Delaware’s Department of Health and Social Services launches a free app aimed at helping young children get a healthy start in life.
The QT30 app provides parents and caregivers of children up to 8 years old with activities they can do daily to get 30 minutes of quality time with their kids.
The app seeks to make spending quality time with young children easier while getting them on the path for success in education and beyond.
Those 30 minutes of quality time are important during the first 1,000 days of life when changes in a child’s body, brain, and emotions change quickly and brain growth is happening.
Crystal Sherman is the chief of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau with the Division of Public Health.
"So with that idea of spending quality time with your child - specifically 30 minutes that goal - we developed what we call a booklet a QT30 booklet that has about 150/160 different activities for children birth to age eight using things around any house that would typically have without having or having the need to go buy these fancy toys or learning gadgets for their children," said Sherman.
The app also offers more than 150 different indoor and outdoor activities including arts and crafts, words/numbers/sounds, and kitchen projects. They come with video instructions and are divided into ones for ages 0 to 3 and 4 to 8.
The app is an extension of the existing QT30 program - and Sherman says it aims to make it easier for parents and caregivers to participate in the program.
"Again with technology evolving and the cost of printing a large booklet for parents we've decided to kind of turn that booklet into an app and then we also developed short videos to show parents how these activities could play out and how they could do them in small little time chunks," said Sherman.
There’s also a timer to keep track of time spent.
The app is available for free in the Apple Store and Google Play.
