Preschool Development Grant Award
In November 2018, DCDEE submitted an application to the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Care, for a Preschool Development Grant (PDG) for activities to strengthen North Carolina’s early childhood education system. The grant will fund a comprehensive statewide needs assessment and planning process for the state’s early learning system, support family outreach and engagement efforts, and provide infant-toddler teachers with training and resources.
DCDEE was notified of the $4.5 million grant award on December 31, 2018*. North Carolina's application is available for download. Please note that initial application does not reflect final award.
What PDG activities are planned in North Carolina?
- Statewide Birth-5 Needs Assessment and Strategic Plan – Both of these will build upon the existing work that has been done for the NC Early Childhood Action Plan, as well as other efforts across the early childhood system, to engage stakeholders and leverage resources to best meet the needs of children and families. These efforts will help identify barriers to providing high quality early childhood services as well as families’ perceptions of available resources.
- Family engagement – Methods of communicating with families will be expanded, including translation of materials, use of social media, and partnering with UNC-TV to increase outreach. Funding will help support local communities to improve and promote family engagement across early childhood systems leveraging Smart Start’s infrastructure. A Leadership Team will be formed to develop a statewide family engagement framework to apply across early childhood programs.
- Expanding on local best practices - Efforts to coordinate the work that is underway in counties to support early childhood education services will be expanded, such as the successful transition of children from preschool to kindergarten and universal enrollment across programs for more effective service delivery.
- Enhancing early childhood education data within the NC Early Childhood Integrated Data System (NC ECIDS) – The capacity of NC ECIDS will be expanded address data gaps so that early education outcomes may be measured better.
- Increasing access to high quality infant/toddler care - Intensive technical assistance and increased support for the infant/toddler workforce and administrators will be provided.
* https://www.ncdhhs.gov/news/press-releases/north-carolina-receives-45-million-early-childhood-grant-governor-cooper