Smart Start of Forsyth Supports Family Child Care
Family child care is an essential service for many families throughout North Carolina, with 1,300 family child care homes that served 8,700 children in 2020. During the pandemic, family child care homes provided options for parents and essential workers when child care centers were closed. Family child care homes also offer a smaller child care community—an option many families found safer.
Recognizing the important role of family child care in communities and especially during the pandemic, the Smart Start network helped providers access technology and business support through Wonderschool Wonderschool is a business automation platform for family child care homes that strengthens communication with parents, supports outreach to new families, and supports health and safety needs.
Smart Start’s local partnerships are continuing to support family child care providers in other ways as well. Smart Start of Forsyth County is focusing on increasing the number of high quality, family child care centers through a partnership with Child Care Resource Center.
This partnership will provide up to five Family Child Care Expansion Grants to support women in opening family child care Centers in Forsyth County. Recipients must be a person of color, meet zip-code eligibility requirements within the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County service area, and agree to become a licensed family child care home within 9 months of acceptance into the project. Upon being awarded a grant to open a family child care home, awardees are better prepared to offer high quality child care and to increase Pre-K opportunities for children at a disadvantage due to lack of resources.
The grant opportunity is especially important because the pandemic heavily impacted the child care sector and the industry is still stabilizing. Additionally, family child care centers play a large role in providing consistent care for children, especially infants and toddlers. Family child care homes can often offer families more affordable care—especially families that work non-traditional hours or live in rural communities where child care centers are scarce.
By increasing family child care homes in Forsyth County, more families will have access to flexible and affordable child care. Additionally, the Family Child Care Expansion Grant will help the new providers begin the process of becoming licensed family child care homes, ensuring providers and families can access all the resources available through the State. The grants will include additional supports such as technology for the family child care homes and access to Wonderschool to assist with programming.
To learn more about the Family Child Care Expansion Grants, visit Smart Start of Forsyth County. You can also contact Marvin Fulwood III of Smart Start of Forsyth County or Katura Jackson of Child Care Resource Center.
