WE NEED YOUR VOICE!

Please join us for the New Hanover County Community Listening Session - dinner and a small group discussion:

tuesday, july 25, 2023
6:30pm-8:30pm
smart start of new hanover county

 

3534 south college road, suite f, wilmington, nc

Do you want to join the new hanover County Community Listening session?

  • Do you have or have you had a child in preschool or child care and has your child, or a child you care for, ever been kicked out or asked to leave preschool or child care?

  • Do you work in child care or preschool? Or, do you work in a community, faith or business organization that partners with child care or preschools?

  • Do you believe that child care or preschool providers should be allowed to ask a child to leave their school or child care center, or not be allowed to return? Why or why not?

  • What resources do New Hanover County child care or preschool teachers and providers need to support our young children?

Click here to sign up for the new hanover county Community listening session, or contact Lisa Butts via email or by phone at 910-460-7025.

All are welcome. Your opinion matters.

Come and share your opinions so that all new hanover county children ages 5 and under have everything they need as they grow up.

We want to better understand how this issue specifically affects Black children and families. We also want to understand how to better support early care teachers and professionals so they have what they need to make sure all young children can thrive.

As a thank you, each attendee will get a $50 Visa gift card.

About this Project

What

Overall Project Background

We’re hosting Community Listening Sessions in communities across the state because our mission starts with better understanding parent/caregiver/provider experiences with child care and preschool so that we can find a solution and end the practice of kicking kids out of care.

  • Through these conversations, we’ll learn more about community values, beliefs and motivations.

  • We want to better understand how this issue specifically affects Black children and families because the latest research has shown that Black preschool children are about three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than White preschool peers. 

  • We want to learn how to better support early care teachers and professionals so they have what they need to make sure all young children can thrive in child care and preschool environments.

Why

How CLS Fit In 

  • The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation and North Carolina A&T State University have partnered to better understand how and why children – 5 years and younger – are kicked out or removed from their schools/early care centers. 

  • Along with Forthright Advising, a North Carolina-based communications firm, our organization, ChildFocus Partners, is partnering on the research phase of this work.

  • This project is a part of the Blue Cross NC Foundation’s mission to make sure that all children have everything they need as they grow up.

How

We’ll Use This Information and Follow Through 

  • Over the next year, we are focused on research and learning in order to come up with how we want to make change happen.

  • We are hoping to gather feedback from community members and leaders to help us better understand how this issue affects North Carolina’s children and families, think through what real change can look like, and how we can get there. 

  • Eventually, we’ll use that input to help create a communications campaign that brings more awareness to the issue of unfair or discriminatory discipline practices that affect young children in preschools and child care centers. 

  • We want to be open about where we are at this point: This is an evolving project built on community feedback and collaboration. 

  • It’s so important to us and the Foundation that you can see your input, beliefs and solutions in the campaign we create. That means taking time to really listen and build carefully as we learn from the community. 

    • It also means we’ll only be ready to lay out what any plan might look like once we’ve finished that process alongside the community members whose first-hand experiences matter most.

  • We would like to continue to partner with you and include you as we move this project along over the next year. Would you like to share your contact information and stay in touch so that you can hear from us about how we’ve used this information and where we’re heading? Click here to email Lisa Butts.

  • Sharing your contact information means the Foundation will reach out with future updates when we have them.