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April 2021 CEO Priorities Update

Dear Ready Ready Supporter,

Spring is blooming, and so is our work at Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready.) This month we have information on expanded access to medical practices for Navigation services and additional resources that will put books into the hands of more Guilford County children. We are also collaborating with other groups to develop a registry that will help North Carolina collect data on early childhood and school-age children to help inform policy. 

This newsletter also contains a policy update section. We plan to bring you this information quarterly in this newsletter so you can stay up to date on the issues affecting children in Guilford County and our work.

Along with the regular news and information on our priorities, we link you to resources and ways to take action. We appreciate your support and dedication to this essential systems-building work.


Charrise Hart
Chief Executive Officer

 
 
 
Develop navigation system to connect families with effective services
  • Children’s Home Society (CHS) has secured commitments from six additional OB practices to provide Navigation, including three in High Point. Consent and screening forms have been translated into Spanish with other languages to follow.

  • CHS has hired four new Community Navigators who started on April 5, 2021. To attract bilingual Community Navigators, CHS has posted a Community Navigator position specifically seeking Spanish-speaking applicants and speakers of languages in addition to English.

  • UNC’s National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) team has developed a research plan to understand and address barriers to equitable access to prenatal care and prenatal Navigation. 



Expand proven programs to meet community need
  • Facilitated by UNC's NIRN team, the Program Integration Implementation Team has completed its foundational work. It is beginning to work through a stage-based implementation process to operationalize identified integration priorities.

  • MDRC shared program service delivery data findings between Q2 2019 and Q4 2020 with Family Connects, Nurse-Family Partnership, and HealthySteps. The data provided some insights into the impacts of the pandemic. 

  • A committee of OB and Pediatric Practice Champions for the Basics Guilford, Navigation, HealthySteps, and Reach Out and Read has been established to share information about incorporating these programs collectively into medical homes.



Build a culture of continuous quality improvement (CQI) within Guilford County
  • We facilitated the first CQI Advisory Group meeting. The meeting had high attendance, high engagement, and group members offered great feedback on our CQI strategy. 

  • We had a successful CQI Learning Exchange event in collaboration with UNC-Chapel Hill. The purpose of the event was to finalize a CQI Practice Profile (a roadmap for our work), provide a mini-training on the Model For Improvement (a framework for CQI), and get feedback on the CQI strategy. 

  • We are excited about the progress that we've made on drafting a CQI strategy. We have shared this strategy with the UNC Team, The Duke Endowment, Ready Ready Staff, Ready Ready Board, Guilford Foundation Executives, a subgroup of CQI Cohort 1 members, and the CQI Advisory Group. We are in the process of considering how to incorporate this feedback, as well as aligning it to our Theory of Change and 3-5 Design Team work.



Build technology to support data-informed decisions
  • The latest version of the Prenatal Pilot includes all major functionality discovered as part of the prenatal process and was released at the beginning of April in our Salesforce CRM.

  • We continue to work on our Integrated Data System (IDS). We have connected with families in March for preliminary feedback on the design’s first iteration. This feedback will be used to move forward with the next round of revisions.

  • We have established a relationship with IBM to build our data integration platform, convene a governance body, and build the more complicated Navigation CRM. Our goal is to have full implementation by the end of 2021. We welcome IBM program lead Zola Martin and her team as we make these important moves forward for our IDS.


Conduct rigorous evaluation process and build sustainability strategies for system-building work
  • The Evaluation Advisory Board, comprised of national experts, shared feedback on the impact study design

  • Ready Ready staff and evaluators launched a theory of change development for CQI and infant/toddler development.



Leverage and expand early literacy resources
 
  • With new funding from the Duke Energy Foundation, we will purchase additional children’s books to expand our partnership with Backpack Beginnings. We anticipate sharing 6,500 books with families who use Backpack Beginnings care packages for food and other needs in Guilford County.



Make high-quality care affordable and accessible to all children
  • Early Childhood Workforce (ECW) Advisory Group members joined the NC Early Education Coalition’s Worthy Wages Campaign, which began on April 7, 2021. Early childhood educators are underpaid for the vital work they do. Join us by signing up to receive an email every Wednesday with quick and easy actions to advocate for teachers.

  • Ready Ready and the ECW Advisory Group members are providing input to develop the state’s next three-year plan on how federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) funds will be invested and how NC will implement CCDBG requirements. CCDBG funds are used to provide child care assistance for families and fund initiatives to improve and support child care quality in North Carolina. 

  • Child Care Services Association (CCSA) highlights how the American Rescue Plan can support the child care workforce

  • Ready Ready and the ECW Advisory Group members are providing feedback to the CCSA to help plan for an NC Early Childhood/ School Age (EC/SA) Registry. North Carolina is one of only nine states that currently does not have the registry, which would position the state to collect data to allow programs and systems to identify trends that need further investments, as well as develop reports to help inform policymakers.

  • Production on the workforce advocacy video has been completed. The ECW Advisory Group developed a communication plan for distributing the video to align with Worthy Wage Day in May.



Improve transitions, including PreK to Kindergarten
  • The Ages 3-5 Design Team is actively recruiting focus group participants to better understand what Guilford County parents need to help their young children succeed in kindergarten. Parents and caregivers can sign up online for the Zoom focus groups and interviews.

