September is Smart Start Month!
The State of North Carolina proclaims September 2024 as Smart Start Month. September was selected because it marks the month that the first Smart Start Local Partnerships opened their doors. In 1993, there were five Partnerships, and now, we are 75 organizations across the state—all working for children’s first five years.
Each county-based Local Partnership is impactful for generations of North Carolinians. And this month we recognize our collective impact and invite everyone across the state to celebrate their wins for young children. We reaffirm our commitment to do more for children and the adults that care for them. A full month of recognition allows us to bring awareness to the Smart Start Network and to the importance of comprehensive supports for children right from the start.
While there are month-long celebrations like the Month of the Young Child that focus on quality early care and healthy development, Smart Start Month will allow us the opportunity to bring more awareness to comprehensive supports for children, teachers, families, communities, pediatricians, and other professionals that support early development in the early years. We will acknowledge 30 years of impact and the call to expand Smart Start funding.
EDUCATE, INSPIRE, and CREATE ACTION within our community
| READ THE PROCLAMATION
» Click here to read the proclamation for Smart Start Month signed by Governor Roy Cooper.
| IN THE NEWS
- Perspective | September is Smart Start Month. Here’s Why the Initiative Is a National Pioneer (EdNC)
| Weekly Themes
Smart Start Network Overview
Week 1 | September 1-7
This week is an introduction to Smart Start with the goal of building awareness of the Network and each Local Partnership. This is an opportunity to focus on the Network as trusted and valued catalyst for action and alignment to ensure better outcomes for young children. We can highlight the systems change efforts and collective impact work happening across the network. This is an opportunity to demonstrate the important work of Smart Start beyond funding direct services as well as our collective impacts.
Early Care and Education
Week 2 | September 8-14
This week the Smart Start Network will focus on efforts to raise the quality and access of early learning for the youngest children. Including workforce development and compensation, technical assistance, integrated playgroups, and more!
Family Support and Engagement
Week 3 | September 15-21
This week the Smart Start Network will focus on partnerships with families. Including family support in community environments, home visiting, enhancing family voice and leadership, using literacy to enhance families, and critical referrals to resources.
Child, Family, and Community Health
Week 4 | September 22-28
This week the Smart Start Network will focus on efforts to ensure families of young children, starting from birth, have the resources they need for their maternal, perinatal, and postpartum health, and that children prenatal-to-five years old are healthy.
| raise awareness
Key Messaging to Share
- The Smart Start Network is dedicated to partnering with all professions and industries because everyone has a role to play in promoting positive childhood experiences—from hospital, to home, to community, and to school.
- Our collective mission is to ensure that every child in North Carolina has an opportunity to reach their full potential, because the first five years of life are critical for lifelong success.
- Smart Start Local Partnerships are lighthouses in their community because they provide family navigation services as well as guide systemic reform in their county(ies).
- For 30 years, the Smart Start Network has been a comprehensive support for children and the adults who care for them—by funding high-quality early education, family support, and health services right from the start.
- Smart Start’s structure across the state within each North Carolina community allows Smart Start Local Partnerships the flexibility to tailor programs and solutions to meet the unique needs of each community across the state, promoting a strong foundation for a brighter future.
- Each Local Partnership is powerful on its own but through the collective power of the Network, each is better equipped to support children, their families, and the professionals and community members that support our state’s youngest. Together, the Network is a critical part of North Carolina’s early childhood system and is essential to the state’s infrastructure.
- The Smart Start Network is made up of 75 county-based organizations (called Local Partnerships) serving all 100 counties and one state agency (called North Carolina Partnership for Children) serving the 75 agencies. Together we collaborate and advocate, we foster leadership and growth, and we acknowledge the collective impact of our Network.
- In order to advance a high quality, comprehensive, accountable system of care and education for each child in North Carolina beginning with a healthy birth, the North Carolina Partnership for Children leads the Network of Local Partnerships to drive coordinated implementation of North Carolina’s vision for Early Childhood.
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