Bringing Out the Best

Abstract

Bringing Out the Best (BOB) is an early intervention program that provides short term, free, family-centered, and community-based services that target children in early childhood (ages 0–5). A priority goal of the program is to increase the number of children that are healthy and ready to succeed as they enter school. Through trainings and technical assistance for educators and administrators, trainings and consultation for families, and screenings and individual interventions for children, specialists, families and teachers collaboratively develop individualized plans for increasing a child’s success in the classroom and at home. BOB is in its 15th year of operation under the Center for Youth, Family, and Community Partnerships at UNC Greensboro and has served over 2400 participants to date. With BOB’s aim to increase the number of healthy children ready to succeed as they enter school, this chapter will emphasize that although elementary students may not be entering physical classrooms this year, the attendance for childcare centers has maintained if not increased; therefore, social and emotional learning are even more essential to the early care curriculum. This chapter will describe the previous processes in place at BOB as well as measures taken to reinvent those services during the COVID-19 pandemic.