Over the past few months, my library has partnered with a local resource center that provides early intervention and lifelong support to individuals with a variety of developmental disabilities, including cerebral palsy and autism spectrum disorders. \u00a0The resource center originally reached out to us looking for a librarian to read a few stories to their clients. I knew a sensory storytime would be a great fit, but in their experience, visits to offsite locations were rarely successful. \u00a0Any activity we planned would have to take place at their location. \u00a0So I took my sensory storytime on the road, and got a chance to really put my skills to the test.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m fairly new to sensory storytimes. \u00a0Before this, I had incorporated concepts into my regular programming, and made real efforts to make those programs universally designed, but I certainly wasn\u2019t actively promoting this. Partnering with the resource center gave me the opportunity to refine my skills and try new activities.\u00a0 My first visit wasn\u2019t without hiccups. For example, sign-up sheets and library card applications became problematic due to HIPAA and patient privacy concerns. \u00a0We also ended up with a lot more kids in attendance than we were expecting. But in the end, like Pete the Cat taught us in our story that day, \u201cit\u2019s all good.\u201d<\/p>\n
In taking these special programs out into the community, we’ve found that children and their caregivers can have a library experience in an environment that is comfortable for them, surrounded by people they trust. Plus, our partner organization has developed a better understanding of what we can offer. \u00a0It has inspired other collaborations, with new programs and training for children\u2019s librarians in the works.<\/p>\n
There is a lot of information on the ALSC Blog to help you prepare sensory and special needs storytimes. I found Ashley\u2019s Waring\u2019s Sensory Storytime Tips<\/a> and Jill Hutchison’s overview of Renee Grassi\u2019s Beyond Sensory Storytime presentation<\/a>\u00a0to be particularly useful posts for providing information and talking points for communicating with the center\u2019s directors and staff. \u00a0In addition, an ALSC course I took this spring taught by Kate Todd, Children with Disabilities in the Library, was an amazing resource, and I recommend it for anyone interested in creating more inclusive library programs, or reaching out to children with disabilities in clinical settings.<\/p>\n Brooke Sheets is a Children\u2019s Librarian at Los Angeles Public Library\u2019s Children\u2019s Literature Department and is writing this post for the Early Childhood Programs and Services Committee.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the past few months, my library has partnered with a local resource center that provides early intervention and lifelong support to individuals with a variety of developmental disabilities, including cerebral palsy and autism spectrum disorders. \u00a0The resource center originally reached out to us looking for a librarian to read a few stories to their clients. I knew a sensory storytime would be a great fit, but in their experience, visits to offsite locations were rarely successful. \u00a0Any activity we planned would have to take place at their location. \u00a0So I took my sensory storytime on the road, and got a chance to really put my skills to the test. I\u2019m fairly new to sensory storytimes. \u00a0Before this, I had incorporated concepts into my regular programming, and made real efforts to make those programs universally designed, but I certainly wasn\u2019t actively promoting this. Partnering with the resource center gave me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":207,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[493,1],"tags":[203,115,200,724,117],"class_list":["post-11955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-early-childhood-programs-and-services-committee","category-uncategorized","tag-outreach-2","tag-programming","tag-programming-ideas-2","tag-sensory-storytime","tag-storytime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/207"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11955\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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