Child Care Choices: Child Care Resource & Referral (In-House) Child Care Choices purpose is to support and improve the quality of life for children and families by linking families, child care providers, and businesses through referral, information, education, and advocacy. The Director and staff provide all of the essential core services and support services. Child Care Choices provides referrals daily and technical assistance to child care providers and families, training events, parent education, lending library, and public awareness pertaining to child care related issues.

KidSource: Family Support Unit (In-House) The KidSource team serves predominately high-risk families with young children (ages 0-5) in the rural and low-income areas of Johnston County.  Services are provided in the home or a community setting and include resource and referral information to families about community agencies that improve access to healthcare, health insurance, dental care and early intervention referral services; health education classes; school readiness activities; kindergarten transition; family literacy; child passenger safety education and parenting workshops. Additionally, KidSource provides technical assistance and support with the Partnership’s More at Four activities. All services are offered in Spanish to accommodate our county’s large and growing Hispanic population.

Community Awareness (In-House) The Community Awareness Activity will (1) increase community awareness/support of Smart Start (2) build/strengthen relationships with community organizations. This activity will also increase our community’s awareness of and support for the Johnston County More at Four Programs. Families will be reached through children’s concerts and a variety of events and methods throughout the year. Community Outreach Coordinator, will encourage and motivate individuals and organizations to advocate in a variety of arenas for the support of school readiness.

Program Coordination and Evaluation (In-House) The Program Coordinator will monitor each funded service at least once per year (with frequency of additional visits determined by risk assessment), and will work with the partnership fiscal monitor to link programmatic and fiscal accountability. The Program Coordinator will facilitate program committee meetings and modify activities as per Board request and NCPC approval guidelines, will evaluate all funded activities by developing and/or clarifying projected activity outputs, outcomes and evaluation plans, and will contact service providers quarterly to ensure evaluation progress. The Program Coordinator will also collect and enter data into the Smart Start Quarterly Reporting System, and will train Service Providers on data collection and reporting techniques.

Professional Development Coordinator (In House) The Professional Development Coordinator project allows early childhood staff to develop a career ladder that will move them through the completion of the NC Credential requirements to the Early Childhood Associate Degree.  The Professional Development Coordinator is available to assist all childcare providers in centers and family homes by working with directors and family home providers on their goals for the level of star rating that they seek, and assisting the program staff to work through a specified professional development plan.  The Professional Development Coordinator is providing consultation, guidance and monitoring for those programs that seek the service.

Head Start Wrap Around: (Johnston Lee Harnett Community Action) The normal day for a head start child is 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Through the Wrap-Around project children may arrive between 6:30 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. and can be picked up from 2:30 p.m. until 6:00 p.m. for the months of September through May with two teachers and two teacher assistants on site. During June-August, 60 children will be served for full day wrap-around while adding an additional teacher and teacher assistant as well as a center director. All Wrap-Around services are at the Smithfield Head Start.

Child Care Health Consultant: (Johnston County Health Dept) The Child Care Health Consultant activity will provide a Licensed Practical Nurse who provides services for child care centers and family child care homes throughout Johnston County.  Johnston County Child Care Facilities will have access to technical assistance, training in health related issues through on site visits and one-on-one technical assistance.  Screening information is coordinated with the child’s primary provider/medical home.  The Child Care Health Consultant will help link parents with a medical provider either in the community or at the Health Department, and will assist parents in applying for Medicaid and Health Choice if their child/children are eligible. Additionally, the Child Care Health Consultant will coordinate services with Child Care Choices and will give special focus to health compliance issues that may impede a facility’s progress in achieving a higher level of quality.  This service will be provided whenever there is a need or request.

Parent As Teachers: (Johnston County Health Dept.) Parents as Teachers program, in collaboration with other human service agencies, provides parents with information on child development and parenting skills in order to promote child language, intellectual growth, physical and social-emotional skills. The programs two full time Parent Educators, provide monthly in-home services to families in Johnston County and provide support group meetings in addition to the in-home services. The focus is on children at risk from birth to five years. Support services are provided via a clerical/bilingual employee for an array of tasks including interpretation.

T.I.P.: Teacher Incentive Program: (Child Care Choices-In House) The Teacher Incentive Program is designed to reduce turnover in the field of child care by encouraging participating programs to offer health and other benefits to their employees. This activity works in conjunction with, but does not supplant TEACH and WAGE$ because Child Care Choices has established its own criteria and guidelines.  There are two components that encourage providers to remain in their current programs to maintain continuity and quality of care for the children in their care: 1) Health Insurance – reimbursement of 1/3 of premium cost of the childcare employee’s health insurance, not to exceed $100 per employee, per month, if the participating center agrees to pay at least 1/3 of the premium; 2) Childcare – a reimbursement equal to the percentage the participating childcare center agrees to absorb, up to 50% of the cost of employee’s child care not to exceed $3000 per employee per year.

Child Care WAGE$ Project: (Child Care Services Association) Child Care Services, Inc. administers Child Care WAGE$ Project that provides education-based salary supplements to low paid teachers, directors, and family child care providers. To encourage consistency, installments based on half of the annual award are issued after each six-month period the participant completes in the same child care program. Supplements also act as incentives to attain higher levels of education. Because these supplements reward teacher education and continuity of care, children age birth to five benefit from more stable relationships with better educated teachers.

Childcare Subsidy & Subsidy Incentive  (Johnston County Dept. of Social Services) The Partnership will allocate funds to the contractor to administer childcare subsidy funds to families meeting family size and income eligibility. The subsidies will be paid directly to the child care providers on behalf of the qualifying families based on the current market rates and criteria as determined by the Division of Child Development. Depending on the existence of a waiting list and the availability of funding, the board of directors of the Partnership may determine that eligibilities for Smart Start childcare subsidies be expanded to include families otherwise not eligible, but in need of assistance. The Partnership establishes the criteria for subsidy enhancement payments to full time licensed child care centers and homes that have a four or five star license. In addition, some licensed three star childcare centers will receive subsidy incentives if they meet the Partnership’s eligibility criteria. The purposes of these incentives are to: (1) increase the quality of child care programs, and (2) make high quality child care affordable for families who need it.  In addition, these enhancements would involve only those children from birth to five years receiving Department of Social Services subsidy funding. This activity will address the requirement to have 60% of subsidized children in 4-5 star programs.

Eligibility Specialist [Subsidy Administration]  (Johnston County Dept. of Social Services) Child Care Subsidy is provided by the Johnston County Department of Social Services to assist families in understanding their child care needs and arranging for services to meet those needs. Eligibility Specialists determine the eligibility of the family based on income and need using policy developed by the Division of Child Development. Parents receive assistance with all or partial payment for child care. Workers also arrange for child care services based on parental choice and maintain contact with the parent and the child care provider to ensure that the family is receiving the appropriate services. Services provision also includes issuing vouchers to eligible parents and enrolling child care providers in the subsidy system.