SmartStart grant will help children
What helps you cope and get through hard times? How do you face life’s challenges, adversities, and crises? The ability to be resilient in times of stress, adversity, failure, challenges, or even trauma is a skill that not everyone has. Studies have found that 45% of NC children have experienced one or more adverse childhood experiences and only 57% of adults studied exhibited strong resiliency.
Blue Ridge Partnership for Children is launching a regional resilience initiative. Recognizing the needs of our communities, a Western North Carolina Regional Collaborative will focus on early relational health and resiliency building. The program is being supported by funding from the Dogwood Health Trust.
“Dogwood Health Trust’s support is transformative for our region,” said Jennifer Simpson, Executive Director of the Blue Ridge Partnership for Children. “As the Smart Start agency serving Avery, Mitchell and Yancey counties, we’ll be joining with other partners to provide positive early childhood experiences. Our goal is to build resilience skills, giving our youngest children the ability to cope with challenges they may face over a lifetime. We are grateful for Dogwood’s commitment to help us create a resilient Western North Carolina.”
Services of the initiative will focus on building resilience in children 0-5 and their caretakers. Resilience helps children not only deal with current difficulties that are a part of everyday life, but also to develop the basic skills and habits that will help them deal with challenges later in life, during adolescence and adulthood. This initiative will span 18 counties over a three-year period and provide support with the end goal of creating more trauma responsive communities.
“We were impressed with the regional Smart Start collaborations and the work they have done together to plan for and develop this regional approach,” said Dr. Susan Mims, Interim CEO of Dogwood Health Trust. “Helping build resiliency for children, families, and communities will be a key part of our work moving forward, and research tells us that starting in the earliest years of life is critical to health and wellness throughout our lives. We look forward to seeing the outcomes from this work as the opportunities for children and families to engage in building resilience continue to grow.”
Smart Start agencies have been serving families with young children for over 25 years and represent all 100 counties in the state. Smart Start organizations are private, non-profit agencies that support, educate and advocate to build a strong foundation for young children in their communities. Smart Starts work with service providers, early childhood educators, families, and communities to ensure high quality, effective implementation of programs to support young children and their families.
Dogwood Health Trust is a private foundation based in Asheville, North Carolina with the sole purpose of dramatically improving the health and well-being of all people and communities of 18 counties and the Qualla Boundary in Western North Carolina.