2023 - 2024 Smart Start Funding
What is Smart Start
Smart Start is North Carolina’s nationally-recognized initiative to ensure that every child reaches his or her potential and is prepared to succeed in a global community. Smart Start helps working parents pay for child care, improves the quality of child care, and provides health and family support services in every North Carolina county.
Smart Start measurably increases the health and well-being of young children birth to 5, building the foundation for future learning, by:
- Improving children’s early care and education programs so that they are safe and healthy, and provide opportunities for children to learn skills they need for success in school.
- Providing parents with tools that support them in raising healthy, happy, successful children.
- Ensuring that children have access to preventive health care
Why Smart Start Works
Smart Start was created in 1993 as a solution to a problem: Children were coming to school unprepared to learn.
Policy makers established Smart Start as a public/private partnership where independent and private organizations work in 100 North Carolina counties through The North Carolina Partnership for Children, Inc., and 75 Local Partnerships. Smart Start delivers outcomes by giving communities local control to determine the best approach to achieving them.
Summary of 2023 - 2024 GCPC Smart Start Community Partners
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Child Care
Bringing Out the Best – UNCG Center for Youth, Families, & Community Partnerships
Services for childcare providers and families designed to support healthy social/emotional development in young children.CDA Apprenticeship Program – Children & Families First
The Child Development Associate Apprenticeship offers participants on-the-job learning and coursework to support child care providers attain an Infant-Toddlers (0-3) certification. The Apprenticeship Program will offer (1) one-to-one mentoring and (2) classroom-based technical instruction. All apprenticeships culminate in a CDA exam and nationally recognized credential from the Council on Professional Recognition.Child Care Health Consultation – Guilford County Department of Health & Human Services, Division of Public Health
Guidance provided to childcare providers by trained Child Care Health Consultants on how to create and maintain quality health and safety standards in childcare settings.Child Care Subsidy – Guilford County Department of Social Services
Financial assistance to cover childcare expenses for parents and responsible adults to maintain employment, to participate in job training or educational programs that will lead to employment, to provide care to children in need of protection, to enhance the development of children, to facilitate the reunification of families, to aid families in crisis and prevent entering into foster care.Education, Quality Improvement, & Professional Development – UNCG
Services provided to childcare providers that increase program quality and staff education through professional development, guidance on program enhancement, peer coaching, community learning opportunities, and workforce retention strategies. -
Family Support
Family Literacy/Language Development – Reading Connections
This is a family literacy activity for families with young children with some risk for low literacy skills.Healthy Start – Family Services of the Piedmont
Routinely scheduled parent education visits for families with children at risk for abuse, neglect, or negative outcomes.Parents as Teachers – YWCA High Point
Provides positive parenting practices through in-home visits, support groups, and access to a referral network with a focus on serving Latinx families in the 27260 zip code in the greater High Point community in Guilford County. -
Health
Guilford Family Connects – Guilford County Department of Health & Human Services, Division of Public Health
Nurse home visits offered to families of newborns to provide support, education, and early identification and referral of health and safety concerns.NICU Family Support – Family Support Network
Enhanced support and education to families with infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit.Adopt-A-Mom Program/Prenatal Care – Guilford County Department of Health & Human Services, Division of Public Health
Contracted physicians are paid a reduced rate of $400 per patient to provide prenatal care to women who are Medicaid ineligible and lack private insurance. -
Program Support
Community Awareness and Engagement – Guilford County Partnership for Children
The engagement of community partners and stakeholders across Guilford County for the purpose of improving ways in which programs, professionals, families, and community members work together to improve coordination and access of services to children and families. -
Additional Programs
NC Pre-K
The NC Pre-K program is a free pre-kindergarten program for children whose families meet eligibility requirements. The NC Pre-K program is offered at participating Guilford County Schools, Head Start programs, and licensed four- and five-star private providers. NC Pre-K services are offered at no charge to eligible children. For more information, visit: https://www.guilfordchildren.org/nc-pre-k.Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library is not a place. It is a process to build children's home libraries. Each month, a high quality, age appropriate book is mailed to the home of all registered children at no cost to the family. This program is administered locally in Guilford County by way of the Parents as Teachers of Guilford County program.
