North Carolina Partnership For Children Inc

The North Carolina Partnership For Children Inc, a recognized early childhood initiative, strives to establish a top-notch, comprehensive, and accountable system of care and education for every North Carolina child, starting from a healthy birth. They primarily achieve this mission by overseeing Smart Start, North Carolina's nationally-acknowledged early childhood program. The organization's ultimate goal is to enhance children's early care and education programs, ensuring they are safe, healthy, and offer opportunities for children to learn essential skills for future success in school.

Additionally, the Partnership ensures that children undergo developmental screenings and equips parents with the necessary tools to raise happy, healthy, and successful children. The organization emphasizes that a strong foundation for children requires high-quality early care and education programs and supportive families and environments. Such an investment in early education yields significant benefits, including higher graduation rates, reduced crime, increased earnings, less reliance on social services, and better jobs.

Smart Start is a network of 75 nonprofit local partnerships serving all 100 North Carolina counties, led by the North Carolina Partnership for Children. The Partnership maintains fiscal and programmatic accountability, supports the statewide network, and collaborates with communities to create better outcomes for children and families. Additionally, they ensure that all local partnerships meet legislative requirements and operate to the highest standards of effectiveness, accountability, efficiency, and integrity.

The Partnership's fiscal accountability system includes monitoring local partnerships to ensure compliance with state and federal laws, legislative mandates, and state policies, and local partnership financial audits. Studies from 2018 demonstrate that the positive impacts of North Carolina Pre-K and Smart Start persist through grades 6, 7, and 8, with no fadeout. Instead, the impact grows. By eighth grade, children in counties with average funding have seen a reduction in placements into special education by over one-third due to North Carolina Pre-K. The organization's accomplishments include improving quality and achieving higher stars on North Carolina's rated license through onsite technical assistance, training, and support for child care professionals. The percentage of children in 4- and 5-star programs has increased significantly, while the percentage of children in low-quality, 1- and 2-star programs has decreased. Furthermore, they collaborate with state literacy organizations, local partnerships, private child care programs, and pediatricians to promote early literacy across the state. Approximately 65% of returning Raising A Reader and Reach Out and Read (ROR) participants reported reading to their children daily. The Partnership also helps private child care programs improve the quality of their classrooms and partner with NC Pre-K providers to help eligible four-year-olds access the program. In fiscal year 2021-22, Smart Start local partnerships administered NC Pre-K in 55 counties.