Our mission is to mobilize and unify the Durham community to create and support innovative and successful collaborative approaches to serving the needs of young children birth to age 5 and their families.

We were founded in 1994 to administer the Smart Start grant in Durham County. Smart Start legislation mandates that:

• At least 70% of funds are used to improve the quality of child care and access to high-quality child care
• At least 30% of funds are used to expand child care subsidies to enhance affordability, availability and quality of child care (this is included in the above 70%)

About Durham’s Young Children:

• Nearly 25,000 children birth to age 5 live in Durham County
• Nearly half of young children (45.5%) live in low income families
• 62.5% of children are in households where parents or single parent is in workforce

Collaboration is vital to the work done at the Partnership. Each year, we partner with more than 30 agencies to provide a continuum of services to young children and their families.