Dear <<First Name>>,
As we settle into our back-to-school routines, our state’s early childhood workforce received some good news. Child Care Stabilization Grants, funded by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), have helped N.C. child care programs bounce back from the pandemic. The $655 million in grants helped offset business losses and expenses related to the pandemic and also offered compensation incentives to help find enough teachers in a tight job market. But the federal program was to end next year.
Now the N.C. DHHS Division of Child Development and Early Education will use about $150 million of its discretionary ARPA funding to continue one component of the grants – the compensation supports that boost teacher pay and benefits.
It’s a step in the right direction, and we have such a long way to go to support early childhood teachers and staff. Child care teachers remain underpaid for their essential work. The North Carolina statewide average is $12 per hour, and 71 counties, including Guilford, pay at or below that rate.
 At the same time, a Guilford County family with two children pays 31 percent of the county’s median household income for child care, according to County Health Rankings and Roadmaps data. That’s more than the statewide average of 29 percent. When so much of a family’s paycheck goes towards child care expenses, it’s harder to meet other needs such as housing, food, health care, or utilities. These difficult decisions can drive parents out of the workforce since they cannot afford child care. Many early childhood educators face this same dilemma.
It’s a problem we have talked about prior to the pandemic, and solutions are not easy or quick. That’s why Ready Ready is focused on community-wide population level change. We are building a cradle-to-career continuum to benefit families in our area, with the goal of sharing that change across North Carolina and beyond.
Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Charrise Hart
Chief Executive Officer
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Build public will for early childhood priorities
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- The Duke Endowment board of trustees and representatives from Blue Meridian Partners visited Guilford County at the end of August for a site visit. During their time, the trustees viewed simulations of our navigation system, attended panel discussions, and heard from stakeholders, community partners, government officials, and higher education partners about our collaborative efforts to build a system of care for Guilford County’s youngest children and their families. The theme of the event was the early childhood ecosystem.
- Ready Ready has submitted a request to be included in the Triad Chambers' Legislative Ask for the 2023 long session.
- Ready Ready and the Basics Guilford will sponsor Synergy’s Lead your City event and the Young Smart and Local conference’s cradle-to-career panel in October.
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Develop navigation system to connect families with effective services
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- Eight navigators from Community Navigation at Children’s Home Society (CHS) completed credential work to ensure consistent delivery of services at OB/GYN practices. Additional staff members will earn the credential in the coming weeks.
- A CHS workgroup has identified an initial set of Guilford County locations to consider for offering navigation services to families who are not reached through medical homes.
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Expand and integrate proven programs to meet community need
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- Children’s Home Society’s Community Navigation program reports an 81 percent consent rate to enroll in navigation, with 65 of those parents/caregivers participating in Guided Conversations, which is part of the navigation process.
- The Duke University Implementation Study has enrolled 57 clients with a goal of 150 by the end of 2021. The study will determine satisfaction with the navigation system.
- The Network team has secured 92 partner verifications for the Agency Finder/Community Portal referral system that will be used in the Integrated Data System. Partner verifications are an agreement between organizations and Ready Ready regarding data updates and participation in the Agency Finder.
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Build a culture of continuous quality improvement (CQI)
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- Ready Ready has awarded grants to 15 programs serving families in Guilford County. These programs will participate in our second Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) cohort. Cohort II kicks off its work learning methods for collecting, analyzing, and using data to improve service quality this month. The program will run through March 2023.
- Four organizations from Cohort I have been participating in a new series of modules to build on their earlier work. This month they will learn about Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) Cycles.
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Build technology to support data-informed decisions
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- The Integrated Data System team has compiled all program-based navigation system final documentation, including branded materials and job aids for review by the evidence-based program partners.
- The system build for HealthySteps’ re-architecture was completed at the end of August. Coastal Cloud is offering post-launch support.
- Final data migration is in progress for Family Connects, with a mid-September launch date for that module.
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Conduct rigorous evaluation process and build sustainability for system-building work
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- James Bell and Associates is focused on benchmarking six Ready Ready workstreams with complete logic models. This work is expected to be completed in September. Additional logic models for other components will be developed later this fall.
- The Duke Endowment continues to consider options for the impact and outcome substudies of Ready Ready’s evaluation work.
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The Basics Guilford
Ready Ready staff trained 275 Head Start and Early Head Start educators at Children and Families First in The Basics Guilford earlier this month. The Basics are five easy, free, and powerful ways adults can help maximize brain development in infants and toddlers.
Bookcases and books have been delivered to a majority of the barber shops and beauty salons participating in Trusted Spaces, Healthy Babies. A celebration of our partnership with the American Heart Association, Every Baby Guilford, and the March of Dimes was held at Hot Seat Salon Initiative in downtown Greensboro on September 19. Salon owner Nikki Henry welcomed the two dozen attendees, and United Barber Shop's Anthony Pettiford said he was pleased to be a part of this initiative, which has been needed in the Black community. Barbers and stylists have been trained in The Basics Guilford, taught about health care topics to engage with their clients, and provided with equipment such as blood pressure monitors to start important conversations about maternal health.
Family Voice
Ready Ready has successfully launched Fathers Ready to Grow, a father’s-only group that is part of the Guilford Parent Leader Network. Two members are being certified in the 24/7 Dad curriculum, an evidence-based program used by hundreds of organizations across the country to help fathers be involved, responsible, and committed. You can learn more about the 24/7 Dad program in this study of its use in Hawaii. For more information about Fathers Ready to Grow, please contact yuria@getreadyguilford.org.
Ages 3-5
Working with our pilot partners, Ready Ready is establishing an implementation plan for the Phase II Ages 3-5 work. This includes standardized onboarding for the five initial implementation partners as they work through the discovery phase of their efforts through the end of this month.
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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.
Learn more about Andrea on our website.
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EdNC: DHHS extends early childhood teacher compensation supports through end of 2023
“Early care and education programs in North Carolina will not face as steep a cliff when federal stabilization grant funds run out next year. The state Department of Health and Human Services has decided to provide $150 million for programs to support teacher compensation through December 2023.” Read the full story at EdNC.
NCDHHS launches new integrated early childhood data dashboards
New interactive online dashboards show how North Carolina’s children from birth to age 5 receive services like child care, food benefits and protective services, providing insight into program successes and elevating continued needs. The dashboards use data from the North Carolina Early Childhood Integrated Data System (NC ECIDS) and reflect the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ commitment to comprehensive child and family well-being.
EdNC: What can North Carolina learn from early childhood trends across the country?
“Most of the public funding for early childhood programs across the country comes from the federal government. In North Carolina, for example, about 80% of child care subsidy funds came from the federal government in 2019 (compared with 65% in 2008).” Learn more.
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