Priorities

Develop Navigation System to Connect Families with Effective Services           

All families can benefit from information and support during the critical early years. Navigators connect with families to ensure they get the services and support they may need. Through funding from The Duke Endowment and Blue Meridian Partners, newly created Navigator positions at Children’s Home Society help families as they transition through pregnancy, birth, and early childhood. We partner with OB and pediatric practices in this effort. Navigation is supported by a Community Alignment process to build a comprehensive resource directory, identify and address gaps in the service landscape, and build capacity for effective referrals.

Expand and Integrate Proven Programs to Meet Community Need   

We are working to expand four proven programs to their full capacity in Guilford County: Family Connects, HealthySteps, Nurse-Family Partnership, and Reach Out and Read. In order to serve as many Guilford County children as possible, these programs have added staff with support from Ready Ready and our funders. At the same time, three of these programs are integrating their processes with each other and with Navigation to improve the experience of families and reduce duplication. We have partnered with UNC-Chapel Hill’s National Implementation Research Network (NIRN) to develop a process, informed by science, to move from recommendation to high-quality implementation.

Build a Culture of Continuous Quality Improvement   

Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) is a team-based process of collecting, analyzing, and using data to improve service quality on an ongoing basis. We began with 13 programs in our first CQI cohort. Our plan: to provide CQI coaching, resources, and strategies to help programs improve quality and develop sustainable approaches for this work.

Build Technology to Support Data-informed Decisions   

Imagine Amazon or Apple without an integrated data system tracking orders, inventory, and shipping. Unfortunately, this is the state of early childhood systems, where families navigate a fragmented, disjointed service landscape in their attempts to find services to help their children. Technology is the key to solving this problem. Our Integrated Data System (IDS) will enable care coordination, service monitoring, and outcomes tracking for more than 30,000 young children and their families in Guilford County. Families will own their data and control when to share and with which programs.

Conduct Rigorous Evaluation and Build Sustainability for System-building Work   

The work we are doing to create a connected system of care can’t rely on hunches or anecdotes. Instead we evaluate every step. Focus on outcomes. Measure success. The data we consider is used to inform decisions and expand programs. Through this effort, we have redefined our organization’s values. Through a community-led process we arrived at six values and determined the underlying principles. These values and principles guide planning and decision-making across our priorities.

Build Public Will for Early Childhood Priorities   

Our work can’t happen in a vacuum. We need Guilford County families, leaders, elected officials, and residents to support our efforts. We share our story, plans, and our successes with policymakers, agencies, and similar organizations to reinforce that the system we are building will help children and families in Guilford County today, and our entire state in the future. The Basics Guilford is part of this effort, bringing awareness to the serve and return babies and toddlers need for their healthy development through five, fun, science-based concepts.