NC Child Care Resource & Referral Council Launches New Website for NC Communities

MEDIA CONTACT
Kara Shultz
919-967-3272
karas@childcareservices.org

 

NC Child Care Resource & Referral Council launches new website to assist families, child care professionals, businesses and communities across North Carolina with essential child care services and support.

Chapel Hill, N.C., April 26, 2022: The North Carolina Child Care Resource & Referral Council (NC CCR&R Council) is excited to launch its new website (childcarerrnc.org) as a resource to provide child care guidance for families, support for child care professionals and solutions for businesses, policymakers and communities across North Carolina.

North Carolina’s Child Care Resource & Referral (CCR&R) system is a national model for high performance, achieved by maintaining strong standards and accountability for outputs and outcomes and evaluated each year through an annual review. CCR&R programs have provided essential services in North Carolina for more than 40 years.

CCR&R agencies facilitate essential child care services and support for families, child care professionals and businesses. CCR&R agencies:

• Help families find the early care, education and school-age child care options that best suit their needs
• Work directly with child care providers, businesses and communities to improve the quality and variety of child care services through:
  • Consumer education and referral
  • Professional development
  • Technical assistance
  • Data collection and analysis
  • Public awareness
• Provide information and data to public and private sectors for planning and policy development

For more than 20 years, the NC CCR&R Council has organized the CCR&R system into 14 regional lead agencies and 62 local agencies to provide consistency to these essential services across the state. The NC CCR&R Council partners with the North Carolina Division of Child Development and Early Education and is composed of dedicated teams from three Council Management Agencies — Child Care Resources Inc., Child Care Services Association and Southwestern Child Development Commission.

The NC CCR&R Council Management Team worked with 3Lane Marketing, a female-owned boutique marketing company, and Child Care Services Association’s communications and information technology staff to launch the new website.

Learn more about the NC CCR&R Council and find out how CCR&R agencies impact our state.

North Carolina Child Care Resource & Referral Council
For more than 40 years, Child Care Resource & Referral (CCR&R) programs have assisted families, child care professionals, businesses and communities across North Carolina with essential child care services and support. For more than 20 years, the North Carolina Child Care Resource & Referral Council (NC CCR&R Council) has organized the CCR&R system into 14 regional lead agencies and 62 local agencies to provide consistency to these essential services in North Carolina. The NC CCR&R Council partners with the North Carolina Division of Child Development and Early Education and is composed of dedicated teams from three Council Management Agencies — Child Care Resources Inc., Child Care Services Association and Southwestern Child Development Commission — to achieve its vision for North Carolina’s CCR&R system to be nationally recognized as an essential and highly effective statewide deliverer of research-based and data-driven services that enable families, practitioners and communities to recognize, support and access high quality, affordable, child and family-centered early care and education and school-age child care services. For more information, visit childcarerrnc.org.

Child Care Resources Inc.
Child Care Resources Inc. (CCRI), a private non-profit, 501(c)(3) child care resource and referral (CCR&R) agency founded in 1982, was established as a result of a community planning process initiated and commissioned by the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners to improve and expand the county’s child care services. The agency was the county’s first partnership to privatize government services (it now administers child care subsidy funds), was among the first CCR&Rs in the state and has provided high quality CCR&R services to Mecklenburg, Cabarrus and Union Counties’ children, families, early care and education and school-age child care programs since its founding. CCRI works with families, early care and education and school-age child care professionals/programs and communities to ensure that all children have access to high quality, affordable early learning and school-age opportunities and experiences which enable them to succeed in school and in life. CCRI was the first nationally certified CCR&R agency and first IACET approved CCR&R agency in N.C., and currently serves as lead agency for Region 6 (Mecklenburg, Cabarrus, Union, Rowan and Stanly Counties) with Child Care Development Funds received from NCDCDEE. Governed by a 25-member Board of Directors, the organization has a long record of sound fiscal management practices, evidenced by annual audit reports. CCRI is a founding partner of the NC CCR&R, in partnership with CCSA in Chapel Hill and SWCDC in Waynesville. CCRI is based in Charlotte. For more information, visit childcareresourcesinc.org.

Child Care Services Association
Founded in 1974, the mission of Child Care Services Association (CCSA) is to lead efforts to strengthen accessible and affordable quality early care and education by providing supports for families, communities and the workforce. To that end, CCSA provides free child care referral services to families, financial assistance to low-income families seeking child care and professional development and technical assistance to child care programs. Through spoonFULL, CCSA also provides nutritious meals to children at child care centers, where they may eat 50-100 percent of their meals. Throughout North Carolina, educational scholarships from CCSA’s T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® Scholarship Program give child care professionals the means to obtain a debt-free education, while CCSA’s Child Care WAGE$® and Infant-Toddler Educator AWARD$® programs supplement their meager salary. CCSA also licenses T.E.A.C.H. and WAGE$ across the U.S. through the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood® National Center at CCSA and conducts early childhood systems and homelessness research and policy development statewide and nationally. CCSA is a founding partner of the NC CCR&R, in partnership with CCRI in Charlotte and SWCDC in Waynesville. CCSA is based in Chapel Hill and Durham. For more information, visit childcareservices.org.

Southwestern Child Development Commission
Southwestern Child Development Commission, (SWCDC) is a private non-profit organization, located in Jackson County. SWCDC serves directly the seven western counties of North Carolina (Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Haywood, Macon and Swain Counties) and the Qualla Indian Boundary. SWCDC also provides other early childhood education services to an additional eleven western N.C. counties. SWCDC is a founding partner of the NC CCR&R, in partnership with CCRI in Charlotte and CCSA in Chapel Hill. SDCDC operates directly and contracts for services for the NC Child Care Subsidy Program, serving approximately 4,000 children per day. SWCDC is the Child Care Subsidy Administrator for 10 counties in western N.C. through the local County Department of Social Services and Smart Start. SWDCD operates the Nurse Family Partnership in Haywood, Jackson, Macon and Swain Counties. SWCDC also operates a variety of other early childhood education programs, such as a Family Resource Center in Jackson County, providing bilingual services and parenting programs. Sheila Hoyle has served as Executive Director of SWCDC since 1987. Sheila and members of the leadership team serve in many regional and statewide positions, bringing knowledge and guidance to early childhood education projects in N.C. and always advocating for the rural voice in program implementation and funding. For more information, visit swcdcinc.org.