Initiative

Think Babies™ NC

Think Babies™ NC seeks to ensure that North Carolina’s youngest children, prenatal to age 3, benefit from effective and equitable public policies, programs, and funding so that all children have what they need to thrive: healthy beginnings, supported families, and quality early care and learning experiences.

This statewide initiative has an intentional focus on communities of color and those furthest from opportunity and is led by a cross-sector network of state and local leaders in the early childhood community who represent a range of perspectives and experiences across North Carolina.

Think Babies™ NC achieves this work by: bringing together a broad range of experience, perspectives, and research to develop a public policy agenda; creating and implementing a multi-faceted and coordinated advocacy, public awareness, and lobbying campaign to achieve policy goals.

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Fast Facts

Relevant Actions
State or Local? State
CountiesAll Counties
Lead Agency NC Early Education Coalition
Type of Agency

Non-profit

Racial Equity Lens
  • Think Babies™ NC believes that racial equity must be embedded into every aspect of our work, from the development of the policy priorities to their successful implementation. We do this by using an equity lens to evaluate and select the policies on our agenda, focusing on disaggregated data as well as input from people of color and those from marginalized communities with lived experience.
  • We value and seek to lift up the expertise, lived experiences, and stories of people most impacted by both prenatal-to-3 policies and systemic racism, including parents of infants and toddlers and BIPOC-led organizations. We do this through our policy development process and public awareness and advocacy materials.
  • We embrace a targeted universal approach that lifts up the disproportionate impacts on communities of color and those with low-incomes while recognizing that the system is deeply interdependent and must be strengthened in order to best serve those furthest from opportunity.
Community Voice

See above

Impact
  • Governor Cooper issued an executive order extending paid parental leave to state employees under his purview; an additional 22 city and county governments have extended this benefit to their employees (Action 2.4)
  • Federal funds will be used to serve the more than 22,000 children on the Child Care Subsidy waitlist (Action 3.1 and 3.3)
  • Established the Infant-Toddler AWARD$ program to improve compensation and education incentives for infant-toddler teachers (Action 3.12)
Next Steps
  • We are actively seeking additional BIPOC-led organizations to join the Think Babies™ NC Leadership Team in order to strengthen our racial equity point of view and ensure all decision-making is collaborative and led by those most impacted by inequitable policies
  • We are launching community-based action teams to bring together parents, child care providers, and other community advocates to build relationships with legislators and focus on equitable policies for babies and their families
  • We will continue to grow our statewide network of advocates by engaging parents and providers and lifting up stories of those most impacted
Primary Partners
  • Various partners. See Leadership Team: https://ncearlyeducationcoalition.org/think-babies-nc/think-babies-nc-alliance/
Primary Funders
  • ZERO TO THREE
  • Pritzker Children’s Initiative
  • Z Smith Reynolds Foundation
Contact Angela Burch

Active Counties