Become an Outreach Partner
Community outreach and engagement is an essential component of Wake County Smart Start.
WCSS Outreach work includes:
- Building partnerships with community leaders
- Raising awareness around early education
- Tabling/presenting at community events
- Connecting families to programs and services
Additional goals:
- Educating the community about our programs
- Sharing resource information
- Working together with the community to identify needs and solutions
- Create a space for feedback and discussion
Below, find two ways to get involved:
Kid Connect Workshop*
(Lunch & Learns, Community Tours)
*Recommended for Community Members NEW to WCSS
The Kid Connect workshop is a community education effort designed for community/faith leaders, parent leaders, agencies and organizations from around Wake County to learn more about Wake County Smart Start and our in-house programs. The goal of the work is to strengthen the capacity of our community to link more children, ages birth-5, and their families to FREE Wake County Smart Start programs and resources. The Kid Connect education effort can be delivered as a Scalable Workshop, a Lunch & Learn, or a Community Tour.
Workshops will cover:
- Identifying major information hubs across the Early Education landscape and how to access them. ·
- How to find quality child care
- Transition to kindergarten programs
- Who to contact about child development or behavior concerns
- Support for new parents, caregivers, and pregnant women
- Programs to promote early literacy skills and encourage reading
- We can also provide the workshops in Spanish.
Workshops include:
- Toolkits for early childhood resource linkage specific to participants’ regions of Wake County. It includes:
- resource materials
- contact persons for programs/services
- tools for planning outreach with families in their community
Kid Connect Tours
- New addition to the Kid Connect series
- 3rd Friday of every month at the WCSS office
- Tour our newly renovated office space
- Q&A with WCSS programmatic staff.
- Tours will cover:
- An Overview of Wake County Smart Start
- The Wake Pre-K Application Process
- NC Pre-K Program
- WakeThreeSchool Program
- Wake Connections: Home-based programs and services
- Family Navigation Work
- WCSS Funded Activity Process
Workshops can be delivered in-person or virtually and will accommodate time limits and participant group size.
Request a FREE Kid Connect workshop or tour today!
For more information, email outreach@wakesmartstart.org
How to Become an Outreach Partner*
*Recommended (not required) for Community Members Who Previously Participated in Kid Connect
WCSS welcomes the opportunity to partner with the community. Here are a few ways that we can work together:
- Do you know young children that could benefit from an early education program?
- Help us identify and/or refer unserved children in your community.
- Are you interested in sharing your thoughts and opinions?
- Volunteer to provide input regarding community needs or resources in a research project.
- Are you a small nonprofit, grassroots organization, faith institutions, or community group? Are you on social media? Do you interact with families on a daily, weekly or monthly basis?
- Share WCSS and community resources information with your community or families or across your information platforms.
- Are you interested in volunteering your time
- Participate in an early childhood committee, focus group or work group.
- Are you a speaker or would you like to facilitate meetings?
- Participate in planning and/or delivery of a community capacity building workshop.
- Do you hold an annual conference or convention?
- Host a forum, educational event or training in partnership with WCSS.
- Connect WCSS to other community stakeholders
For more information, email outreach@wakesmartstart.org.
Featured Community Outreach Partner
YMCA
The YMCA works closely with Wake County Smart Start’s Outreach team to bring program and resource access to families with children, birth-5. Through this partnership, the YMCA has participated in the Kid Connect Community Tour, invited WCSS to community events, and introduced WCSS to other community stakeholders. We value and thank them for their partnership.
Raleigh Firebirds
“My team and I have learned a lot about early education through our partnership with Wake County Smart Start. The community has welcomed their information at our home game and radio discussion about programs and services.”