AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – Reach Out and Read has announced a $215,000 two-year grant from CareSource to improve health, equity, and education outcomes for young children and their families in Georgia.
The nonprofit has six local program sites that offer books to children during health visits.
This funding will allow Reach Out and Read Georgia to expand to one or more medical practices, provide co-branded educational resources and new children’s books to select medical sites, and engage CareSource employees as partners in our shared mission to promote reading and routines as part of a child’s healthy development.
At each well-child visit beginning at birth through age 5, the child receives a new book to take home and build their home library. Books are chosen to be developmentally, linguistically, and culturally diverse with stories, images, and characters that accurately reflect and affirm a diverse range of identities.
These books provide children with mirrors of their own lives and experiences, as well as windows into the lives and experiences of other people. For children, books can make a positive impact on their racial identity formation, self-worth, and belonging.
“We are incredibly grateful to the CareSource Foundation for their generous support,” said Dr. Jay Berkelhamer, Reach Out and Read Georgia advisory board member and past president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, “There is no better messenger than a pediatrician to deliver advice about a child’s brain development, and the important role parents and caregivers have on this journey.”
The partnership between CareSource and Reach Out and Read Georgia was launched last year to expand intervention services to reach more Medicaid families and to help sustainability efforts in select existing medical offices.
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