As Week of the Young Child comes to an end, we’d like to show our appreciation for the support from our local government and community leaders. Both the Durham City Council and the Durham County Board of County Commissioners recognized this annual celebration with a Proclamation.
We have extraordinary support at both the City and County government levels. Our collaborations and mutual accountability run deep – from distribution of public dollars, to partnerships and initiatives, to Board and Committee membership. Our local government’s work in addressing the needs of Durham’s residents helps to guide our work and makes a difference in the lives of children.We are Durham’s Partnership. We are Durham’s Smart Start agency. We are the only Partnership in the state with an apostrophe in our name. We don’t just operate in Durham, we belong to Durham. It is our job to respond to community needs for all of Durham’s 23,000 young children.
It is our wish that all children birth to five in Durham will benefit from our programs, and that we can continue to serve the children and families who have the most obstacles to school readiness to overcome – namely, poverty. With a shared attention to eradicating poverty from our local leaders, we can unite around strategies that buffer children from the impact of toxic stress, we can expand access to high-quality child care, we can support parents as their children’s first and most important teachers, we can optimize health and wellbeing for young children by fighting obesity and improving dental health, and we can move forward with our vision for expanding pre-k.
Both Week of the Young Child Proclamations recognize that “early years are learning years,” and that the ages of birth to 5 build the foundation for success in school and life. There are only 2,000 days between the day a child is born and the time that he or she enters kindergarten, and support from our community and local leaders makes all the difference during those first 2,000 days. Thank you for celebrating with us!
L-R: Dinah Parker (Another Beautiful Beginnings), Mayor Bill Bell, Laura Benson (Durham’s Partnership for children)
