In October, Durham's Partnership for Children was awarded a two-year Smart Start project grant from the North Carolina Partnership for Children (NCPC) to participate in a statewide pilot project to enhance parent education.

    The grant of $21,374 for the first year is funded by the Duke Energy Foundation. Durham’s Partnership for Children’s grant project is one of 26 Smart Start pilot grants across the state representing 45 North Carolina counties.

    “Duke Energy has been a strong partner with Smart Start for 14 years. The Foundation has remained steadfast in their support of helping young children throughout North Carolina enter kindergarten healthy and ready for success. We are very grateful and pleased they will be the largest private supporter of Smart Start’s parent education and early literacy programs.” stated NCPC President Stephanie Fanjul.   

  NCPC is funding the pilot project grant program to focus intense community action around four critical issues facing North Carolina children—childhood obesity, access to developmental screenings, family literacy, and parent education. Throughout the two-year program, Smart Start will closely track the impact of these grant dollars in communities across the state.

    “This opportunity will enable the Partnership to target resources for critical parent support services. There are not local programs like this that give parents measured tools and strategies to deal with children with significant emotional, social and behavioral issues. We are grateful to Duke Energy Foundation for their support to help close the preparation gap for Durham County’s young children by making sure more of our children are developmentally ready for school,” said Marsha Basloe, executive director of Durham’s Partnership for Children.

     The Incredible Years is a nationally recognized 14-week support and training program for guardians of children ages two to five who have challenging behaviors. Through training, guardians will learn strategies on how to manage children with a range of behavioral, emotional and social challenges, including mental concerns—issues that Durham Public Schools administrators’ cite as barriers to school.

The Partnership supports Child Care Services Association in hosting ribbon cutting ceremony for Jim and Carolyn Hunt Child Care Resource Center

More than 250 people from the Durham Community attended the formal ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Jim and Carolyn Hunt Child Care Resource Center, home to CCSA's Durham division, Durham's Partnership for Children and Durham's Alliance for Child Care Access, a consortium of the Partnership, Durham Social Services, CCSA and Operation Breakthrough Head Start.

The new building which began occupancy last March will also house one of the largest meal preparation kitchens in the region to serve nearly 100 child care facilities and opened a demonstration Infant/Toddler Classroom to share best practices on early childhood care and education with Early Childhood Programs, such as the department at North Carolina Central University.

    Jim Goodmon, owner of Capitol Broadcasting Company, also addressed the crowd about the commitment business needs to make to ensure the community invests in education at birth. Jim Hunt accepted the honor of the building's namesake with inspirational words about the importance of work on behalf of young children and their families.

 Durham's Partnership for Children announces  Board of Directors changes

     Durham's Partnership for Children wishes to give a warm thanks to Harold G. Sellars, Senior Vice President of Mechanics and Farmers Bank, for his longstanding support as a Board Member and his leadership and dedication as past Board Chair.

    Mr. Sellars passed the gavel to incoming Board Chair Michael Palmer during the Partnership annual meeting in August.

    Michael Palmer is Vice President of Community Affairs for Duke University. Michael oversees the office that manages the Neighborhood Partnership. A former Deputy Durham County Manager, he fosters productive relations between Duke and community groups and identifies outside funding for Duke Partnership activities. Michael is Duke's main liaison to Durham city and county government.

    Michael has been the chair of the Community Awareness Committee, Treasurer and Chair of the Finance Committee for the Partnership. He has most recently been Vice Chair of the Board. 

    In addition to Mr. Palmer, the Board was presented with a slate of officers and new members from Membership Chair, Durham County Commissioner, Ellen Reckhow:

New Officers
• Vice Chair: Angie Welsh is Senior Vice President of Resource Development for the Triangle United Way. Angie oversees all aspects of the resource development department that includes data analysis, strategic planning, program funding, program monitoring, and agency relations. Angie has been a member of the Allocations Committee with Durham’s Partnership for Children.  She also directed the start-up and wrote the grant proposal for the first Smart Start grant that initiated the Wilson County Partnership for Children.  

• Secretary: Ilene Britt is the Program Director of the Early Childhood Associate program and an Instructor at Durham Technical Community College.  Ilene has been involved with Durham’s Partnership for Children since its inception. She has been a pediatric early interventionist, a child care center director, served as a board member of the NC Interagency Coordinating Council, and is a NC Early Childhood Education Fellow. 

• Treasurer: Bill Bryant is a Financial Advisor at Scott & Stringfellow, Inc.  He works with organizations, families and individuals on financial issues such as investment management, retirement plans, saving for college and other financial planning issues.  Bill holds designations of Certified Financial Planner™, Certified Investment Management Analyst™, and Chartered Retirement Plan Specialist. Bill has been involved with Durham’s Partnership for Children for three years and has served as Chair for the Community Awareness and Development Committee and the Finance Committee, and is a member of the Executive Committee. 

New members of the Board were voted in:
• Dr. Debra Parker, North Carolina Central University representative
• Rhonda Parker, City of Durham representative, Director of Parks & Recreation
• Delphine Sellars, Cooperative Extension representative, Director 

Kirsten Kainz, a researcher at Frank Porter Graham Institute at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and member of Durham School Board, also joined the Board last spring.

Corporate Champions for Children meet to make a difference 

   On Oct. 24, a group of Corporate Champions for Children representing Time Warner Cable, KB Home, Duke University, IBM, Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, Cardinal State Bank, the Herald-Sun, Duke Energy, Wachovia, BB and T, Bright Horizons and Durham Public Schools met at George Watts Elementary to discuss pulling together strategies for supporting early childhood that could be added to a tool kit and shared with other area companies.

   The Partnership presented the group with latest workforce development information that supports the need to invest in early care and education to close the preparation gap and build the workforce of tomorrow as well as supporting working parents today. 

   Attendees were later given a tour of the preschool Montessori classrooms at the school.

Northern Durham Task Force convenes to assess needs   

The Northern Durham Task force has met twice to look at the needs and resources for young children and families in the northern part of Durham County. 

 A variety of stakeholders including representatives from the business community, Churches, County government, and many others participated in the task force meeting. The first task that the group undertook was to define what is meant by northern Durham.  The task force studied maps of the county and there was a great deal of discussion around boundaries of northern Durham.  For the purposes of the task force, the group decided to include zip codes 27572, 27503, and 27712.  The group began to look at demographic data about this area and discuss the history and context for services in Northern Durham.  The final meeting will take place in November and the group will make recommendations regarding action steps and possible services needed in Northern Durham. The next meeting is scheduled for Nov. 7 at the Little River Elementary School.

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