Working 15 Years to Make Young Children A Priority
In the early days of Smart Start, there was widespread agreement about the uncoordinated nature of Durham’s human services which resulted in both gaps and duplication. The fragmented maze of services made it nearly impossible for families to find and leave with what they needed. As one community leader remarked in 1997, “Durham is a bunch of tents, but not a village yet,” referencing the common proverb, ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’
Over the past 15 years, Durham’s Partnership for Children has been working diligently to design “the village” as a first class early childhood system with a comprehensive set of integrated services that are based on best practices and measurable results. This fiscal year, the Partnership celebrates 15 years of making a difference in Durham County. The Partnership has recognized that building support for early childhood and ensuring Durham County children are prepared for success in school must be a community-wide effort.
During the past six years, the Partnership has also focused on innovative ways to reach out to the entire community. Working to strengthen partnerships is important to build both consensus about the importance of investing in early childhood education and create strategic alliances among the business, government, medical, faith, and public education sectors in order to succeed.
Partnering with the larger community, The Partnership has launched innovative and diverse partnerships that are infusing new ideas and resources into the way Durham helps young children and their families.
For example, with The Docs For Tots Initiative, a national child advocacy campaign for health care professionals, The Partnership has engaged pediatricians and pediatric residents at Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center around issues affecting young children and encouraged their participation in the community.
The Durham County Early Childhood Faith Initiative is working to engage places of worship around the needs of young children.
Through collaboration among community partners, Durham County’s Strategic Plan for Infants and Toddlers was developed to assess the current status of infants and toddlers and their families in Durham; and develop a plan and framework for collaborating, seeking funding and aligning the community to ensure thehealthy development of infants and toddlers and their ultimate successin school.The Strategic Plan was the beginning of the Infant and Toddler Initiative to build more resources for families with infants and toddlers in Durham County.
These examples are just a few of many initiatives aimed at building community-wide support for young children and their families.
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