THE PROBLEM AND NEED: One of the most serious issues facing infants in high-risk settings is their isolation from the guidance that comes from sustained relationships with parents or adults. Parents are the best sources of support, but for many infants their parents are not positively involved in their lives. Parents in most cases strive to be good parents but in many cases don?t have the capacity to do so because of their own personal experience, lack of skills or extraordinary stress in their lives. Unfortunately, disadvantaged parents sometimes have a history of neglect and abuse which can put their child at higher risk. Within the community of those living below the poverty line and in crime filled neighborhoods, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and neglect can be all too prevalent. Parent-infant nurturing and attachment is recognized by researchers as crucial to the success of the mother-infant relationship and to the success of the child. The two most significant predictors of school success are parent involvement and reading. Forty percent of all parents read to their children very infrequently if at all and socio-economically disadvantaged parents read to their children even less frequently. A child that starts behind tends to stay behind. Despite decades of literacy campaigns that exhort parents to read to children, reading scores continue to decline. Developing Hearts provides educational and motivational materials that are designed to get parents started using books regularly during their child?s infancy.