Category: News

Parent leadership training

By Stephanie Skordas, Director of Marketing & Communications

Seven parent leaders in the Guilford Parent Leader Network have attended the Spiral of Transformative Change Equity Webinar Series. This education series is similar to the training Ready Ready staff and board members received through the Equity Strategies Committee. Parent leaders having access to the foundational information that guides Ready Ready equity work is key to living our value of being equity-driven.

Additionally, three leaders from the Guilford Parent Leader Network have completed training in the Community Organizing and Family Issues (COFI) Phase 2. They will use their training to train their fellow GPLN members in community outreach and action. COFI Phase 2 teaches teams to reach out and build partnerships with parents and other community residents, community associations and organizations, businesses, schools, and other institutions. GPLN members completed COFI Phase 1 training in Fall 2020, and a second COFI Phase 1 training is in the works for this summer.

Worthy Wages for Worthy Work

By Stephanie Skordas, Director of Marketing & Communications

Ready for School, Ready for Life and our partners believe that early child care teachers are underpaid and undervalued for the important work they do — educating our youngest children who will grow up to be our future workforce and leaders. 

The median pay for child care workers in Guilford and 50 other counties in North Carolina care is between $10-$12 an hour with few benefits. Many child care teachers who love their jobs can’t make ends meet and look for better-paying jobs elsewhere. That staff turnover is tough on child care centers, and the children in these centers experience loss when their teacher leaves.

See what these early child care teachers and administrators are experiencing daily. We collaborated with EQuIPD to create this video focused on Guilford County’s early child care teachers.

Take action! Tell your legislators to improve pay and benefits for early educators. Find your representative at www.ncleg.gov. 

Learn more! Read this blog post from the North Carolina Early Education Coalition.

Partner Spotlight: EQuIPD

When the organization that became Ready for School, Ready for Life was a grassroots effort in Guilford County, we were glad to have partners like EQuIPD by our side, even as EQuIPD was starting its important work.

EQuIPD’s mission is to nurture and empower early care and education professionals with sustainability and success tools.

“We’re small but mighty,” said Ashley Allen, EQuIPD’s work environment and compensation coordinator. “We come at the issues from many perspectives and offer coaching, mentoring, and professional development.”

EQuIPD holds community learning events for early childhood educators. At the events, educators learn information they can use immediately. “What makes us unique is that we offer follow-up events where educators can discuss challenges and successes. We connect people to support peer to peer growth and build communities of practice through the process.”

Allen says EQuIPD began in 2014 with support from UNC-Greensboro through its Department of Human Development and Family Studies and The Guilford County Partnership for Children. “So many pieces of what we do really fit with Ready Ready’s strategic plan,” Allen said. “It’s a natural collaboration since we both bring different strengths to the table.“

EQuIPD is committed to lifting early care and education professionals’ voices and experiences to inform and inspire systems change. Current policy efforts include early child care wage increases. “We expect early childhood educators to get degrees and build curriculum but don’t support them with liveable wages or even enough planning time or resources. And during the pandemic, we see even more stress on the system since they are essential workers.”

According to its website, EQuIPD staff members are champions for equity, diversity, and inclusion through personal and professional practice, provisions of services, and engagement with stakeholders and the community.

“We have knowledgeable, talented, passionate educators preparing the next generation of our workforce,” Allen said. “The work EQuIPD and Ready Ready are doing to support them and system-level change will make a difference for Guilford County and North Carolina.”

Partner Spotlight: BackPack Beginnings

By Stephanie Skordas, Director of Marketing & Communications

A news story shown on Washington D.C. television about a teacher in Texas who was slipping food into children’s backpacks stuck with Parker White as she moved back to Greensboro and started raising her family.

“I couldn’t get it out of my head,” White, the executive director of Backpack Beginnings, said. “So I called the school system and asked if there was a hunger issue here. They said yes, and explained how some groups were helping, but more was always needed. I figured I could help one school. One led to two, and two led to three, and here we are.”

Since 2010, the organization has served more than 111,000 children, filled more than 17,000 comfort backpacks, and distributed nearly 3.5 million pounds of food. Backpack Beginnings provides food, comfort, and clothing directly to children in need. “We started in schools, but we quickly realized there are basic needs all over the county. We wanted to meet families where they already are, so we started talking with pediatricians’ offices, nonprofits, and service agencies so that we can partner with them.”

