Each Child. Every Community.

Through funding support from the Division of Public Health and Kate B. Reynolds, Smart Start is launching a Resilient Communities Initiative. The purpose of the Resilient Communities Initiative is to build healthy and resilient communities for young children and families by cataloging relevant initiatives and local collaboratives across the state and by proposing a framework for strengthening and aligning resilience-focused county networks.

Informed by the Pair of ACEs model, the Building Community Resilience framework, and other emerging research, the initiative will use a data-informed, family-centered, racial equity-focused, and asset-based approach.

While each coalition will determine their own strategy and processes, each local collaborative is encouraged to work together towards statewide resiliency goals. The theory of change framework will guide this effort by offering unifying language around common goals.

The initiative will also work to understand, define, and identify conditions for success. Local county networks will align across systems and sectors to create environments that drive county-wide, population-level outcomes. By 2023, local ACEs collaboratives will be supported in reaching their county goals for health and resilience.

To inform continued development and early stage adoption of the framework, a survey was sent out to gather feedback from members, leaders, and stakeholders of local community resilience coalitions or initiatives. Along with input from both state and local advisory board meetings, this survey helped in developing shared understanding about a statewide framework for building healthy and resilient communities across North Carolina.  Results reveal the themes and insights around how local coalitions are working to reduce trauma, ACEs, and resilience. Read a summary of the results here.

Soon, an upcoming landscape analysis of community-level cross-sector initiatives promoting resilience in NC will be released. The report will offer a unifying framework for initiatives focusing on childhood adversity, promoting resilience, and addressing protective factors.  Stay tune for this new look at community resilience as the Smart Start network works to build healthy and resilient communities for young children and families.

The development and the continuing work of the Resilient Communities Initiative is in collaboration with statewide and local advisory boards that represent organizations across the state focused on early childhood, health and resilience.

You can learn even more about the Resilient Communities Initiative by viewing this presentation by Safiyah Jackson, Chief Strategy Officer of The North Carolina Partnership for Child.