News Release
Home-Start in Scotland teams up with the Scottish Book Trust to work with children's author in encouraging more parents to enjoy reading.
Scottish Book Trust Appoints First Ever Early Years Writer in Residence
Scottish Book Trust is delighted to announce that Alison Murray, creator of Apple Pie ABC, has been named as the organisation’s first Early Years Writer in Residence.
The residency is the latest collaboration between Scottish BookTrust and Home-Start, the UK’s leading family support charity.
The two organisations have been working in partnership in the last 18 months on a number of projects benefitting families supported by local Home-Start Schemes across Scotland. The majority of Home-Start support is carried out in the family’s own home, with home-visiting volunteers offering emotional and practical support to families, but many Home-Starts run family groups as well.
Over the next nine months, Alison will work with the Home-Start Family group in Renfrewshire, in an area of socio-economic deprivation, to support parents’ reading and writing skills and embed a love of book sharing with young children within the community.
Commenting on her appointment, Alison said:
“I am really excited about this project not only because it promotes a love of picture books and literacy, but also because it supports a community-centric approach to looking after our children and bringing out the best in them. I'm finding it hugely challenging but also incredibly rewarding. The best bit so far has been watching the parents in the writing group discover how creative they already are.”
May Fong, regional consultant for Home-Start UK said:
“This project will help to empower the parents that we support by giving them the opportunity to develop their own creative skills which will be of huge benefit to their children and their early learning activities.”
Jasmine Fassl, Children's Programme Manager at Scottish Book Trust, commented:
“We are delighted that Alison has agreed to take on the role of Scottish Book Trust’s first ever Early Years Writer in Residence, and we are looking forward to reading the picture book that she will co-create with the Home-Start group in Paisley over the next nine months. We hope that by giving parents confidence in their own reading and ideas for their own storytelling and creative writing, they will discover an enthusiasm for books and reading which will be passed on to future generations.”
During the residency Alison will:
• Work together with the Home-Start group of parents in two 8-week residencies looking at book sharing and creating stories together. Alison will work with the group to create a picture book text which will hopefully be produced in partnership with Orchard books and distributed in a Scottish Book Trust Early Years book gifting bag to 60,000 young children across Scotland in 2012
• Work with parents and young children aged birth to five at local libraries (during Bookbug Sessions – rhymes and singing for babies aged birth to four) and in nurseries to get them excited and interested in books
• Visit local nurseries to allow children to meet a published author/illustrator and inspire them to create their own rhymes and pictures.
• Deliver continued professional development sessions jointly with Scottish Book Trust’s Early Years Training Co-ordinator, to Early Years professionals and Home-Start staff and volunteers to promote the benefits of book sharing with young children
Home-Start parents and children will also be invited to take part in a number of activities, linked to the residency’s core theme of reading and writing, allowing them to explore literature and arts activities both within and beyond their local community.
Notes to the Editor:
• Scottish Book Trust’s Early Years Programme
Scottish Book Trust’s Early Years Programme encourages all parents and carers to enjoy books with children from as early an age as possible, aiming to develop a lifelong love of books in every child in Scotland. Working through locally-based organisations, the early years programme gives a bag of free books to children at around eight weeks, 18 months, three years and at Primary 1, along with guidance materials for parents and carers. Each book pack is distributed to approximately 60,000 babies across Scotland.
www.scottishbooktrust.com
• Alison Murray
Apple Pie ABC is Alison’s first book for children. It is an utterly delicious introduction to the alphabet from the cutest little pup you're likely to find! Inspired by nursery rhyme A Apple Pie, the traditional verse is retold with wit, filled with charm and illustrated with tremendous style. This beautiful book follows the funny exploits of the utterly lovable pup as he does his best to get his paws on the pie!
Praise for Apple Pie ABC and Alison Murray:
‘Lovely 1960s-retro illustrations are matched with a cunning use of the alphabet to spell out the pup’s various efforts to obtain the prize.’ – The Financial Times
‘Parchment-coloured pages and linocut images in muted shades give this neatly designed book traditional warmth.’ – The Sunday Times
• Home-Start
Home-Start offers support, friendship and practical help to parents with young children in local communities throughout the UK and with British Forces in Germany and Cyprus. Home-Start offers a unique service which recruits and trains volunteers who are usually parents themselves to visit families with at least one child under five, at home, and offer them informal, friendly and confidential support.
Home-Start schemes are rooted in the communities they serve. They are managed locally, but supported by the national organisation: this offers direction, training, information and guidance and ensures consistent and quality support for parents and children wherever they are. The families Home-Start work with need support for many reasons including post-natal illness, disability, bereavement, the illness of a parent or child, or social isolation. They have a network of over 16,000 trained volunteers – parents supporting other parents – to help build a family's confidence and ability to cope. Home-Start has a proven, lasting, positive impact on the development of children and the health and welfare of the family. The 32 Home-Starts in Scotland have 1,512 volunteers supporting 2,160 families and 4,707 children. www.home-start.org.uk
For further information, or to arrange an interview with Alison, please contact
HELEN CRONEY: helen.croney@scottishbooktrust.com – 0131 524 0175