That’s how White connected with Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) a few years ago. Initially, the topic was diapers, a huge need for families with babies and toddlers. “With Ready Ready’s help, we were able to establish a partnership with the North Carolina Diaper Bank,” White said. “Now we are giving out tens of thousands of diapers and anticipate that continuing to grow.”

More recently, Backpack Beginnings and Ready Ready have partnered in a program called Book Beginnings. This program places shelves filled with new and gently used books in strategic locations across Guilford County, distributing thousands of free books to encourage a love of reading. “The goals of the program include book ownership and book abundance,” White said.

“During the pandemic, we’ve held drive-through events and our volunteers come back with stories about how children are so excited to have these books that they start screaming and clapping. And it’s not one book per child. We want them to have a love of reading and start their own little library at home,” she said.

“Thanks to a new grant from Duke Energy Foundation, we will purchase 6,500 new books for Guilford County children. Working with Backpack Beginning, we are focused on early literacy,” said Heather Adams, Ready Ready’s director of family engagement and literacy initiatives. “Research shows that children raised in a home with books positively impacts their readiness for school and future success in life.”

“We gave out 12,000 books last fiscal year, and we hope to double that this year,” White said. “We are a better organization for our collaboration with Ready Ready and other organizations. Together we are seeing the needs in our community and providing the resources and services that help our families.”

BackPack Beginnings joined Ready Ready’s Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) Cohort II and reported great results for the Family Market which opened in 2022. “Staff and volunteers didn’t have a clear understanding of responsibilities when it comes to our new Family Market. Since multiple people were assigned the same tasks, like stocking the shelves, the tasks were not always completed because staff and volunteers thought others were taking care of them. The process map was one of the most helpful things we did. When we assigned staff and volunteers to each process, it was easier to see the distribution of responsibilities and if the balance was correct and manageable,” White said.

As BackPack Beginnings continues to follow its mission to deliver child-centric services to feed, comfort, and clothe children in need, it serves more than 21,000 children each year.

Coaching for Literacy awards grant

By Stephanie Skordas, Director of Marketing & Communications

Teaming with the North Carolina A&T State University men’s and women’s basketball teams, Coaching for Literacy has awarded Ready Ready a grant as part of its #Fight4Literacy initiative.

It’s a movement of coaches, teams, influencers, and businesses to promote childhood reading.

Funds are raised through social media, donations, and businesses donating a portion of their sales to the effort. Ready Ready will use the grant to expand our early literacy efforts.

In addition to the grant, Coaching for Literacy has worked with NC A&T to record videos of track and field athletes reading stories. The storytime videos will be shared with local child care centers in Guilford County.

By Stephanie Skordas, Director of Marketing & Communications

The National Institute for Children’s Health Quality featured contributions from Ready Ready and Program Manager Michelle Chapin in its new brief, “Embedding Equity in Early Childhood Initiatives.” 

It’s part of a larger project entitled the Early Childhood Health Equity Landscape Project (ECHE.) The brief highlights how eight organizations, including Ready Ready, have set equitable goals and outcomes, received support from their communities, faced barriers, and have been impacted by factors such as COVID-19 and structural racism.

Child Trends is the nation’s leading research organization focused exclusively on improving the lives of children and youth, especially those who are most vulnerable, according to its website. North Carolina is one of 38 students studied by the group.

To read the report, please visit the Child Trends website.

Partner Spotlight: North Carolina Early Education Coalition

Partner Spotlight: North Carolina Early Education Coalition

By Stephanie Skordas, Director of Marketing & Communications

The North Carolina Early Education Coalition (NCEEC) works to ensure that all children have access to high-quality early care and learning experiences. Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) has partnered with the Coalition on the Think Babies NC Alliance. Together we are focused on N.C.’s youngest children – prenatal to age three. As part of the Leadership Team, Ready Ready joins other public and private early childhood organizations on this statewide initiative.

“Ready Ready’s involvement on our leadership team is a testament to how focused the organization has been on infants and toddlers from the beginning,” said Coalition’s Senior Campaign Director Michele Rivest. “At the Coalition, we’ve always supported a whole child development approach, and infusing that model into other ways of thinking helps us lift up babies and families at the same time as we focus on early childhood.”

Rivest said the increased focus on infants and toddlers, especially in North Carolina, has positively affected partnerships and networks and allowed the Alliance to examine its work and progress through an equity lens.

Formed in 1990, the Coalition is a statewide advocacy group with membership including statewide organizations, regional and local child care agencies, child care providers, and individuals committed to improving the quality of child care and early education in North Carolina. Rivest’s work is focused on policy for the Coalition and Think Babies NC, leading the lobbying team and developing relationships with policymakers.

