Families Are Our Most Important Partners

Partnership and collaboration across diverse leaders and systems are key ingredients to having the greatest impact for children in our state. Among these partners, the most important are families. From nurturing a child’s brain development in the earliest days of…

A Child’s Journey to Mental Health

Recommendations to give young kids and their families the support they need to thrive.  Early life experiences play a critical role in setting children up for a lifetime of good mental health.   As we address the children’s mental health crisis,…

More Guns Do Not Make Safer Childhoods & American Life

Statement from Muffy Grant, North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation Executive Director, on recent mass shootings, May 2022The last weeks of May are typically joyful for families, with moving up ceremonies, graduations, end of year picnics, and a range of…

Imagining What’s Possible with the Pathways Action Map

The NC Pathways to Grade-Level Reading Initiative (Pathways) has always been about possibility. It started by bringing together diverse North Carolina leaders to imagine what would be possible if:We adopted shared, whole child, birth-to-eight measures that put children on…

EarlyWell Update: Better When I Am Dancing

Mental health has never been more visible than now, a year and a half into the stresses of a global pandemic. While most mental health interventions are aimed at adults and adolescents, the roots of strong mental health for young…

COVID-19 Exacerbates Inequities in Early Childhood Education

NC Early Childhood Foundation’s Executive Director, Muffy Grant, had the opportunity to discuss the decline in preschool and kindergarten enrollment that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly for families with incomes below $25,000 dollars. In the interview, Muffy…