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The North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM), in collaboration with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), released recommendations to promote positive childhood experiences (PCEs) in a report designed to serve as a blueprint for policymakers, stakeholders, and community leaders.
According to a press release, “Building Resilience and Promoting Well-being: An Updated Action Plan for North Carolina’s Children and Families” outlines 15 recommendations and 43 accompanying strategies “designed to strengthen systems, promote early intervention, and ensure safe, stable, and nurturing environments for children across the state.”
The report was authored by the NCIOM’s Task Force on Essentials for Childhood Update Committee and incorporates the CDC’s Essentials for Childhood framework.
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PCEs are experiences children have that foster safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments that promote child brain development and positive health outcomes. Historically, the report says, strategies to address children’s needs have taken a deficit-oriented approach. By emphasizing PCEs, the report says, stakeholders can instead “create more comprehensive strategies that build upon positive factors and protective elements to help children thrive.”
The first 11 recommendations are organized by chapter into four policy areas: Social norms, economic mobility and financial stability, child care, and mental and behavioral health.
Collaboration across public, private, and nonprofit organizations is a key tool underscored by many of the recommendations and strategies. According to the report, “the alignment of partners throughout North Carolina is integral to the successful implementation of recommendations.”
Designed to help readers identify and align similar work being done across the state, each recommendation contains an “Alignment across North Carolina” section where readers can learn about specific organizations actively working on strategies outlined in the report.
For example, one of the report’s strategies for their 11th recommendation — to establish guidelines for primary care clinicians to expand screening for social and emotional risk factors — is for the North Carolina General Assembly to provide additional funding for school-based health centers.
Typically run through partnerships between schools, local health departments, hospitals, federally qualified health centers, and community-based organizations, school-based health centers are health clinics located near or in schools that provide students with comprehensive services, often including behavioral health. These collaborations have provided over 30,000 students in North Carolina with health care and are designed to reduce absenteeism and health disparities.
According to the report, the amount of funding allocated to these centers has not increased in 25 years despite their growth in numbers.
Another example of recommended collaborations, this one related to economic mobility and financial stability, is the report’s sixth recommendation: for the North Carolina Division of Child Development and Early Education, North Carolina Partnership for Children/Smart Start, MomsRising NC, and the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation to “lead a coordinated effort to convene leaders and employers across sectors to identify specific actions toward establishing concrete family-friendly workplace policies.”
A strategy under this recommendation specific to schools is to work with NCDHHS and child care to create these family-friendly school environments. More specifically, a suggestion is for school leadership to use data from DPI’s Teacher Working Conditions survey to examine how school environments successfully support teacher wellbeing and retention.
Recommendations related to child care also include enhancing the state’s child care subsidy program to address long waitlists that limit the number of eligible families receiving care and to increase child care workforce salaries. You can read more about these issues in EdNC’s early care and learning coverage.
“This update report reflects the strong foundation that North Carolina is building upon to strengthen the understanding about what families need for children to thrive, to create a strong infrastructure and data systems, and to support the workforce to create a strong ecosystem of support for families so that children can thrive with positive experiences and hope for the future,” said Sharon Hirsch, president of the Positive Childhood Alliance and co-chair of the Update Committee, in the press release.
You can find the downloadable report, including a summary of each chapter and recommendation, on the NCIOM’s publication page.
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