North Carolina Partnership for Children

Smart start: North Carolina's nationally-recognized early childhood initiative, smart start, measurably increases the health and well-being of young Children, building the foundation for all future learning by:- improving Children's early care and education programs so that they are safe, healthy and provide opportunities for Children to learn skills they need for success in school.- ensuring that Children are screened for developmental delays. - providing parents with tools that support them in raising happy, healthy successful Children. for a strong foundation, Children need high quality early care and education programs that are safe and provide opportunities for learning: and strong families and environments that support healthy outcomes. High quality early education yields higher graduation rates, reduced crime, higher earnings, less reliance on social services, and better jobs.smart start is a network of 75 nonprofit local partnerships that serve all 100 North Carolina counties. This network is led by the North Carolina Partnership for Children (ncpc) that ensures fiscal and programmatic accountability, and supports the statewide network to create better outcomes for Children and families. Ncpc establishes measurable statewide goals and communities determine the best approach to achieving them. Ncpc also ensures that smart start local partnerships fully meet all legislatively mandated requirements and operate to the highest standards of effectiveness, accountability, efficiency and integrity. Ncpc maintains a fiscal accountability system that includes monitoring local partnerships to ensure compliance with state and federal laws, legislative mandates and state policies, and local Partnership financial audits. 2018 analyses show that the positive impacts of nc pre-k and smart start continue through grades 6, 7, and 8. There is no fadeout. In fact, the impact grows. By eighth grade, for Children in counties with average funding, nc pre-k has reduced the likelihood of placements into special education by over one third. We find positive impacts for every group of Children we studied, including economically disadvantaged as well as advantaged Children; african american, hispanic, and white non-hispanic Children; and Children whose mothers are well-educated as well as those whose mothers are less well-educated.additional accomplishments include:- improving quality and achieving higher stars on nc's rated license through onsite technical assistance, training and support for child care professionals to obtain higher education. The percentage of Children in 4- and 5-star programs increased from 33 percent in 2001 to nearly 71 percent in 2022. The percentage of Children in low quality, 1- and 2-star programs decreased from 46 percent in 2001 to less than 5 percent in 2022.- improving early literacy by collaborating with state literacy organizations, local partnerships, private child care programs, and pediatricians to promote early literacy across the state through programs like raising a reader, reach out and read (ror). 65% of returning ror participants reported reading to their Children daily. - helping private child care programs improve the quality of their classrooms so they may participate in nc pre-k and partner with nc pre-k providers to help eligible four-year-olds access the program. In fiscal year 2021-22, smart start local partnerships administered nc pre-k in 55 counties.

In an effort to live into the legislative vision of smart start as a public-private Partnership that innovates to strengthen the state's early childhood system, ncpc, in Partnership with state agencies, philanthropic and other early childhood organizations, has played a leading role in other projects and initiatives in fy 2021-22 as described below: - under the federal preschool development grant, ncpc and smart start local partnerships are supporting family engagement and leadership coalitions and launching pilots of the family connects home visiting model in rural communities. - ncpc is partnering with nc dhhs on an expansion of child care health consultants in the state to promote safe, healthy care environments for Children during the pandemic. - after years of planning with numerous partners, the North Carolina home visiting and parenting education (hvpe) system launched with administrative support from ncpc. The system works to align funding and resources for hvpe, improve the quality of services, and link programs to other early childhood supports. - the nc healthy and resilient communities initiative completed a landscape analysis identifying local coalitions working to address adverse childhood experiences (aces) and build resilience across the state. - through a multi-year grant from the blue cross blue shield of North Carolina foundation, ncpc is investing in a series of projects to increase the smart start network's capacity for systems leadership, supporting leadership development tools, creating opportunities for networkwide learning, strengthening data systems, and streamlining contracting. - ncpc hosts an annual conference for those dedicated to improving early education systems and promoting Children's healthy growth and development including education experts, government and business leaders, and not-for-profits, as well as a public awareness and engagement campaign.

Dolly parton's imagination library promotes emergent literacy skills through a Partnership with the dollywood foundation. Local organizations select a geographic area to target enrollment in zip codes with Children ages 0-5. Families are recruited to participate and once Children are enrolled, they receive an age-appropriate book in the mail each month up to their fifth birthday. All local partnerships are receiving funding to administer the program and the program is available in every nc zip code. During fiscal year 2021-22, 297,019 Children were served statewide.