Smart Start

Smart Start-funded programs work together to ensure that every child in North Carolina has the opportunity to thrive, beginning with a healthy birth and continuing through the earliest years of development. By investing in high-quality child care and early education, supporting families and caregivers, promoting early literacy, and improving children’s health and well-being, these programs help children build the skills and confidence they need to succeed in school and life. Through partnerships with families, educators, health care providers, and community organizations, Smart Start brings people and resources together to address local needs, strengthen the early childhood system, and create lasting, positive outcomes for children and families.

Please use the navigation tabs on the left to investigate Chatham’s Smart Start funded programming!

Helping Fathers be their Best

Focus on Fathers – Chatham County Public Health Department. This program gives fathers the opportunity to increase their knowledge of parenting, child development, and children’s health issues, while assisting fathers in attaining their employment and educational goals. Program participants take part in discussion groups, workshops, home visits and regularly scheduled family outings.

Providing for the Needs of Families

Family Resource Center – The Family Resource Center connects Chatham County families with resources, information, and support to help children thrive. Through services such as family navigation, child care referrals, and access to essential supplies like diapers and maternal and pediatric items, the center helps families meet their basic needs, navigate community resources, and build a strong foundation for their children’s healthy development.

Engaging Families in Early Literacy

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library – This program promotes early literacy by providing free, age-appropriate books each month to children from birth until their fifth birthday. By encouraging families to read together from an early age, the program helps build children’s language, literacy, and school-readiness skills while fostering a lifelong love of reading.

Supporting Early Childhood Educators

Workforce Development– Workforce Development works to assist families, child care professionals, businesses, and communities in Chatham County with essential child care services and support. This program supports existing child care educators and administrators, provides start-up assistance for individuals interested in opening child care programs, and works with community partners to recruit, train, and develop new child care educators.

Ensuring Access to Health Services

Child Care Health Consultant–Chatham County Public Health Department.  The Child Care Health Consultation Program (CCHC) has been bringing health education to Chatham County’s child care facilities since 1995. The CCHC is staffed by a public health educator who helps child care providers develop and improve health, safety, and nutrition practices. A major goal for the Partnership is for each family to have an identified health provider, the CCHC helps connect children with a doctor and with other health resources when needed.

Ensuring Access to Child Care

Quality Subsidy Family Services – Chatham County Department of Social Services – Jennifer Yancey 919-542-2759
Provides child care subsidies for families who qualify on the basis of income and need. Family counselors assist families with finding and choosing child care.