As parents, we all want the best for our children and while we do need to talk, read and sing to them every day, we also need to invest in parents to help close the skills gap.

Reach Out and Read is a parenting program, as much as it is a clinic-based intervention used by primary care providers. The change we’re trying to elicit is in the parents by building strengths and skills to support healthy families. Reach Out and Read is a two-generational approach—how do we change the child and their reading potential and how do we engage parents.

Listen as Dipesh Navsaria, MPH, MSLIS, MD moderates a panel talking about how ROR doctors use the book as a tool to engineer conversations with families around early childhood development, making moments together and the importance of their parent’s laps (not apps).

The panel also addresses using ROR to engage with families experiencing trauma, helping parents build their parenting skills, starting before birth, and strengthening policies that support families. The panel includes: Dr. David Hill (Pediatrician in NC/AAP committee chair for technology), Dr. Janice Gruendel (ICS), Dr. Candace Prince (family practitioner, SC), First Lady Kristen Cooper (First Lady of NC).