Item:
Title
Durham County Early Childhood Action Plan Funding Recommendations (30min)
Body
Date of BOCC Meeting: March 1, 2021
Request for Board Action:
Agenda Text
The Board is requested to receive and consider these funding recommendations that are emerging from the planning effort toward a Durham County Early Childhood Action Plan (ECAP).
In January 2020, Durham County contracted with the Durham Children’s Initiative to create an Early Childhood Action Plan (ECAP) for Durham County, budgeted for $150,000 over 18 months. The full action plan is due for release in June or July 2021, but high-level recommendations for funding are due now for consideration as a part of the budget cycle for FY 2021-2022. These recommendations for funding are a part of a braided funding plan that is being developed by DCI. Signaling public investment in this plan that was catalyzed by the County in 2020 will be critical in helping attract additional funds from private and philanthropic sources.
Over the past 9 months, local early childhood leaders, front-line providers, and parents of young children have worked together to determine ways to make our early childhood systems more equitable in order to help Durham become a place where all young children and their families can thrive. The attached slides include an overview of collaborative efforts in the ECAP planning process to date, the 21 recommendations that are emerging from the planning process, thoughts about how initial County funding should be spent to support the plan, and an overview of how action plans are currently being built around these 21 recommendations.
Because the action plan will not be finalized until the end of this fiscal year, we are not making a request for specific programmatic or systems-focused investments at this time. However, we want to ensure that the Board has as much information as possible to consider our more general funding request of $150,000 into the Early Childhood budget to support initial ECAP implementation. The ECAP planning team, with input from community stakeholders engaged in the process, has identified the following recommendations as highest priority in this funding cycle because of their role in supporting COVID recovery in our systems serving families with young children. We recommend that initial County ECAP funding be used to contribute to COVID recovery in our early childhood system in one or more of the following areas:
• Child care recovery efforts
• Housing and economic stability to reduce ACEs
• Child and family social-emotional health, trauma-informed care, and resilience
• Efforts to disrupt institutional racism and share power with parents experiencing challenges and disparities in outcomes in our early childhood system
If the request for County ECAP funding is approved, we will report back to the Board once the action plan is finalized with more specifics about how these funds will be allocated toward the areas above.
Alignment with Strategic Plan: Work to develop an Early Childhood Action Plan aligns most closely with Goal 1 (Community Empowerment and Enrichment), Objective 1.1 (Education: Provide and support learning and enrichment opportunities that support educational achievement and life success) and Objective 1.3 (Family Success: Support and provide programs, services and systems which improve life skills and increase family success and prosperity, and; Goal 2 (Health and Wellbeing for All), Objective 2.3 (Healthy Children and Youth: Support the optimal growth and development of children and youth)
Resource Persons: Cate Elander, Durham County Early Childhood Coordinator; David Reese, Durham Children’s Initiative; Bonnie DeLaune, Durham Children’s Initiative
County Manager’s Recommendation: The County Manager recommends that the Board receive and consider these funding recommendations that are emerging from the planning effort toward a Durham County Early Childhood Action Plan (ECAP).
Signature
County Manager: ____________________________