Connecting the Dots

The CTD project will partner with select community organizations.

Georgia is plagued with stark economic mobility and educational achievement disparities that disproportionately impact certain racial and socioeconomic groups. A 2018 Bloomberg report ranked Atlanta, Georgia, as the worst city in the United States for economic mobility. Third grade reading achievement, a significant predictor of high school graduation, is one of the lowest for children from economically challenged households. Together, these obstacles create considerable opportunity costs for Atlanta’s children, parents, and families.

2Gen approaches building family well-being by intentionally and simultaneously working with children and the adults in their lives together. The 6 Key Components of a 2Gen Approach include:

• Postsecondary Education and Employment Pathways
• K-12
• Early Childhood Education and Development
• Economic Assets
• Health and Well-Being
• Social Capital

TWMB is a public health initiative committed to improving reading and literacy in Georgia. TWMB engages parents and caregivers in coaching:

• On the importance of language in the earliest stages of their child’s brain and social development; and
• To strengthen the frequency of positive, language-rich social interactions with their babies to help prepare them for a lifetime of learning and school success.

Conversing with babies in the earliest ages stimulates brain development and builds language, literacy, and social-emotional skills. Children who do not read on grade level by the third grade are four to six times more likely to drop out of school eventually. The Talk with Me Baby (TWMB) program aims to ensure that children in Georgia read on grade level by the end of third grade by increasing their vocabulary and conversation beginning in the womb.

Leading this 2Gen initiative, Emory University Schools of Nursing and Medicine, as well as the Marcus Autism Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, have partnered with community-based organizations in and around Fulton County to help ensure families are afforded every opportunity to meet their goals. CTD Navigators, a multidisciplinary team of community health workers, social workers and nurses, will work alongside families beginning in the prenatal phase through the first two years of life. Using multiple means of connecting with families, including home visitations, the CTD Navigators work in partnership with parents to identify goals and strategies to connect them with the supplemental resources, services, and social capital to achieve their family’s financial, language and literacy goals.