Initiative

Smart Start of Transylvania County – Continuum of Early Care

Smart Start of Transylvania County ensures all young children thrive by creating a continuum of early care. Our principles include  leadership, partnership, and advocacy. Our strategic goals ensure equitable access to quality early learning, family/child health, family support, and early educator workforce development. We support families, prenatally to kindergarten transition, starting with our Get Set Babies initiative. We meet unique needs of new parents with services such as doulas, lactation consultants, support for mental health, and supplies/equipment as well as connections to our collaborative partner services. We meet the community where the need is. This includes a Family, Friend & Neighbor network, support for our large number of faith-based and part day childcare providers, and support for our licensed centers. We are actively working in partnership to increase childcare capacity, develop early care professionals, and support our existing childcare providers.

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Fast Facts

Relevant Actions
State or Local? Local
CountiesTransylvania
Lead Agency Smart Start of Transylvania County
Type of Agency

Nonprofit

Racial Equity Lens
  • Our work seeks to understand the barriers of all races that comprise our population and we seek to provide equitable access.
  • We embed caregiver and provider voice into our programs.
  • We will be providing “starting with equity” knowledge building for our service providers.
Community Voice
  • We are cultivating provider leaders for our Family, Friend & Neighbor network.
Impact
  • Build social cohesion and community resilience
  • Support maternal and child health
  • Advance access to quality early care and education
Next Steps
  • Complete a commissioned research study on maternal and child health for the Western North Carolina region
  • Expand Get Set Babies services
  • Complete expansion underway of our Family, Friend & Neighbor network
Primary Partners
  • Get Set Transylvania and Get Set Western North Carolina – early care collaboratives
Primary Funders
  • Dogwood Health Trust
  • The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina
  • Western North Carolina Bridge Foundation
  • Home Grown Child Care
  • BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina Foundation
Contact Deb Tibbetts

Active Counties