Children’s Home Society has been selected to be the lead implementing organization for a Guilford County-wide Community Navigation program to work with expectant parents and parents of children birth to age 3 to connect them with resources that support healthy family relationships and early child development.
A team of Community Navigators is being hired to work at obstetrician offices and other community sites to meet with and listen to families, conduct assessments to clarify family needs when appropriate, and provide connections to resources. CHS is also partnering with other organizations to coordinate delivery of Navigation across programs to support the important relationships families have with their obstetricians.
This work is being done as part of Ready for School, Ready for Life (Ready Ready). Ready Ready is working to create systems change for young children in Guilford County by helping connect services and scale effective programs to meet all the needs in the community.
The CHS HealthySteps program is also part of our early work in collaboration with Ready Ready. HealthySteps provides parent education in Guilford County pediatric practices to help parents learn strategies to promote healthy development and growth.
Much of this work is supported by the Duke Endowment, which is funding and involved in developing this innovative approach to early childhood development. This collaboration is exploring how a community-wide, coordinated effort can create lasting community-level change.
“The Community Navigation Program is just one way we are collaborating to provide innovative support to families,” said Rebecca Starnes, CHS Vice President of Programs. “This program identifies what services families need, what is available and how it is accessed, and how to connect families to these services, all in an effort to keep families healthy and thriving to support early child development.”
