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April 2022 

Dear Friends of Ready Ready,

You’re receiving this newsletter during the Week of the Young Child, April 2-8, 2022. It’s an annual celebration established by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC). Starting in 1971, The Week of the Young Child recognizes that the early childhood years, birth through age 8, lay the foundation for a child’s success in school and life.

The needs of young children and their families are the focus of this week – the resources and information they need for healthy development and the early childhood programs and services that meet those needs.

Ready Ready has teamed up with Guilford County partners for this year’s theme, “Uplifting Families.” A whole week of events ends tomorrow with a drive-through celebration in High Point. You can learn more about the events here.

We know that strong communities start with strong families. Investing in young children’s health and care pays off for all of us. Babies grow up healthier, parents have more opportunities to work, communities are more connected, and our economy gets stronger. Without stable access to high-quality child care, parents are often forced to create patchwork systems to meet their needs. 

Ready Ready is working with EQuIPD and North Carolina A&T State University to help child care centers in Guilford County reduce educator turnover, build a better business plan, and create a path to high-quality professional development. We can start this pilot project with assistance from the N.C. General Assembly, which included funding in its most recent budget. We plan to create a model that can be duplicated in other North Carolina counties. 

We cannot return to a system where a majority of families live in child care deserts, a system that serves less than 5 percent of infants and toddlers from low to moderate-income families, and a system that pays poverty wages to early educators who foster the development of our future leaders. Child care is a critical infrastructure that allows parents to work and young children — particularly children in the crucial period from prenatal to age three — to grow and develop in a safe, caring, and stimulating learning environment.

Sincerely,


Charrise Hart
CEO

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Week of the Young Child

Three teachers will receive the 2022 N.C. Pre-K Ann Kirby Memorial Award on Friday, April 8. You can watch the announcement live on Facebook. The award is given in memory of Kirby, a beloved teacher who touched many lives in Guilford County. 

If you are looking for more ideas on how to celebrate The Week of the Young Child at home, Guilford County Partnership for Children has put together a Pinterest board with many great resources. 

We’d like to thank community partners for their service and dedication to Guilford County children and families and for their help in making the week a success: Guilford County Partnership for Children, Guilford Child Development, Every Baby Guilford, Greensboro Parks and Recreation, Family Service of the Piedmont, Guilford County Schools, and The Basics Guilford.

Family Voices

Guilford Parent Leader Network (GPLN) member Janina Holt organized a drive-through event with a focus on early childhood literacy on March 30. In the morning, about 30 families picked up free literacy materials at Guilford Child Development (GCD) in Greensboro, which included books, information about the Basics Guilford, and art supplies. That evening, Ready Ready’s Literacy Coordinator Megan LeFaivre offered training on The Basics and Active Reading techniques via Zoom.

Holt is pictured above on the far right and second from the left below. Thank you to all the GCD staff who supported the drive-through literacy event.

Join our parent leaders

Would you like to join the GPLN? We gather on the third Monday of the month from 7-8:30 p.m. The next meeting is Monday, April 18, 2022. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we hold these meetings via Zoom. When meetings resume in person, we provide child care to alleviate barriers to participation. 

For more information, please contact Yuri Alston, Family Engagement Coordinator, at (336) 579-2977 ext. 2008 or yuria@getreadyguilford.org.

Seeking partners to expand our ages 3-5 work

Ready Ready is seeking responses from local partners to lead the initial implementation of community-wide strategies designed to improve outcomes for children ages three to five in Guilford County.

A Design Team of diverse community stakeholders from across Guilford County worked for six months to develop ten strategies designed to improve services for these children and their families. Three strategies will be piloted in Guilford County this year. Learn more about the RFP process and how your organization can be involved on our website.

