BOH agenda 022416 - Laserfiche WebLink

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GOAL 1: Children are healthy and prepared for school. Why does this matter? Making sure children are healthy and well - prepared for school is more than packing their backpacks and lunches the first day of school. It means ensuring that children have strong, stable relationships with adult caregivers, receive recommended routine health check -ups, are screened to ensure physical and emotional development is on track, and have access to high - quality childcare and early childhood experiences. ZONE 4 The most common issues in Zone 4 related to Goal 1 were affordable, quality childcare and school readiness. Childcare Community members and service providers indicated childcare is too School readiness Readiness was a high priority for Zone 4 community members. Parents expensive and there are too few licensed childcare providers in the zone. the zone, promoting early literacy in the home, and for parent education Of the 57 survey respondents from Zone 4, over half disagreed or strongly Community Priority disagreed that, "This neighborhood has good resources for parents, like good Community Priority Rating childcare that is affordable." Quality, affordable childcare also received the Needsarenotmet second highest number of votes (23) from Zone 4 survey respondents about the top three programs that are missingfor children in the zone. QLack of childcare at programs or events was also discussed as a reason parents Availability /Accessibility do not utilize existing resources because "...by the time [a parent] gets Rating their child to preschool, and then travels an hour to a location on public Needs are not met transportation, they can't be there for the whole class because they have to spend another hour going back. So, there seems to be a lack of childcare that they could then extend their time, or to take part in some other offerings, whether it's ESL, or a parenting class." (Zone 4 Provider) School readiness Readiness was a high priority for Zone 4 community members. Parents 4 Ar C Ar expressed support for expanding pre- kindergarten (pre -k) enrollment in the zone, promoting early literacy in the home, and for parent education classes and developmental screenings. Teachers and service providers also Community Priority Rating discussed that they see children arriving at school with academic deficits and Needsarenotmet are then playing catch -up. There are existing, quality preschool programs in and around Zone 4, like NC Pre -K at New Hope Elementary and Orange County Head Start /Early Head start in Fairview, but many respondents Availability /Accessibility discussed challenges to enrolling and staying enrolled, like not knowing about Rating Needs partially met the resources, lack of reliable transportation, and childcare that is not full day or year- round. 4 Ar C Ar