The first quarter of the year is drawing to a close, and our work at Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) is ramping up. Maybe it’s the feeling of spring in the air that helps energize our work. Read on to learn more about how our Navigation services are expanding with great partnerships, our Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) teams are refining and updating strategy, and our public policy efforts have been met with enthusiasm and support from North Carolina legislators. Speaking of spring and growth, we have two new staff members to introduce this month as well.

Your constant encouragement, unwavering commitment, and persistent advocacy for our mission make a difference in the system we are building to support all Guilford County families and their youngest children. Thank you for all you are doing to see a need and make a difference.

Thank you for your support,

• We are using tablets in the Central Carolina OB office to capture consent and screening for new patients remotely. In January, 92 percent of patients signed up for Navigation services, and 83 percent of them were reached for the initial contact.

• Navigation expansion efforts continue as Cone Center for Women’s Healthcare will add Navigation services to its OB practices. Care Management for High-Risk Pregnancies continues to be an integral partner in discussions about coordination of services for Medicaid patients with high-risk pregnancies.

• Children’s Home Society will expand its Navigation services to all OB practices in Guilford County. A job posting for a Community Navigator position is live.

• We are developing a Navigation training manual with Duke University and the Children’s Home Society support. The manual will ensure consistency in training across the Navigation staff.

• A Program Integration Implementation Team will meet this month to finalize and implement recommendations by the Navigation Steering Committee around four program integration areas: program-based navigation, shared branding, cross-program handoffs, and efficient service delivery. Members include representatives from the Navigation team, Nurse Family Partnership, Family Connects, HealthySteps, Ready Ready, and The Duke Endowment. 

• The Guilford County Health Department has hired five new nurses in the past six months for the Family Connects program. 

• We are meeting with “Practice Champions'' this month to inform future outreach to practices. Practice Champions are providers who are already supporters of Navigation, HealthySteps, and Reach Out and Read. We’ll discuss how to engage additional practices in program expansion for medical homes. Staff from each of the programs will present along with Ready Ready staff. We will also discuss ways to incorporate the Basics Guilford.

• CQI Cohort: We are planning a March 25 event for CQI Cohort 1 members to provide feedback on the CQI Strategy.

• CQI Stakeholders: The CQI Advisory Group, CQI Funders Circle, and CQI Learning Community will hold their first meetings this month. 

• CQI Infrastructure, Strategy, Staffing: We are collaborating with UNC-Chapel Hill's National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) to refine our CQI strategy, develop the infrastructure to support the strategy, and build a staffing plan.

• The Integrated Data System team has released Version 2 of the HealthySteps and Prenatal Pilot Salesforce Applications.

• We continue to pilot integrating the agency finder application to an external website. 

• Ready Ready and The Duke Endowment convened national experts on measurement and evaluation for feedback on an impact study design for the initiative.

• Duke University started an implementation study of the Navigation service. Ready Ready and Children’s Home Society will use the results to improve the impact and experience for families.

• The Basics Guilford launched a weekly Basics Tip email to share more information about the Basics in small, simple steps. The email began in mid-February and is sent to nearly 250 parents, nonprofits, donors, educators, and other interested readers.

• We have launched remote Basics Training for community members and partners. We are working to engage more Guilford County residents in supporting the healthy development of our youngest children. Each virtual training for teams of three or more lasts 30-45 minutes. To make scheduling easy, you can access our training availability here, or contact Heather Adams, Director of Engagement and Literacy Initiatives, at (336) 579-2977 ext. 2004 or heathera@getreadyguilford.org.

• Our partners at the North Carolina Early Education Coalition are making it easy for you to show your support for early child care advocacy efforts. Tell North Carolina state legislators to invest federal relief funding in emergency and long-term opportunities to stabilize and sustain child care before it’s too late. Use this link to share with your networks and sign on to show your individual and organizational support for the Think Babies™ NC Alliance Policy Priorities https://ncearlyeducationcoalition.org/take-action/think-babies-nc-2021/.

• Early Childhood Workforce Index 2020: The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley has released the Early Childhood Workforce Index 2020, which provides a state-by-state look at policies and conditions affecting the early care and education workforce. Find North Carolina’s information here.

• Support is available for small child care businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program. You can find more information on the program here.

• The UNCG facilitation team is transitioning the Design Team from a discovery and information phase to a strategy identification phase this month.

• We are collecting data to inform strategy development. The UNCG team is gathering relevant early childhood data. Examples include birth rate statistics, NCPre-K/Head Start/Guilford County Schools data, Kindergarten Entry Assessment data, location/quality/capacity of early childhood education facilities countywide, and Census/American Community Survey data.    

• The Phase 2/Ages 3-5 Advisory Team has met to provide guidance and support to the strategy development process.

   

• Ready Ready’s Board of Directors has completed a 3-part Equity Webinar Series and debrief session to ground themselves in a common language and understanding of equity. This series helps lay the foundation for creating an Equity Action Plan which includes increasing family voice at every level of the organization. 

• The Guilford Parent Leaders Network (GPLN) has approved its charter.

• N.C. Representatives Ashton Clemmons, John Faircloth, Jon Hardister, and Cecil Brockman sponsored House Bill 215, filed on March 3, 2021. N.C. Senators Gladys Robinson, Michael Garrett, and Amy Galey filed Senate Bill 217 on March 9. Together, the bills support funding for Ready Ready’s Integrated Data System and our early childhood workforce project to provide resources, training, and wage supplements to specific child care centers in Guilford County. We appreciate the support of the Legislative Action Subcommittee and the leadership of the Greensboro and High Point Chambers of Commerce who worked with representatives to present these two legislative asks. 

• Ready for School, Ready for Life has joined Zero To Three’s #KidsAreEssential, a public education initiative to call on our policymakers at all levels of government to invest in children and their families as early as possible and address the economic and health disparities made worse by the COVID-19 crisis. We are sharing information on our Twitter and Facebook accounts. You’re welcome to like, comment, and share these posts with your social networks as well.

• In case you missed it, you can access February’s Think Babies™ NC Policy Priorities webinar recording and materials at this link.  Remember to take the Think Babies™ NC Pledge to keep in touch with all things Think Babies™ NC!

Other milestones and achievements

Welcome new staff members

• Angela Powell joined the Ready Ready team as Grants Manager in February. She brings more than 15 years of nonprofit management, development, fundraising, events, and grants management experience to her new role.
• Kristi Greene joined Ready Ready as Executive Coordinator in February. Before joining the team, Kristi was office manager for JDRF’s Piedmont Triad chapter for more than 9 years. She brings a background in technical writing, end-user computer and systems training, and project coordination to our team.

Further reading

The 2021 North Carolina Child Health Report Card Released
The North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) and NC Child have released the report with 15 key indicators of child health. In 2021, North Carolina earned failing grades in several critical areas, including mental health, substance abuse, birth outcomes, and housing & economic security. Read the report.

NC Child Legislative Update
On February 26, a panel discussion including Rep. Ricky Hurtado (D-Alamance), Rep. Donna McDowell White (R-Johnston), and Rep. David Willis (R-Union) along with NC Child representatives was held. You can watch the video here.

Lifting children out of poverty
NPR’s story on the COVID-19 relief bill is worth a read/listen. President Biden and Democratic lawmakers want to fight child poverty by giving U.S. families a few hundred dollars every month for every child in their household — no strings attached. A kind of child allowance. Learn more at NPR’s website.

CDC eviction moratorium: Update
The Department of Justice (DOJ) is appealing a judge's ruling that an order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) temporarily halting evictions during the coronavirus pandemic is unconstitutional, according to a notice filed February 27, 2021. Read more at The Hill.