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Dear Friends of Ready Ready,
In Guilford County, a family with two children pays 31 percent of the median income for child care, according to CountyHealthRankings.org. That’s above the overall rate in our state. The federal government recommends families spend about 7 percent of their income on child care. This disparity causes families to consider carefully whether they can afford to work.
U.S. Census data shows that nearly 177,000 North Carolina families were not working over the summer because they lacked child care.
Affordable, high-quality, accessible child care can create more opportunities for parents and guardians to work or pursue further education. When families face spending about a third of their monthly income on child care, difficult choices are made about how to afford safe housing, food, or transportation.
The Child Care Subsidy Assistance Program is designed to put child care costs within reach for families. To gain eligibility, families must be working or enrolled in school. While this is a key program, it reaches only a fraction of the children who could be best helped. According to N.C. Child, just 17 percent of children in our state, are being served, and thousands are on waiting lists in each county.
N.C. Child highlights North Carolina as a national leader in high-quality early childhood programs, with Head Start, Early Head Start, Smart Start, and NC Pre-K available to families. But not every family can access these programs at current funding levels.
Please help us create population-level change by contacting your federal legislators and telling them that working parents deserve the opportunity to find high-quality child care to support their families.
Sincerely,
Charrise Hart
CEO
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Southwest Middle School Counselor Christy Martin spoke at the September 19, 2022, Guilford Parent Leader Network meeting about bullying – how to recognize it and how parents can help stop or address it. She shared Guilford County Schools’ bullying prevention information. In the school system, bullying is defined as conduct intended to intimidate, discredit, injure, or disturb a student or group of students so that the behavior causes mental or physical harm and is severe, persistent, and pervasive.
Martin encouraged the parent leaders of the GPLN to have boundaries, rules, and expectations for their children and social media. She suggested parents check their children’s mobile phones, talk about communication, and establish trust so that children can discuss their interactions with peers and friends. She also shared resources on the school’s website where parents or students can report bullying anonymously.
October is also national bullying prevention month. If you need additional resources, please visit youth.gov.
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National newsletter features Ready Ready
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Ready Ready and its work with parent leaders has been featured in an Early Childhood LINC (EC-LINC) newsletter from the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP). The newsletter quotes Parent Liaison Sanaa Sharrieff, “We build the bridges, and we walk parents across them into leadership and equity,” Sharrieff says of her work mentoring and supporting other parent leaders. She says Ready Ready is intentional about ensuring parents are part of all advisory and decision-making bodies.” Sharrieff is also a co-host of CSSP’s The New Neighborhood Podcast.
EC-LINC is a network of partners with a shared goal – to support families and improve results for young children in communities across the country.
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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, October 17, 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 Manager, at (336) 579-2977 ext. 2008 or yuria@getreadyguilford.org.
The GPLN has also launched Fathers Ready to Grow, with 16 dads signed up to network and offer support to each other. If you’d like more information on joining, please contact yuria@getreadyguilford.org.
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Help and information for new parents
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The Trusted Spaces, Healthy Babies program held a community celebration on September 19 focused on new and expecting parents in Guilford County. Ready Ready and The Basics Guilford helped train 13 barbers and stylists to share important health information with their clients. At the celebration at the Hot Seat Studio, a Guilford County mother shared the story of how she learned about her heart problems during pregnancy with her third child and celebrated the fourth anniversary of her heart transplant. Local news stations covered the collaboration between the American Heart Association, Every Baby Guilford, March of Dimes, and Ready Ready’s Basics Guilford. Learn more in the Greensboro News & Record, Yes! Weekly, or WFMY-TV.
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Welcome our new staff member
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Please welcome Andrea Miller to the Ready Ready team. Andrea is a Communications Coordinator whose work will support awareness around The Basics Guilford. You can learn more about Andrea on our website.
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Staff Profile: Connie Colter
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Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) Parent Liaison Connie Colter came to our organization through the Guilford Parent Leader Network (GPLN) and its Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI) training.
“I empower families to make a difference within Guilford County and also offer them support,” Colter said. “I build one-on-one relationships with GPLN families and encourage other families in Guilford County to join our group. It’s so important to have a support system as a parent.”
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Ready Ready is searching for an Executive Assistant to join our growing team. The Executive Assistant serves as the primary coordinator and liaison for external relations for the Vice President of Strategic Impact and the Vice President of Public Will-Building. Please share this job listing with your networks!
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The Basics Guilford: Read and Discuss Stories
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The more we read with young children, the more prepared they become to enjoy reading and to do well in school. It is never too early to begin reading! Stories expose children to words and ideas that they would not otherwise experience. Books teach children to use their imaginations. What they learn about people, places, and things can be important building blocks to later life success. For parents and children, time together with books forms fond and lasting memories.
Tips for infants:
- Follow their lead: Let your child guide the reading experience. When they start to lose interest, try another book, or stop.
- Name that: Name and talk about the parts of the pictures your child points at or is interested in.
- Snuggle up: Hold your child in your lap as you read so they can see the pictures and feel cozy.
Tips for toddlers:
- Look for letters: Look for letters when you’re with your child. Try to find the first letter of their first name. See how many places you can find it in books, packaging, or signs.
- Make connections: Help your child make personal connections to the stories you read. For example, “Do you remember when we saw the fire truck? How did it sound?”
- Don’t be too serious: Make it fun! Your toddler may want to turn the page before you’ve finished it. If they can’t sit still for the whole book, that’s okay.
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You can learn some great information about this Basic in 30 seconds by watching this video!
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The Basics are five fun, science-based parenting and caregiving concepts that anyone can do. Learn more about them at www.guilfordbasics.org.
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Would you like to be trained in The Basics Guilford?
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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.
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Partner Spotlight: Out of the Garden Project
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Out of the Garden Project began as a family project to help solve food insecurity for six to ten families at Morehead Elementary School fourteen years ago. Now each month, more than 800 volunteers collect food, sort it in the warehouse, create packages for families, and deliver packages to schools and other locations.
Additionally, more than 3,000 families in the Piedmont-Triad are served each month through the organization’s Fresh Mobile Markets – free mobile food pantries that distribute about 65 pounds of fresh produce, bread, meat, and shelf-stable items to families in more than 25 locations in Guilford and neighboring counties. The markets are for families with children 0-18 years of age who must qualify to receive the food.
“It’s literally like a grocery store on wheels,” said Executive Director and President Don Milholin. “We want to help the whole person, the whole family. It’s a chance for people to have dignity in having food they can take home and gather around their table.”
In addition to the Fresh Mobile Markets and a 17,500-foot warehouse at The Church on 68, Out of the Garden has created a shared-use kitchen so food entrepreneurs can make low-risk packaged food to sell and an urban teaching farm. Originally located in downtown Greensboro, the farm has moved to McCleansville, where more crop acreage is available. A USDA grant for innovation will allow the organization to increase its harvest, which will be sold to create more funding for the organization and its projects.
Out of the Garden partners with Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) in several ways, but the most recent is participation in our Continuous Quality Improvement process.
Learn more about our collaboration on our website.
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Do you know someone who should be reading our newsletter? Please forward this email and encourage them to subscribe!
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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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