Each Child. Every Community.

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 five, building the foundation for all future learning, by:

• – Improving children’s early care and education programs so that they are safe, 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