babies are registered. Participation rate was expected at 80%. We are enrolling 98% of newborns, 20 % of children are Indigenous. Success in Tamworth led to DPIL & Uniting Way Australia lobbying the NSW Government, and Government funding was granted for DPIL to start in 25 LGAs using the Tamworth Model as the preferred approach. The goal is to register every new baby in every LGA in Australia. United Way Australia is undertaking a global research project of the Tamworth Model for The Dollywood Foundation in conjunction with Macquarie University analysing the impact of the Imagination Library on the home reading environment.
Biography:
CNC SWISH Hunter New England Local Health District NSW, Child & Family Health Nurse. Registered Nurse
Co-ordinate UNHS in HNELHD Northern sector
Child and Family Health Nurse in Community Health Tamworth NSW, working with families with adjusting to parenthood, Child Development and Health Promotion.
Connecting children and their families with DPIL to deliver books and promote reading and child development in the community in affiliation with Tamworth Regional Library and Regional Council
carol.mckinnon@health.nsw.gov.au