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December 2021 CEO Priorities Update

Dear Ready Ready Supporters,

Our mission to build a connected, innovative system of care for Guilford County’s youngest children and their families has grown in 2021 with your support.

As we end this year, we are moving into the next phase of our work, with a team focused on strategies for ages 3-5 even as we solidify our work to connect families and resources for children prenatally to age 3. 

We are launching a new cohort of community programs for our Continuous Quality Improvement work, and our Integrated Data System’s latest component went live in the fall. Using automated email, family advocates we call Navigators can share resources directly with caregivers, including links to referral agencies.

Our Guilford Parent Leader Network has grown, and we have celebrated graduations for more than two dozen parent leaders who have completed Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI) training Phase I and Phase II in addition to our Board/Committee Leadership Academy. 

Just last month, the North Carolina General Assembly and Governor Roy Cooper have awarded funding for our mission in this year’s state budget, thanks to the efforts of our Greensboro and High Point Chambers of Commerce and volunteers in our Legislative Action Subcommittee.

These are just a few highlights from 2021. None of these achievements would have been possible without your dedication and encouragement. Thank you for your belief that every child deserves a strong start in life and your determination to stand up for your values. 

“I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples,” Mother Teresa said. 

Together we’ll make big ripples in 2022.

Sincerely,


Charrise Hart
Chief Executive Officer

 


Build public will for early childhood priorities.
  • The North Carolina budget includes $1.2 million in funding for Ready Ready and its mission to build a connected, innovative system of care for Guilford County’s youngest children and their families. The Legislative Action Subcommittee worked with the High Point and Greensboro Chambers of Commerce to educate lawmakers about the need for early childhood development in Guilford County.
  • The Communications Subcommittee and Ready Ready staff are planing a series of virtual parenting workshops at Mt. Zion Baptist Church for 2022. The Subcommittee has also laid a strong foundation for its Speaker’s Bureau. It intends to engage local organizations and civic groups to bring awareness of Ready Ready’s work and mission to the community.
 
 
Develop navigation system to connect families with effective services
  • Children’s Home Society (CHS) has strengthened the onboarding process for OB sites that will implement Prenatal Navigation. CHS is reinforcing messaging about Navigation being a universal resource for parents, so providers understand it benefits all patients regardless of insurance type and availability.
  • CHS will hire two additional Navigator positions to bring its Navigation staff to 23, including three supervisors and a Community Navigation Coordinator. A time study is also underway to understand the ideal caseload or range of caseloads for Navigators across various OB locations. 
  • The Postnatal Navigation Screening Workgroup is finalizing tools to support Postnatal Navigation implementation in early 2022. Children’s Home Society’s Postnatal Navigator is testing messaging and processes with families onsite at Triad Adult and Pediatric Medicine (TAPM) Wendover.


Expand and integrate proven programs to meet community need
  • The Community Alignment Team has developed an onboarding process for adding programs to the Agency Finder. The partner verification process includes a commitment from the agency to submit regular program updates for the Agency Finder. The Community Alignment Team exceeded its goal of 50 signed verification forms in mid-November, six weeks ahead of its December 31 goal. 
  • HealthySteps Specialists report that being physically present in pediatric offices increases family engagement in services.
  • Nurse-Family Partnership continues its community outreach to increase referrals for its services for High Point families
  • The Program Integration Implementation Team continues phase two of its work to create the ideal experience that families should expect from the Navigation delivery system.


Build a culture of continuous quality improvement (CQI) 
  • In collaboration with UNC, Ready Ready is launching “Model for Improvement” with an introductory webinar in December. Program self-assessments follow in late December/early January.
  • A second cohort of programs will begin CQI training in early 2022.


Build technology to support data-informed decisions
  • Coastal Cloud reports implementation for the birth touchpoint is on track. Requirements have been approved, and the build work has begun.
  • IBM has created a data governance roadmap, timeline, and meeting agenda for the data governance council meetings, which begin in January 2022.

Conduct rigorous evaluation process and build sustainability for system-building work
  • MDRC and Ready Ready teams initiated a process to document implementation plans for each component of Ready Ready’s work. These efforts will prepare Ready Ready and its partners for the evaluation.

Equity statement

The creation of this statement was the work of our Equity Strategies Committee of the Board of Directors. They sought the input of many stakeholders, including our parent leaders, staff, equity consultants, and the Board.  We have posted this statement as approved by our Board of Directors on our website. Please read our statement below, and join us in this essential system-building work.

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.

 

Equity and Inclusion

Ready Ready’s Equity Action Plan focuses on nine key equity choice points. Equity choice points are areas where an equity issue has been identified, and Ready Ready has an opportunity to take action. The plan, which is in final development,  includes a sequence of tasks and actions to be addressed in 2022-24 and evaluation. 
 

Family Voice

The Guilford Parent Leader Network members have provided feedback on the equity choice points, which serve as cornerstones of the Equity Action Plan. Deepening and broadening equitable family engagement is key to moving our equity work forward. 

Thirteen parent leaders completed the Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI) Phase 1 training series. The group is forming a Parent Action Team to identify a project or projects to complete together.


Ages 3-5

Implementation Planning Teams have been identified for the three pilot strategies.  Team members will attend an orientation session in December before team meetings in January and February.


The Basics Guilford

The social media contest winner was selected on Monday, December 13. The contest began in the fall and asked local nonprofit organizations to share content and tag The Basics Guilford on social media channels. Each action, such as a mention, a photo, or a share, gave the organization an entry into the raffle. High Point Library took first place and $3,000, Parents as Teachers Guilford came in second with a prize of $1,500, and third place and $500 went to Guilford Partnership for Children.

Partnering with RLF Communications, we are driving traffic to the Basics Guilford website through geofencing at Tinsel Town, the Holiday Parade in downtown Greensboro, and the Winter Wonderlights at the Greensboro Science Center. Geofencing is location-based marketing where a geographic boundary is placed around a point of interest. When someone with a mobile device enters this area, the geofence can offer them ads with information about The Basics. About 700 people visited the website this way between December 3-13, 2021.
 

New staff member

Praneetha Deva joins Ready Ready as our new Salesforce Administrator. She started working with Ready Ready on December 1. Please welcome her to the team!

We're hiring!

Please share our hiring announcements and job descriptions with your networks. Links to all open positions are located on our careers page.

North Carolina's Child Care Stabilization grants made possible by funding from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act continue to roll out. The grants help early care and learning programs with recruitment and retention, enabling them to provide better wages and benefits to teachers, and promoting equity for all—children, parents, and teachers. 

Council for a Strong America and ReadyNation released its 2021 report Child Care Providers: The Workforce Behind the Workforce in North Carolina, emphasizing the need to bolster the early childhood workforce as an essential aspect of increasing child care supply and children’s access.

Child Care Services Association has released its 2020-2021 report, which highlights the impacts of salary supplement programs on the early childhood workforce.

Pundits have been debating the reasons behind what’s being called the Great Resignation, a trend showing workers quitting jobs at historically high rates. Child care is a big reason. Read more in the Washington Post

America’s infant mortality rate is nearly the highest among more developed countries. The rate for the United States does not even fall among the top 40 countries in the world with the lowest infant mortality rates. The Hill looks at why.

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