The Tyler Public Library on Thursday celebrated five years as a Family Place Library and received its official banner from the national nonprofit organization.
Getting the banner “felt amazing,” said Amy Skipper, youth services librarian.
The library’s official designation has been delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
A Family Place Library is one that focuses on parent education, family engagement, providing activities that foster early childhood literacy and development and connecting families with community resources, Skipper said.
The nonprofit organization is based in New York.
Focus is really placed on children up to 5 years old, especially up to year 3, because “so much happens to those first few years of life,” Skipper said.
Kathy Deerr, former executive director of Family Place Libraries, presented the Tyler library with the banner and spoke about the importance of the program.
When she took over the nonprofit organization in 2000, there were around 100 sites, and when she left in 2019, there were more than 600, Deerr said. Family Place Libraries has locations in 32 states and growing.
“What Family Place Libraries does is develop framework for a comprehensive model of library services,” she said.
A lot of libraries do things for young children, but it is often “done in a silo,” Deerr said, explaining that when it comes to children learning, it is often thought that the community helps in one way, parents in another, the school in another and so on. In reality, all learning happens together, she said.
It is essential to help parents and children learn starting at birth because, “The brain is the only organ in the human body that is not fully developed at birth,’’ she said.
“What happens in those first three years of life makes a difference as to how well that brain wires. And wiring in the brain that is wired well means that kid is going to be able to grow all the synaptic connections in their brain, and it’s really going to work. All those neurons are going to fire because things are well wired.”
Family Place Libraries helps the whole family foster learning starting at birth, Deerr said. The organization and participating libraries want to provide unbiased and complete information to families; build family friendly policies; facilitate parent to parent support; build on family strengths; and partner with other agencies.
Skipper said her predecessor at the library, Linda Gray, and former city librarian Mary Vernau first brought the program to the Tyler Public Library. To begin the program, the library had help from numerous supporters and received grant funding from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission totaling $6,000.
“At the time, we really had story times for young children, and they wanted to do more,” she said. “I’m glad that they sought out the grant funds and support at that time to be able to move forward and start establishing us as a Family Place Library.”
Around 2017, Skipper began working at the library, which was right at the beginning of it becoming a Family Place Library.
“I’m really lucky to be able to kind of take up the mantle from there and expand on what we have,” she said.
Many families first get connected with the library through discovery time playgroups, Skipper said. This is an informal play time where children can have fun and parents can meet other parents and community specialists while bonding with their child.
“Sometimes that’s (people’s) first connection here with the library, and sometimes, especially if they’re new to the community, it’s a great place that they can come and build their community and find friends and find connections and resources they may need or their children may need,” Skipper said.
The nest discovery time playgroups are Nov. 7 through 11 at the library.