The Basics Guilford: Talk, Sing, and Point

Babies learn language from the moment they are born. To a newborn baby, speech is just sound. Then, day by day, they learn that the sounds have meaning. This process depends on how much people talk to them. Every time you talk, sing or point to what you are talking about, you provide clues to the meaning of what you are saying. You are providing important information to their brains about how language works.

Tips for infants:
  • Point to Objects: Point to objects and name them, especially things that interest your children, like body parts or familiar objects around the home. Older infants will also start to communicate by pointing.
  • Rhyme Time: Make up rhyming chants for daily routines starring your baby. A bath rhyme might go like this “Soapy Samantha in the tub/Rub-a-dub-dub.”
  • Sing: Sing songs to your baby. You might have certain songs for special times of the day, like bathtime or before bedtime.
Tips for toddlers:
  • Follow Their Fingers: Young toddlers communicate with gestures, especially pointing. Label and talk about the things they point to. Encourage your child to point to the objects you name. “Where is the pig. There it is.”
  • Remember the Day: In the evening, get cozy and talk to your child about what happened during the day. Remember what you did and the people you saw. Was it fun? Was it hard
  • Fill in the Blank: When you sing your child’s favorite songs, leave out words for them to fill in. Or you can say the wrong word and see if they catch you.
You can learn some great information about this Basic in 30 seconds by watching this video!
The Basics are five fun, science-based parenting and caregiving concepts that anyone can do. Learn more about them at www.guilfordbasics.org.

Would you like to be trained in The Basics Guilford?

As we share information about the Basics across Guilford County, we need your help. We’re offering virtual training on the Basics for teams of three or more at organizations that interact with young children. Each session lasts 30-45 minutes. To schedule a training session or learn more about Ready Ready and the Basics Guilford, please contact Literacy Coordinator Megan LeFaivre at meganl@getreadyguilford.org.

Staff profile: Praneetha Deva

“I feel the notion that we are all born equal also means every newborn child in the community should have all their basic needs covered for healthy development,” Praneetha Deva said. “We all have to support our communities to make this happen.”
 

Partner Spotlight: Kellin Foundation

The mission of the Kellin Foundation is to strengthen resilience for children, families, adults, and communities through trauma-informed behavioral health services focused on prevention, treatment, and healing.
 
“We prevent, treat, and heal,” said Dr. Kelly Graves, Kellin Foundation’s executive director, and co-founder. “We do this primarily in two ways – one is behavioral health services including mental health and substance abuse, and the second strategy is community and systems transformation.”
 
Focused on advocacy and outreach, clinical and peer support services, and building resilient communities, the organization serves about 10,000 people a year. The Kellin Foundation is one of only two nationally recognized community behavioral health centers in North Carolina with expertise and focus on trauma and resiliency as a partner with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Duke University is the other center.
 
“Using that trauma-informed lens is critical because our behavioral health, our physical health, and our health, in general, is strongly connected to stress and adversity,” Graves said. “It’s understanding and realizing the impact that trauma has, recognizing the signs and symptoms of stress has on our bodies and integrating what we know about these impacts into our practices, policies, and treatment.”

 
Learn more about the Kellin Foundation's Child Response Initiative and its work with Ready Ready in the full story on our website. 
Read the full Partner Spotlight on our website

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Our mission
Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) is a collaborative effort to build a connected, innovative system of care for Guilford County’s youngest children and their families.

Equity Statement
Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) promotes equity, justice, diversity, and inclusion, which are woven through our mission, values, and principles. We stand against racism in all of its forms. Ready Ready will work with our community to address the structural inequities that drive disparate child and family outcomes and work towards an environment where equity, justice, diversity, and inclusion are core values. When we are working to address these structural inequities, Ready Ready will be bold in our actions.


When Guilford County Black and Indigenous children and families of color (BIPOC) feel welcomed, heard, respected, safe, supported, and valued, all of our community and our society benefit.
Copyright © 2022 Ready for School, Ready for Life, All rights reserved.


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P.O. Box 13844
Greensboro, NC, 27415

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