Partnership for Children of Cumberland County

Child care & education quality - professional development, quality enhancement and technical assistance encouraged early care and education professionals to continue their professional growth and awarded them professional development supplements. The Partnership advanced 5 direct teaching staff from 3 child care facilities to increase higher education by providing support for college-level course credit. 12 staff from 7 child care facilities participated in consultation and coaching with professional development advising and plans. 748 direct teaching staff attended non- credit based early childhood education training or workshops. 231 child care professionals representing 109 child care facilities or family providers were issued education-based salary supplements through the wage program, impacting 4,047 Children. 88% of wage participants remained at their child care facilities. The child care health consultant program trained 55 child care staff in health-related topics in collaboration with the Cumberland County health department. Technical assistance, consultation, and coaching were significantly impacted during the year due to covid restrictions on access to child care from outside adults until january 2022. Coaches provided services and support remotely to 19 child care centers and family child care homes that participated in technical assistance to increase or maintain star levels despite the inability to provide face-to-face services.

Family support - 9 parents/guardians participated in 30 home visits. The Partnership enriched the home literacy environment by providing books to 2,343 at-risk young Children through the medical practice-based reach out and read program. 11,867 Children received age-appropriate books monthly through the dolly parton imagination library program. In addition, the Partnership increased 886 parents' knowledge in how to identify quality child care by providing best practice child care consultation grounded in a parental choice model; 567 parents/guardians received child care referrals. The Partnership for Children's family resource center provided a hub for organizations providing programs to patrons to strengthen families through parenting support, information and referral, child care, child development activities, and other programs. It also provided a shared office infrastructure and high-quality training and educational space for partnering organizations.

Child care and education affordability - subsidies offset the cost of early learning programs for Children from low-income working families, increasing the likelihood that parents will be productive members of the workforce. In Partnership with the Cumberland County department of social services, the Partnership allocated 1.895 million to provide low-income families access to high quality child care by offsetting the cost of 3-5 star rated child care facilities for 612 families through the child care subsidy program. In addition, the Partnership provided subsidy support to assist with access to high quality, inclusive child care for 90 Children to help parents meet employment, education, or other needs. The nc pre-k (pre-kindergarten) program offers Children a high-quality preschool experience at no charge to parents, with smoother pre-k to kindergarten transitions. The program is a state-funded, community-based pre-kindergarten program designed to provide 4-year-old Children, who may not otherwise be served, with a valuable educational experience. This part-day program provides young Children with access to a specific curriculum and preschool experience to enhance their school readiness. The nc pre-k program standards are built on the premise that in order to be academically successful in school, Children need to be prepared in all five of the major domains of development outlined by the national educational goals panel. Each of these domains is critical to Children's well-being, in particular for their success in reading and math as they come to school. The nc pre-k program provided a high-quality preschool program for 929 Children, including 53 sites with 90 classrooms supported by approximately 200 teachers. In addition, the program enriched brain development of 488 preschoolers through kindermusik and music therapy, including 95 Children with identified special needs. The program collaborated with 31 teachers in 31 classrooms and provided 488 child home kits. All classroom teachers received digital at home material access for additional kindermusik resources, and 10 classrooms received a set of kindermusik instruments. Music therapy early intervention services were provided to 186 Children in 16 classrooms at 13 schools.

Program support, coordination, and evaluation - program management activities included conducting on-site fiscal and programmatic monitoring of all funded projects, as well as the ongoing coordination of projects and activities, to determine if short-term and long-term goals were being achieved. The Partnership for Children supported 15 in-house and external direct service partners through onsite monitoring visits, planning sessions, in-service, and consultations. In addition, the Partnership supported multiple counties with one or more of the following shared services: multi-partnership accounting and contracting (mac)services, region 5 child care resource and referral, information technology services, and grant evaluation management solutions (gems)services. The Partnership's information technology services provided reliable and affordable technology services for early childhood organizations to enhance or improve the services provided to families and Children in the community. Health and safety - through the assuring better child health and development program (abcd), the Partnership strengthened the developmental screening and referral practices of 23 medical practices representing 34 providers, impacting an estimated 26,369 young Children. In addition, the Partnership implemented the family connects program, a 3- County regional pilot for universal newborn home visiting. The program is primarily funded with a multi-year preschool development grant for eligible births. 2,244 babies met the residency requirements, of which 922 families received newborn home visits. A total of 1,321 referrals for services were made for participating families. The Partnership for Children also furthered its mission through community collaboration. In collaboration with the diaper bank of north carolina - truckload of hope - the Partnership served an average of 424 Children monthly, to an average of 223 families per month for the last 6 months of the year, with a total of approximately 1,033 Children in 635 families receiving diapers to meet this essential basic need. The Partnership also advanced the collaboration and alignment of over 26 organizations coordinating and implementing effective models and strategies to address specific community issues/needs through soar and community engagement efforts, including over 234 meetings, 23 briefings or presentations, and 24 events hosted or attended. Through the community engagement and development (ced) program, the Partnership leveraged 72 community volunteers contributing 214 hours valued at 15,244. The Partnership for Children continued providing services to the child care community of professionals, Children, and their families through regular programming until an international pandemic required programs to shift into a new norm. The Partnership's activities became flexible and innovative in providing services remotely and virtually, with many staff continuing to work remotely throughout the year due to the pandemic. The Partnership and its teams were able to see community needs through a different lens that taught them that they could think on their feet in a crisis, learn from it, and become more effective. The Partnership's activities began bouncing back from lower numbers in most programs in the previous year. However, the level of quality and excellence demonstrated by the Partnership's staff and external partners was evidenced by the number of individuals, Children, and families benefiting from the Partnership's work.