Essentials for Childhood Backbone Organization

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Essentials for Childhood Backbone Organization

The Division of Public Health, under the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, has been funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop and implement a public health framework for child maltreatment prevention since 2013. As a partner in this initiative, the North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) convened the Task Force on Essentials for Childhood in 2014 – 2015, which issued recommendations to stakeholders in four areas with the goal of ensuring safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and environments to strengthen families and prevent child maltreatment. Since 2016, the NCIOM has served as the backbone organization to support the implementation of the 2015 task force recommendations by coordinating aligned work across subcontractors/partners, convening a series of workgroups, and participating in several other statewide initiatives to ensure that the recommendations are included in new and ongoing work.

In 2019, the North Carolina Essentials for Childhood project announced a new focus on strategies addressing social norms change and economic supports for families (specifically centered around family-friendly workplace policies). North Carolina Essentials for Childhood remains committed to these strategies in Year 4 of 5 of the project, which started in September 2021, and working with subcontractors/partners invested in equity and addressing health disparities, data development and accessibility, and the inclusion of people with lived experience in processes and activities.

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Description

The Division of Public Health, under the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, has been funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop and implement a public health framework for child maltreatment prevention since 2013. As a partner in this initiative, the North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) convened the Task Force on Essentials for Childhood in 2014 – 2015, which issued recommendations to stakeholders in four areas with the goal of ensuring safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and environments to strengthen families and prevent child maltreatment. Since 2016, the NCIOM has served as the backbone organization to support the implementation of the 2015 task force recommendations by coordinating aligned work across subcontractors/partners, convening a series of workgroups, and participating in several other statewide initiatives to ensure that the recommendations are included in new and ongoing work. Starting in the fall of 2019, under the guidance of state child health and well-being experts, the North Carolina Essentials for Childhood initiative narrowed its strategic focus to meet two aims outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

Changing social norms to prevent child maltreatment. North Carolina Essentials for Childhood is providing funding support to Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina’s awareness campaign, “Connections Matter.” Through a series of training modules, promotional strategies, and personal stories, the Connections Matter initiative aims to emphasize the importance of family and community relationships in building resilience for children impacted by trauma and other adverse childhood experiences.

Strengthening economic supports for families. North Carolina Essentials for Childhood is providing funding support to partner organizations engaged in ongoing work around the promotion and implementation of family-friendly workplace policies:

The North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation’s Family Forward NC (FFNC) initiative, which is focused on improving children’s health and well-being and keeping North Carolina’s businesses competitive. Business-led change to increase access to research-based family-friendly practices improves recruitment and retention and workplace productivity, while growing a strong economy that supports children’s healthy development. Through the FFNC initiative, the North Carolina Early Childhood Foundation educates and engages employers about the value of providing family-friendly workplace benefits and moves employers to add new family-friendly benefits to their workplaces. In August 2020, the FFNC initiative launched the COVID-19 Rapid Response Program, which provides free access to experts in human resources to assist employers in identifying industry-appropriate, family-friendly workplace benefits, while also helping employers and working families to build resilience during and after the pandemic.
MomsRising’s work to build public awareness about the benefits of paid leave policies, and increase community capacity for implementation at the local level. MomsRising is working to engage community-level stakeholders, provide technical assistance to local governments, and coordinate storytelling campaigns and media toolkits for community partners. Throughout the pandemic, MomsRising has continued to advocate for paid sick leave, kin care, and safe days, partnered with FFNC and other organizations on a survey to assess family-friendly workplace policies in local government, and engaged with state and local legislators.
NC Child’s work to create an interactive data resource and provide direct technical assistance to organizations working to develop communication strategies using disaggregated data. NC Child will also conduct training webinars focused on analyzing, displaying, and communicating data that will be accessible to organizations across the state. In February 2021, the NCIOM and NC Child published the 2021 Child Health Report Card, which provides county-level data on key indicators in four areas: healthy births, access to care, secure homes, and health risk factors. The Child Health Report Card also includes current data snapshots related to children’s health and the impact of the pandemic on children and families.

In addition, NCIOM and the Division of Public Health continue to work across state agencies, with philanthropic partners, and with local organizations to promote strategies that meet the goals of Essentials for Childhood and create safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and environments for North Carolina’s children and families.

Archived Materials

2021 Request for Applications: North Carolina Essentials for Childhood Partners

Work Group Meetings

Strengthening the North Carolina Child Fatality Prevention System Stakeholder Work Group

ACEs and Opioid Misuse Prevention Work Group

Evidence-based Practices Work Group

Trauma-Informed Practices Work Group

Public Awareness & Social Norms Work Group

Newsletters

Steering Committee Meetings

Other Meetings

Essentials for Childhood and Growing Up Well Reconvening and Update Meeting

Friday, May 18, 2018

Pathways Data Gaps Analysis Meeting

Tuesday, April 18, 2018