The Intersection Webinar Recap: Building Better Early Childhood Systems

The most rapid period of development in human life happens from birth to age eight. The brain development that takes place during this time lays the foundation for everything that comes after. 

With this in mind, how can state agencies and private foundations and organizations work together to ensure children and families have the support they need during these critical years? 

This question will be a major point of conversation during The Hunt Institute’s two-day Early Childhood Leadership Summit, which is held in partnership with the BUILD Initiative, and will be attended by cross-sector state teams from governors’ offices, state legislatures, early childhood state system leaders and the advocacy and philanthropic communities. 

Before these education leaders convene, Mandy Ableidinger, Policy and Practice Leader at the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation, and Rebecca Planchard, Senior Early Childhood Policy Advisor at the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), provided an excellent example during our June 19 Intersection Webinar of how their organizations collaborated to build better early childhood education systems in North Carolina. 

To demonstrate the value of cross-sector collaboration, Mandy and Rebecca discussed two initiatives: the Pathways to Grade-Level Reading from the NC Early Childhood Foundation, and the North Carolina Early Childhood Action Plan from NCDHHS.

Learn more about their work from our key takeaways and full webinar recording below.

Key Takeaways | Building Better Early Childhood Systems through Public/Private Collaboration

• Collaboration is the key to building better early childhood systems. The Pathways to Grade Level Reading initiative is driven by the foundational belief that together North Carolina can realize great outcomes for young children and their families more than any of one agency or organizations can produce alone. The initiative activated hundreds of partners to identify whole-child strategies to ensure children are on a pathway to reading on grade-level by third grade.

• By establishing deep partnerships, Pathways to Grade Level reading was in a prime position to serve as a foundation of other state-level early childhood initiatives in North Carolina.

• In August 2018, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper issued an executive order that directed NCDHHS to develop an Early Childhood Action Plan.
  
• The collaborative approach of the Pathways to Grade Level Reading initiative helped lay the groundwork for development of the NC Early Childhood Action Plan, which “outlines a cohesive vision, sets benchmarks for impact by the year 2025, and establishes shared stakeholder accountability to achieve statewide goals for young children from birth through age 8.”

• The plan centers around making measurable changes in early childhood outcomes. It includes 10 data-informed goals and an interactive data dashboard that’s updated regularly and open to the public. Learn more here.

Watch the webinar below:

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See you at The Intersection!

The Hunt Team