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Dear Friends of Ready Ready,
July may be the first full month of summer according to the calendar, but it also marks the halfway point of summer break. It’s a good time to reflect on our progress and identify opportunities. Here are some key points we consider in our work:
- Mission alignment: Ensure that our efforts and initiatives align with our core purpose, values, and principles, along with our commitment to equity.
- Impact assessment: Review the programs and services we are implementing and determine how they are positively influencing the lives of young children and their families.
- Stakeholder engagement: Consider how effectively we are engaging and collaborating with our stakeholders, including families, educators, community leaders, policymakers, and funders.
- Community outreach: Evaluate our efforts to raise awareness about the importance of early childhood development and engage the wider community in our cause.
- Long-term strategy: Take a holistic view of our organization’s long-term strategy. Encourage feedback from staff, stakeholders, and beneficiaries to gain insights into areas that require attention.
- Celebrate achievements: Acknowledge and celebrate the accomplishments and milestones we have achieved during the first half of the year. Recognize the hard work and dedication of our team and express gratitude to our supporters and partners.
 We appreciate your dedication to Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready.) Together, we will ensure we make a difference in the lives of Guilford County’s youngest children. We are ready for the second half of 2023!
Sincerely,
Charrise Hart
CEO
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Mark your calendars for an event that promises to inspire and transform! We are excited to invite you to the annual gathering of Ready Ready this fall.
October 25, 2023
7:30 - 9:00 a.m.
Koury Convention Center
This event brings together Guilford County’s influential leaders as we continue our collective journey to empower families and nurture our community’s youngest generation.
Be at the forefront of groundbreaking initiatives to achieve population-level change as we rally behind Guilford County’s cradle-to-career continuum. Ready Ready collaborates seamlessly with over 100 community organizations, providing vision, strategy, direct support, and coordination to ensure that every Guilford County family and their youngest children have the essential resources needed for success and learning.
We are honored to have Ron Ferguson, founder and president of The Basics, as our distinguished guest speaker. With an impressive 40-year career at Harvard Kennedy School, Ron has dedicated his expertise to human and economic development. His focus on early childhood parenting and caregiving serves as the cornerstone for future achievements. Ron and journalist Tatsha Robertson co-authored the influential book “The Formula: Unlocking the Secrets to Raising Highly Successful Children.” In this book, they share invaluable insights into the essential elements of “master parenting” that transcend racial, ethnic, and income-level backgrounds.
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“Campers have s’more fun,” they say, and a group of Guilford Parent Leader Network (GPLN) families spent a night under the stars at Oak Hollow Park Campground on June 24, 2023. It was the first Fathers Ready to Grow campout.
Fathers Ready to Grow is led by GPLN members Harrison Spencer and Eugene Penn. It is a group for fathers of children ages 0-8, who meet monthly to network and support each other. “We looked forward to the in-person contact as opposed to the virtual. The fathers in the group expressed their interest, plus being outdoors in nature is a love of mine,” Spencer said.
The group of about two dozen pitched their tents and set up camp with a scenic view of Oak Hollow Lake. Children and parents explored the lakeside and played games. After a week of rain, the weather held for the campers.
“This was the best trip ever! I enjoyed being able to go camping for the first time alongside other parents in the community. The fellowship, teamwork, food, and memories created will last a lifetime,” said Airreia Pierce, a GPLN Steering Committee member. “My husband was able to participate and connect with other fathers. [It was a] beautiful event that should continue to grow in the future with more families.”
Read the full story on our website.
If you’d like more information about Fathers Ready to Grow or the Guilford Parent Leader Network, please get in touch with Family Engagement Manager Yuri Alston.
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Please welcome our new Chief Strategy Officer, Jennifer Woodward, who joined Ready Ready on July 5. As Chief Strategy Officer, Jennifer will work alongside the executive management team to help lead Ready Ready’s public will building strategy and community engagement efforts. Read more about Jennifer on our website.
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To serve our mission and expanding work, Ready Ready is hiring! Open positions include:
- Chief Impact Officer
- Chief of Staff
- CQI Specialist
- Director of Equity and Engagement
- Project Manager: Ages 3-8
All positions are listed on our website. Please visit the careers page to learn more.
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Basics Guilford Focus: Maximize Love, Manage Stress
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Involve Your Kids in Housework From an Early Age
Find simple ways to involve your toddler in chores and other activities around the house. For example, they could help sort laundry and fold clothes. This makes them feel helpful and provides opportunities for learning. The benefits of involving young children in household work include giving them opportunities to build positive self-esteem, helping them learn about responsibility, and giving them a framework to positively deal with everyday frustrations. Here are a few ideas for how to do this:
- Establish a regular routine - like cleaning up after dinner each night or putting away dishes so kids aren’t surprised.
- Make the small tasks kids complete fun and cooperative - songs often help with this.
- Reward systems for jobs completed tend to work well with some children.
- Keep the chores age-appropriate and simple to limit frustration.
Tell others about the Basics Insights free texting service that provides weekly, creative caregiving tips using The Basics!
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Do you believe in the tenets of The Basics? Help us spread the movement.
- Help us connect to local companies willing to give The Basics information to employees with young children.
- If you work for a community organization that reaches parents or caregivers, provide Basics materials to them and get involved with our PlayDaze event this September.
- If you are part of a faith community, help us connect to families there.
If you can be a connector, please let us know.
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Partner Spotlight: Every Baby Guilford
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Congratulations to Every Baby Guilford, a 2023 NACo Achievement Award Winner of Health (Best in Category.) NACo is the National Association of Counties, which serves nearly 40,000 county elected officials and 3.6 million county employees. To celebrate, we’re sharing our Partner Spotlight featuring Every Baby Guilford.
“Our mission is to ignite and mobilize Guilford County through partnerships and unified strategies to eliminate racial disparities and prevent infant deaths,” said Jean Workman, executive director of Every Baby Guilford.
The infant mortality rate in Guilford County is one of the highest in North Carolina. Of the 6,045 babies born in Guilford County in 2019, 56 did not make it to their first birthday.
Every Baby Guilford is a 30-year public-private partnership with the Guilford County Department of Health and Human Services. As part of its 30th anniversary, the organization – formerly the Coalition on Infant Mortality – launched with a new name and a five-year strategic plan.
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.
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