Down East Partnership for Children (DEPC)

Smart start supports programs that include the primary programs of depc: child care resource & referral including provider, family and subsidy services (poc & admin); nc pre-k quality; family resource center, community collaboratives; research & development; dolly parton imagination library and reach out & read. In addition, depc funds and provides technical assistance, monitoring, and support to 4 activities in 4 partnering agencies (wages, nash- rocky mount public schools transition, edgecombe county public schools transition, and raising a reader). All together, these 13 programs provide a variety of services, including parent education/support to 13,329 Children, referrals to high quality child care, general parenting resources, and child development information to 575 families, literacy activities/training for 11,073 Children and/or their families, and either directly pays or funds the administration of child care subsidies for 771 Children. The community outreach and community collaboratives' initiatives resulted in 12 e-blast communications sent to approximately 2,809 ...

Regional child care resource and referral services included consumer education and referral services, professional development and technical assistance for early childhood educators, and regional data collection. In addition to overseeing deliverables in these areas for a 5-county region (region 14), the program includes 2 specialists: infant/toddler, and healthy social behaviors. In fy19, 531 households with preschool age Children and 105 households with school age Children received consumer education (including child care and community referrals) in region 14. The quality improvement staff, including regional specialists, provided technical assistance to 121 licensed preschool classrooms and 15 licensed school age classrooms to maintain or improve their quality. In addition, 1427 professionals participated in 166 trainings offered to the region.

The north carolina pre-kindergarten program is a 4-year old preschool program for at-risk Children (based on income or other criteria) to attend high quality programs in public preschool classrooms, head start facilities or private child care facilities meeting the quality criteria. In fy19, 554 Children were able to participate in this program. Additional supports were provided, including classroom improvement, teacher training and/or technical assistance, transition to kindergarten support for Children and overall administration and monitoring of the program.