Family Forward NC

We’re Business Smart. Family Friendly. Future Ready

There are only a few days to register for the 2018 Institute for Emerging Issues Forum kidonomics: Investing Early in Our Future. Registration closes Friday, January 26th.

Join us in Raleigh on the first day of the Forum – February 5th – to learn about a new initiative spearheaded by the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation (NCECF) with sponsorship from Blue Cross NC.

It’s called Family Forward NC – an innovative business initiative designed to increase access to family friendly workplace practices with a goal to improve children’s health and well-being and to ensure our state’s business climate is competitive.

We’re hosting a breakout session that will feature:

  • Fara Palumbo, Senior Vice-President and Chief Human Resources Officer at Blue Cross NC
  • Andrew Herdman, Vice-President Human Resources, Mayne Pharma, with offices in Greenville and Raleigh
  • Napoleon Wallace, Deputy Secretary, NC Department of Commerce
  • Sepideh Saidi, President/CEO, Sepi Engineering and Construction, Inc. with offices in Raleigh, Wilmington and Charlotte

Be the first to hear the results of new research of more than 300 NC businesses about their practices including their motivations and barriers to creating family friendly workplaces.

Why Attend?

  • Find out how businesses of all sizes can support children’s healthy development with the added benefits of improving business productivity, reducing absenteeism and attracting and keeping top talent.
  • Hear from business and economic development leaders about the challenges and opportunities they face in offering family friendly policies that provide an economic advantage.

Workplaces that support parents have a direct impact on their children’s health, well-being and future academic and career achievement. Family friendly workplaces provide an immediate payoff and long-term gains, hence “Business Smart. Family Friendly. Future Ready.”

On the second day of the Forum, we’ll lead a workshop – Local Funding for Early Learning: A Community Toolkit. Participants will learn about local, public and private financing options to expand access to early learning.  Experts will share information on the revenue streams available to local communities, offer tools to assess a community’s readiness to pursue local revenue, and feature insights on the strategies other communities have used across the nation.

Register here.