Walsh Center for Thriving Children launches network to improve pre-K learning through pediatric practice
The Mary E. Walsh Center for Thriving Children, a hub for integrated student-support science and innovation housed within the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College, has been awarded a two-year, $1-million grant from the Heising-Simons Foundation to launch the “Promoting the Power of Pediatrics for Early Learning (ProPPEL) Network."
ProPPEL is a group of researchers from pediatrics, developmental psychology, and education who are collaborating with leaders of national early education programs to improve pre-K learning through pediatric practice.
Eric Dearing (Caitlin Cunningham)
“It’s very exciting to launch this network,” said Eric Dearing, executive director of the center and a professor in the Lynch School's Counseling, Development & Educational Psychology Department. “ProPPEL is part of an exciting new line of scholar initiatives through which we are bringing researchers and practitioners together to improve a child’s chances of thriving.”
Network innovation strategies include the installation of playful learning landscapes in pediatric clinics; technology for pediatricians that allows them to share early learning tips with families; family coaching as part of wellness visits, and preschool-community health collaborations.
“ProPPEL will establish Boston College, the Lynch School, and the center as a national leader for research-practice partnerships that leverage pediatric medicine for early education and learning,” said Dearing. “Because nearly all U.S. children attend ‘well child visits’ with a pediatrician whom their family trusts, the ProPPEL Network has a unique opportunity to improve whole child development and life success chances.”
Dearing noted that ProPPEL will complement City Connects, the center’s long-standing research-practice partnership that provides integrated support to thousands of students.
ProPPEL members include pediatricians from Stanford University School of Medicine, Oregon Health and Science University Medical School, and Tufts Medical School as well as early learning and development researchers at BC and the University of California-Irvine.
“ ProPPEL will establish Boston College, the Lynch School, and the center as a national leader for research-practice partnerships that leverage pediatric medicine for early education and learning. ”
“Eric Dearing has been conducting high-quality, impactful work facilitating early childhood learning and development for many years,” said Stanton E.F. Wortham, the Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean of the Lynch School. “It's great to see this continued support for a new project that builds on earlier successes, and I’m particularly pleased to see the expansion of such promising research/practice partnerships that the foundation will now generously fund.”
Network-member national organizations focused on delivering additional early learning opportunities within pediatric medicine include “Count Play Explore,” providers of professional learning resources to promote early math, science, and computer science; MathTalk, an organization that converts stories, public art, and augmented reality experiences into products and activities that assist math learning between adults and children; The Basics, a community-level public health strategy that works within and across organizations to embed The Basics Principles— five evidence-based practices for promoting early childhood development — into routine family engagement efforts; “Too Small to Fail,” an early childhood initiative of the Clinton Foundation that surrounds families with early language and learning opportunities; and Zero to Three, an organization that offers early childhood training sessions and resources to address the most critical issues impacting infants and toddlers.
The Heising-Simons Foundation is a private philanthropy established by Elizabeth Simons and Mark Heising in 2007.