“I work with our partners and allies to support young children’s healthy development and early learning, particularly from a policy perspective,” said Rivest. “We look at state law, state budget, rules, and regulations, as well as a national policy to advance and support young children and families in North Carolina.”

As with many systems in North Carolina and other states, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the foundational weakness in our child care system, Rivest said. “Parents have primarily financed child care by paying the costs, which is extremely expensive – approximately $10,000 a year. That’s more than a year’s tuition at a public university in North Carolina. That’s beyond the reach of so many families. Then with COVID, families stopped being able to go to work and use child care.”

As research has shown, early learning experiences have a lifelong impact. A stable, secure relationship with a caring adult is a critical factor in young children’s development.

“The key to whether we have a stable and successful early childhood system depends on the early childhood workforce,” Rivest said. “Young children having these supportive environments, building relationships with teachers who are building relationships with their families is sort of a surround-sound approach to getting young children off to a good and healthy start.”

According to the Coalition, many children and families don’t have the resources or opportunities to meet these needs, particularly families of color or families with low incomes. These challenges and risk factors expose babies to stress and trauma that negatively impact their healthy development.

“The opportunity we see from COVID in North Carolina and nationally is that state policymakers are saying child care is essential,” Rivest said. “Despite these devastating circumstances, we are in a position to push for really robust high-quality early care and education. Issues like paid family leave are gaining traction in North Carolina and around the country.”

Describing herself as an “eternal optimist,” Rivest commends the collaborative team approach of state and local organizations as part of the NC Early Education Coalition. “We all come to this work from different roles in the field of early childhood education. But we’re all committed to making sure young children and families get off to a healthy start,“ she said. “We’re starting to see these supports for families and infants and toddlers across North Carolina that give me a lot of hope about how we’re going in the right direction.”

Partner Spotlight: Project LLIFE

With assistance from the Cemala Foundation, North Carolina A&T State University is focused on literacy for young children in Guilford County. Project LLIFE aims to increase skills and performance in language and literacy for children between the ages of 1-4.

LLIFE stands for Language and Literacy Impacting Families and Educators.

“Our program is focused on children in culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in southeast Greensboro, and our overall goal is to try to close the gap for children of color around language and literacy when they enter kindergarten,” said Dr. Valerie Jarvis McMillan, associate professor of child development early education and family studies at N.C. A&T State University.

She is the principal investigator (PI), working with co-PIs N.C. A&T professors Dr. Deana Lacy McQuitty, associate professor in speech language pathology, Dr. Jeff Drayton Wolfgang, assistant professor in counseling, and Dr. Sharita Williams-Crossen, adjunct faculty in speech language pathology and Project LLIFE Coordinator.

The project encompasses three disciplines: child development, speech language pathology, and counseling. Researchers in each of those areas, along with graduate and undergraduate students from N.C. A&T, have worked to collect data from child care centers, educators, and families from southeast Greensboro.

The goals and objectives include:

  • Enhancing language and literacy development of children from diverse populations in southeast Greensboro
  • Supporting culturally responsive practices of educators and families in promoting literacy development
  • Training students to become facilitators for language and literacy development and learning in children with diverse backgrounds

Working with Ready Ready
Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready) has partnered with Project LLIFE in active reading training sessions in late 2020. Due to the pandemic, these training sessions switched from in-person to online, as did much of Project LLIFE’s work.

“Working with Ready Ready, we had two very intense active reading training sessions virtually,” Dr. McMillan said. “Our students practiced the active reading approach, and it allowed them to develop labels and terminology for these strategies. They will use this training with the families during collaborative learning sessions with families in February and March.”

“Working with Project LLIFE and N.C. A&T students was so rewarding,” said Heather Adams, Ready Ready’s director of engagement and literacy initiatives. “We’re excited for them to take these strategies into the community.”

During the collaborative learning sessions, student instructional facilitators will enter into a coaching relationship with families and children who are part of Project LLIFE. The active reading strategies will help parents and children discuss what they’re reading by asking open-ended questions, for example.

“It’s about using a daily routine with children centered around reading books,” Dr. McMillan explained. “We want to engage children in conversations around a book they’re reading, getting them to discuss content and characters in the book, and ask questions to gather their understanding of content and how it may relate to activities or experiences in their life.”

Partner Spotlight: Guilford Child Development

By Stephanie Skordas, Director of Marketing & Communications

Guilford Child Development is a nonprofit organization that provides educational and social services to help young children and families reach their full potential and achieve future success.

