Thousands of Children in Jeopardy of Losing Funding for Early Care

#SmartStart-The NC General Assembly is considering significant cuts or even the elimination of Smart Start, the state’s early childhood infrastructure of local partnerships. These partnerships have worked hard to create and maintain community networks that bridge early care and education, health services, and family support to best meet the needs of young children and their families. The General Assembly is now in session - it is critical that the community act to preserve this vital funding source for services for young children.

Impact
In many local communities Smart Start is the primary public funder of early childhood initiatives. If Smart Start funding is eliminated, it would mean the loss of $15 million annually to Mecklenburg County, and the loss of services affecting thousands of children.

Our community could lose:

• Child care subsidies for approximately 1,000 children that enable families to work or attend school while their children gain valuable experiences needed for school readiness.
• Home visits by trained professionals for over 350 of our community’s highest-risk families with young children. These visits are critical components of evidence-based or research-based models such as Nurse-Family Partnership, Healthy Families or Parents as Teachers.
• Valuable health – Related services including speech and occupational therapy for children, nurses who visit child care programs and hospital-based outreach to link children in need with care.
• Individualized training for early childhood professionals and critically-needed classroom materials that improve and sustain child care quality – a remarkable 81% of the County’s young children in child care were in 4 & 5 star facilities in FY09-10.
• More than 40 community college courses and other professional development opportunities that increase knowledge and skills for thousands of teachers and directors.
• Innovative initiatives that study and address critical issues such as Z-five which assesses infant mental health needs and creates a path for new services where they previously didn’t exist.

Action
We ask that you act to preserve this vital funding source in our community. Please consider any and all of the following actions:

1. Join our social media campaign: Get relevant alerts as they are happening by joining our Facebook or Twitter.
2. Attend an advocacy day: If you are willing to travel with a group to Raleigh to discuss the importance of Smart Start, subsidy and More @ 4 with elected officials, please sign up, here. Travel dates are Feb 22nd, Mar 15th, Apr 19th, and May 24th.
3. Write personal letters and emails to legislators: Ask them to support funding for Smart Start. Tell them why it is important to our county and include a personal story if you have one as a parent, child care provider, an agency that serves families, a community leader, etc. Discover who your local legislators are, here.
4. Letter of support from CA: Endorse a letter of support for Smart Start. Sample letters and post cards are here.
   

Talking Points
When speaking with elected officials please remember that:

The earliest years are critical:

• Experiences during this time literally shape the brain’s structure. Because today’s children are tomorrow’s leaders, everyone has a stake in making sure that all children have the experiences they need to thrive. Smart Start brings together everyone involved in a young child’s life to ensure children have all they need for healthy growth and development.

The economy depends on affordable, quality care for young children:

• Without affordable, quality care and education for their young children, many of your clients couldn’t work, attend school, or financially provide for their families.
• Child care programs contribute to the local economy. This industry generates more than $1 billion in Mecklenburg County alone and provides more than 47,000 jobs statewide.
• Smart Start lays the groundwork for NC’s economic future by preparing upcoming generations for school and workplace success and attracting businesses to the state.

Investing early pays off:

• The High Scope Perry Preschool 40-year study shows a return on the investment of public funds of $17 for every $1 spent. Further research shows that quality programs, particularly for low-income children, decrease the likelihood of special education enrollment, juvenile delinquency, adult incarceration, and welfare participation, while increasing high school graduation, higher education and skilled jobs