The mayor announced the budget game at the Emerging Technology Center in East Baltimore, a nonprofit incubator that's helped develop more than 300 new technology and bio-tech companies over the last 11 years.Rawlings-Blake said she wanted to highlight the program as an example of the city's responding to the public's desire to bring more jobs to Baltimore.Rawlings-Blake said her administration's use of outcome-based budgeting — the practicing of funding programs based on effectiveness — has preserved programs, such as the Emerging Technology Center, through the sluggish economic recovery."The most important aspect of outcome-based budgeting is working with residents to hear their priorities," the mayor said.
Lili Peacock-Chambers plays with her five-month old daughter, as a camera crew captures their interactions. After filming, Peacock-Chambers, 30, watches herself on camera and gets live feedback from Martha Vibbert, a licensed clinical psychologist who is the executive director of the SPARK Supporting Parents and Resilient Kids Center for pediatrics and the director of Universal Baby.Peacock-Chambers is one of about a dozen parents participating in a pilot video for Universal Baby, new video and mobile technology developed at the SPARK Center in Mattapan that is intended to enhance parent-child interactions and improve early-childhood mental health.Universal Baby is an international project launched in 2010 by a small group at the SPARK Center, a pediatric program of Boston Medical Center that provides therapeutic and medically specialized early education and care to children with complex special needs. SPARK staff collaborated with the Griffin Foundation, Inc.,University of Utah data tool clears up health
the World Forum Foundation, and international colleagues.
With mobile devices available to most people, Universal Baby aims to make a collection of video segments accessible to parents on tablets and smart phones. Universal Baby edits the segments that feature mothers such as Peacock- Chambers and their young children."The idea is, parents don't have to search online to read anything or do anything -- except look at someone's phone or their own phone" to see the collection of videos, Vibbert said. "We believe there is tremendous potential in developing video and mobile technology for helping parents support their children's early development."