2022-2023 A Year in Review: Strengthening North Carolina Families
The Smart Start Network works year-round to ensure children and families thrive, creating a brighter future for each child in every community. To celebrate the new year, Smart Start will showcase the impact of the Network with early care and education, family support, early literacy, health and nutrition, and with early childhood system support and building. To learn more about Smart Start, you can read Smart Start’s 2022-2023 Annual Report.
Parents are a child’s first teacher and Smart Start offers evidence-based and evidence-informed, family-focused programming to increase parent knowledge of development, enhance parent confidence, and increase positive parenting practices. Smart Start also connects families with other community resources to ensure they have the relational and concrete supports they need to thrive.
65 Smart Start Local Partnerships provide at least one family support program or service to support children families.
Through these partnerships, Smart Start
- Increases parental resilience,
- Creates needed social connections between families and others in their community,
- Increases knowledge of parenting and child development,
- Improves access to basic needs for families,
- Enhances social and emotional development for children.
35 Smart Start Local Partnerships increased parental knowledge of positive parenting practices through at-home support via home visiting and parent education programs.
29 Local Partnerships provided family support programming in community environments. These programs included parent-child playgroups and parent-to-parent support.
Kaleidoscope – 1,898 parents and guardians
- Parent to Parent Support – 173 parents and guardians
- Other Facilitated Parent-Child Playgroups – 160 parents and guardians
37 Local Partnerships increased parental knowledge through community family support.
Examples of Local Partnerships supporting families include:
- Robeson County Partnership for Children administering a county program which supports caregivers and kids up to kindergarten through weekly play and learn groups. Using the Kaleidoscope curriculum, facilitators teach parenting skills and provide developmental education. Participants improve their social skills and gain a better understanding of the role of play in school readiness. Last year, over 243 people attended!
- Smart Start of New Hanover County implementing Circle of Parents (COP), a program which provides a supportive environment with trained facilitators for parents and caregivers to receive support. Evidence of the impact was seen in New Hanover, where a young parent received needed social support and is in a better mental space to navigate life’s struggles. Because of this support, she is now back to working part-time and is hopeful about her future!
Critical Support for Families
NCPC and the Smart Start Network also provide critical family support resources for North Carolina by leading several Initiatives focused on family support and engagement. This includes:
- Smart Start’s Family Engagement and Leadership Initiative provides 100+ TA opportunities to partnership staff, hosting monthly Community of Practice meetings, and supporting Local Partnerships in building family engagement and leadership efforts. NCPC also built Starting Strong, a toolkit to support agencies as they develop cross-sector coalitions and center family voices.
- Smart Start’s 3-Year Family Connects-Smart Start Pilots which began serving families of newborns in 8 counties in 2021. From the launch to June 2023, 2,941 families were served through 4,716 visits with over 88% of families receiving one or more referrals to receive support!
