Gentle Start Library project supports families in the NICU

Surrey Libraries and Surrey Memorial Hospital are partnering to provide books to families in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

The Gentle Start Library project will provide a collection of board books to help support babies’ development. The initiative aims to create a community for families in the NICU and early literacy for babies.

Surrey Libraries Youth Services Manager Chloe Humphreys initiated the project in January 2020, but it was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It started with me having this dream, and I had cooked up this idea [on] how we can support these families that are going through … a very stressful time and is not the way you would wish to welcome a little one,” Humphreys says.

She says the project was revisited two years ago. Surrey Libraries connected with the NICU’s speech language pathology team because of the overlap with literacy.

With board books available in each NICU room and customized to each family’s needs, the project also has a cart of books for older siblings, including titles in multiple languages, such as Punjabi, Korean, Spanish, and Chinese.

“Studies show that singing and reading in your home language does so much to support culture,” Humphreys says, adding that the variety of books reflects Surrey’s diversity and various family structures.

Humphreys says Surrey Libraries can be the “sparkly unicorn happy element” for families having tough conversations and receiving bad news in the NICU.

Library staff also provide outreach, create baby’s first library card, and lead early literacy classes for caregivers.

In one of the first classes Surrey Libraries ran in the NICU, Humphreys asked a couple whether they spoke other languages at home, and they said they spoke Filipino. She pulled out the book Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in Filipino and English.

Humphreys says the husband started to get teary-eyed, adding that he told her that his grandma sang it to him — and now he gets to do the same for his daughter.

“We got to sing that together,” she says. “It was very lovely. It showed that it is super important that we have [books in] other languages.”

She hopes the Gentle Start Library project helps other public libraries start conversations with hospitals in their community.

When families are almost ready to leave the NICU, Surrey Libraries gives a read-to-baby kit containing a board book and a toy.

Humphreys says it’s all about “wrap-around care.”

“We’re connecting them to a community resource before they leave the hospital, and then they have somewhere that they can go once they’re feeling strong and settled enough.”

For families leaving the NICU, there are baby-time programs. Humphreys says programs like these are free for families and held weekly at every Surrey Libraries branch.

“There’s so much that families can explore for additional support,” she says. “We’re really that community hub of resources and referrals.”