     



Build responsiveness to family voice
  • Representatives from Ready Ready’s Guilford Parent Leader Network (GPLN) presented to the Systems-Building Committee on incorporating family voice into design and implementation. They made five recommendations to strengthen parent leadership in Ready Ready’s work, which are now under review by the board of directors.

  • We are holding our second Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI) 1 training. COFI strengthens the power and voice of low-income and working families at all levels of civic life. Phase 1 focuses on self, family, and team. Parent leaders from the Cottage Grove Community will participate.

  • This month, three parent leaders who have graduated from COFI 1 and one Ready Ready staff member will be trained in COFI Phase 2. The second phase includes community outreach and action, creating community-based agendas that start with parents’ common concerns.



Build public will for early childhood priorities.
  • Ready Ready staff presented on Creating Public-Private Partnerships with Local Foundations at the National Association for Counties (NACO) webinar on April 14, 2021. NACO has also shared a new interactive tool that helps navigate the roughly $1.5 trillion in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. Programs that may provide counties with additional funding are denoted as "county eligible." View the resource here, which will be updated as federal guidance is released.

  • Ready Ready is among 400+ organizations that signed onto a Washington Post letter and ad in support of paid leave directed to Speaker Pelosi, Leader Schumer, Leader McCarthy, and Leader McConnell to work with the Administration to pass #PaidLeaveForAll.

  • The Legislative Action Subcommittee continues its efforts to reach out to North Carolina General Assembly members to provide information about Ready Ready in support of HB 215 and SB 217, which are making their way through the legislature. The bills seek public funding for two projects involving our Integrated Data System (IDS) and Early Childhood Workforce (ECW) efforts.

Further reading

Celebrating Week of the Young Child
During the month of April, you may watch Starting at Zero: Reimagining Education in America free of charge. It's one way to extend the 50th Anniversary of Week of the Young Child, held April 10-16 in 2021. The Saul Zaentz Charitable Foundation and Firestarter Interactive are partnering with The Hunt Institute to make this free film possible.

Save the Date
The Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute has opened registration for The National Early Childhood Institute virtual event October 25-28, 2021. For more than 20 years, this popular conference has been the premier educational opportunity for people from all early childhood sectors to come together to learn, share, and problem-solve about inclusion for young children. This year’s keynote is Dr. Jeanette Betancourt from Sesame Workshop. Register here: http://inclusioninstitute.fpg.unc.edu/

A Novel Effort to See how Poverty Affects Young Brains
In this New York Times story, an emerging branch of neuroscience asks a question long on the minds of researchers. Recent stimulus payments make the study more relevant. Follow this link for more information. Please note, the story may be behind a paywall.

President Biden: Infrastructure and Education
President Biden has unveiled a $2 trillion plan he calls a “once in a generation investment” to grow the economy. The plan addresses transportation, schools, broadband, bridges, climate change, and the environment and promises to pay for these projects with taxes on corporations. 

Additionally, the administration is working on a second plan focused on education, child care, and other social programs. You can read President Biden’s remarks on both issues here.

COVID-19 impact on North Carolina families
The North Carolina Child Health Report Card is published biannually by the North Carolina Institute of Medicine and NC Child. It tracks key indicators of child health and well-being in four areas: healthy births, access to care, secure homes and neighborhoods, and health risk factors. 

The report shows that losing a home, skipping meals, or having a parent struggling with depression can result in serious long-term consequences for kids. Before COVID-19, nearly half of children in North Carolina lived in a family struggling with poverty. Now many more families are having a hard time meeting their child’s basic needs.

View the executive summary
Download the NC Child Health Report Card

Leandro: How this court case may impact early childhood education
In 1994, five counties sued North Carolina and the State Board of Education, saying students were not receiving a sufficient education. The N.C. Supreme Court ruled that every child has a state constitutional right to a sound, basic education. Governor Roy Cooper created a commission to address the issue in 2017, and a year later, appointed WestEd to recommend specific actions the state needs to take to comply with Leandro. On March 15, a remedial plan was delivered to the court.

Education NC has an overview of the Leandro case and the remedial action plan and the appendix to the report with a detailed look at funding and timeline for implementation. The next step is for Judge David Lee to call a hearing. Visit Education NC for the Leandro information.

Additionally, Brad Wilson, former CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield NC, who chaired the Governor’s Commission on Access to Sound, Basic Education, will be a guest speaker at the Legislative Action Subcommittee meeting on May 13, 2021. The meeting will be held via Zoom beginning at noon. Please email stephanies@getreadyguilford.org if you would like to attend.

CSSP white paper offers an anti-racist blueprint
The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) has released a white paper and webinar supporting the first 1,000 days of a child’s life. The focus is on implementing strategies that address systemic and institutional racism. 

Watch the webinar
Download the report PDF

Parent and Family Leadership
Register for the “Parent and Family Leadership: Transforming the System” webinar on Thursday, April 29, 2021, at 3-4:00 p.m. You will learn about different approaches to embedding parent and family leadership into PN-3 system change work to inform organizations that are active locally or nationally.  Different approaches and concrete strategies from Children’s National Hospital and Strive Together’s Co-development of Solutions fellowship will be shared. Click here to participate.

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