In less than a week, we enter a new season as autumn officially begins. Much has been happening at Ready for School, Ready for Life as we wrap up the third quarter of 2021. 

As the North Carolina General Assembly continues its work on the state budget, we are hopeful that the funding for our two projects will make it into the final budget to be signed by the governor.

We are excited to see the Navigation arm of our system-building work continue its growth and development with new providers and new staff members collaborating with families to help Guilford County’s youngest children. This advancement is key as we continue to refine, enhance, and pilot the strategies for the next phase of our work focused on ages 3-5.

On a personal note, thank you so much for your continued dedication and support for the Ready Ready team during my recent medical leave of absence. Thank you also for your good wishes for my health -- your encouragement means so much to me.

Sincerely,

• The Legislative Action Subcommittee continues its work to inform N.C. General Assembly members about Ready Ready's work. The N.C. House budget contains an allocation for $1.8 M in funding for the Integrated Data System (IDS) and Early Childhood Workforce (ECW) legislative requests. The allocation fully funds the 3-year ECW project, and provides for one year of IDS funding. Committee members continue outreach to targeted legislators to ensure the funds make it through the budget compromise sessions. The budget is currently stalled in both chambers.

• The Legislative Action Subcommittee is investigating American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding at the county and city level for alignment with Ready Ready’s IDS and ECW projects.

• On behalf of the Think Babies NC Alliance, The NC Early Education Coalition is seeking applicants to conduct a statewide and 100 county study to assess whether there is an adequate supply of infant-toddler care to meet child, family, and community needs, and the impact of COVID-19 on the supply of infant-toddler child care. Applications must be received by September 17, 2021, and the work must be completed on or by March 30, 2022. Interested applicants can find more information about the project on the NC Early Education's website here.

• The Children’s Home Society (CHS) Navigation staff has grown to 15 with five new Navigators. CHS plans to hire another Navigation supervisor and additional Navigators to support expansion to Guilford County OB sites.

• We have begun a four-part plan to address equity in access to prenatal care. UNC-Chapel Hill has completed interviews with local providers and professionals with expertise in this area to connect with current, past, or prospective families who have experienced prenatal care services for the next phase of this work.

• The Community Alignment team is surveying local programs to determine the need for Safe Sleep materials in Guilford County.

• Family Connects Guilford nurses have begun phase 1 of the return to at-home visits. Families receiving this limited in-person contact are at-risk for health-related issues and are receptive to a nurse being in their home.

• HealthySteps has expanded to 10 pediatric or family medicine sites and filled three open positions on its staff.

• Supported by its national office, Nurse-Family Partnership conducted community outreach to engage potential clients. Outreach workers visited community locations such as parks, laundromats, and bus stops.

• Ready Ready held an online information session on Child First, a program that provides in-home therapeutic and resource-focused mental health support to families with children under six. The webinar was recorded and can be viewed here. 

• The Program Integration Implementation Team (PIIT), which includes staff from Navigation, Nurse-Family Partnership, Family Connects, HealthySteps, and Community Alignment, has finished a set of job aids to support staff training on new processes.

• We have created a draft of our CQI Theory of Change with MDRC

• Coastal Cloud has updated the project timeline to rebuild the prenatal touchpoint for  Navigation. The new timeline reflects team capacity redirected to critical prenatal work and lessons learned over the summer as the build was underway. Several weeks have been added to the build and test schedule, with the final build delivered in late October.

• MDRC provided an overview of the evaluation design that describes the scope and data collection plans for each evaluation substudy -- implementation, outcomes monitoring, impact, and cost studies.

Ages 3-5
The strategy workbook, data report, and process report were delivered to the Ready Ready team at the end of August. UNCG consultants will continue to be engaged in the work on a limited basis through December 2021. The Ages 3-5 strategies have been shared with key community partners, the Guilford Parent Leader Network (GPLN), and Ready Ready staff. The strategies will be vetted through the end of September, and testing/piloting plans will be identified.

COFI Graduation
Eleven parent leaders have graduated from Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI) Phase 2 training. The COFI model makes positive changes in parents’ lives by using their strengths and commitment to their children and their neighborhoods. These Guilford Parent Leader Network (GPLN) members first engaged with the program through COFI Phase 1 last fall.

The COFI model focuses on self, family, community, and policy and systems in the various training levels. Phase 1 focuses on creating supportive parent teams, setting goals, and establishing plans. In Phase 2, the training focuses on creating community-based agendas that start with common concerns parents raise. Learn more about the training and the graduates on our website.

A new COFI Phase 1 begins this month with parents participating in Guilford Child Development’s Early Head Start and Head Start programs.

The Basics Guilford
To help families prepare their preschoolers for school and for life, Guilford Parent Academy (GPA) and Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) have teamed up for three virtual literacy workshops. Ready Ready’s Family Literacy Coordinator Megan LeFaivre will guide attendees through The Basics Guilford — five science-based, easy and powerful strategies to help ensure every child has a great start to life. Read more about this three-part series on our website and be sure to share this link with your networks.

Our Family Literacy Coordinator Megan LeFaivre also appeared in a September 2 live interview on Fox8/WGHP-TV to promote the series during the station’s morning newscast.

Leadership Academy
The Board/Committee Leadership Academy has finished its four-session series. Academy graduates will be provided with opportunities to serve within Ready Ready’s governance structure.

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.

Think Babies NC: Prenatal to age three legislative policy priorities
Think Babies NC has put together a side-by-side analysis of the North Carolina budget as proposed by Governor Roy Cooper, the N.C. Senate and N.C. House. Their findings focus on funding for babies and families. View the report.

A billion-dollar opportunity for early childhood 
NC Child says Congress has sent North Carolina a historic $1.3 Billion to invest in early childhood & child care programs. These funds would allow the state to rebuild its ailing child care sector and ensure that thousands more of North Carolina’s toddlers are ready to succeed when they arrive in kindergarten. NC Child is urging citizens to make sure state legislators maximize the impact of these funds for our youngest learners with an email on its website to help target their legislators. 

U.S. News: Late NC budget to take longer as GOP, Cooper seek consensus
The North Carolina General Assembly is two months late on finalizing a two-year budget, even as the state expects to take in billions of dollars more than it had earlier forecast. Read the full story.

Rapid-EC project: School Daze: Renewed uncertainty and difficult decisions
Rapid-EC has released its latest data on return to school and care. The organization found that 11 percent of caregivers who have a child due to enter kindergarten this fall decided to delay enrollment to next year. Read the findings.

Reuters: US Childcare in short supply as burned-out workers quit, new hires hard to find.
Childcare centers across the country are struggling to find enough qualified educators to be fully staffed for back-to-school season, an obstacle that has some schools reducing planned enrollment and cutting back hours. Owners of childcare centers say more workers are quitting and fewer people than usual are applying for open positions. Read the full story.

The Atlantic: Child-care workers might not come back
A child-care shortage existed before the coronavirus pandemic, but the events of 2020 exacerbated it. In some states, day-care employees were not designated essential workers during last year’s shutdowns, and their workplaces had to close permanently. One study found that in the United States, two-thirds of child-care centers shut down in April 2020. Read the article in The Atlantic.

Challenges to early childhood education in the wake of COVID-19
This podcast from the Brookings Institute features a rebroadcast of a recent online event from the Brown Center on Education Policy. The podcast is a panel discussion with Miriam Calderon, deputy assistant secretary for policy and early learning at the U.S. Department of Education; Jenna Conway, the deputy superintendent of early childhood education in the Virginia Department of Education, and Christina Weiland, associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Michigan. Access the podcast here.