“Guilford Child Development is one of the best kept secrets,” says CEO Maria Layne-Stevens. “We have our own little ecosystem in a sense, where we’re focusing on children prenatally, and pregnant moms, and we have ability to support our families from conception through children entering kindergarten. Founded in 1967, Guilford Child Development (GCD) provides services to more than 6,000 children and families a year. The organization’s six programs are Head Start/Early Start, Regional Childcare Resources & Referral, Catering for Kids, Nurse-Family Partnership, Learning Together Family Literacy Program and the Family Success Center.

The organization’s efforts to empower families also come with making parents and caregivers aware of their role and responsibility to ensure that the program is being implemented with fidelity. In the Head Start Policy Council for example, families play a pivotal role in being advocates for themselves and their families, but also in providing input into the program’s design and management, ultimately contributing to the success of the program.

The organization creates opportunities to encourage parents and caregivers to foster their own development, build their advocacy skills, and continue their education while supporting their children’s development and learning. 

With more than 350 employees, Guilford Child Development is one of the largest nonprofit organizations in Guilford County.

“Engaging parents in training designed to promote personal development and build soft skills improves their readiness for gainful employment, empowering parents to move their family out of poverty. This is a critical, life-changing element of the services we provide,” Layne-Stevens says. “We’ve been fortunate to partner with incredible local organizations to carry out our mission in helping children and families reach their full potential.”

Layne-Stevens points to the commitment the organization made to address early childhood teacher compensation. “We made a commitment to our teachers to address teacher pay, a significant challenge in the early childhood services industry. We got creative, cut costs, and addressed teacher compensation. While this is one step forward in our journey, we are demonstrating to our staff and the community the importance of early childhood education and our teachers who are making such a difference in the lives of young children.”

Guilford Child Development was one of Ready Ready’s first partners, heavily involved in the 100-day challenges that helped coalesce the community effort into the growing nonprofit organization we are today.

Guilford Parent Leader Network

Finding community, leading change

Amber Robinson of the Guilford Parent Leader Network remembers when it started with focus groups in Guilford County. “Back in 2014, I was part of Photo Voice, which gave parents digital cameras to capture our every day lives. We answered questions with photos about our every day lives,” Robinson remembers. “It was a precursor to the Family Action Learning Teams which became part of the national Parent Leader Network.” An original member, Robinson remains active in the group which coalesced into its present form as Ready for School, Ready for Life became a nonprofit organization.

“The Parent Leader Network is a group of individuals who come together to discuss the needs of families and the community and how best to serve our children,” says Sanaa Sharrieff, who joined the network two years ago when her children were in preschool. Now they are in first grade, and Sharrieff says the connections she has made with other parents and caregivers in the community have been invaluable.

The Guilford Parent Leader Network was established as a decision-making body of Ready for School, Ready for Life. The goal of the group is to ensure that family voice is brought into every key decision as we work together to build an innovative, connected early childhood system in Guilford County.

“Having our voices heard as parents, having our voices heard as members of the community and learning how to navigate the space that we’re in right now while still being effective parents plus all the resources have been phenomenal,” Sharrieff said. 

Monthly meetings bring the group together — in-person before the pandemic, and virtually right now. During the meetings, the group discusses a topic, but there’s always room to provide each other with support or newly-discovered resources that can help each parent and caregiver succeed.

“It’s so important to create a support network in the community and help people see that they’re actually leaders and change agents,” Robinson said. The larger national network involved has offered additional resources such as trips to Chicago, and this year, a conference made virtual by COVID-19.

“When we did the (national) Parent Leader Network Summit, we had 20 minutes of guided breathing and meditation. It was an affirmation that we are more than parents, we are individuals who contribute to the planet and need this kind of self-care,” Sharrieff says. “Then we went into the let’s put on our superhero capes and set these goals and figure out together how we’re going to affect change in society. It’s just really empowering.”

Sharrieff also says a group chat allows the members to stay in touch informally and share resources between meetings. “We’re here for each other. We’re learning ways to be great leaders, listeners, and supporters. I’m really grateful to be connected to this network.”

If you’d like to know more about the Guilford Parent Leader Network, which typically meets on the third Monday from 7-8:30 p.m. each month, please email Heather Adams, Director of Engagement and Literacy Initiatives. The group is open to new members with children from birth to age eight, who are interested in serving as decision-makers, consultants, and ambassadors for Ready Ready’s work in Guilford County.