Publications and ProductsYou may purchase the following publications by check or purchase order by downloading the order form below and returning it with your payment. Download Order Form (MS Word)We offer several free publications. Shipping/handling fees are not applied when ordering free publications. One free publication to a customer. If you wish to pay for your order with a credit card visit our online store. Thank you! |
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Child Care & Parent Productivity: Making the Business Case
Not available for purchase. |
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Economic Development Strategiesto Promote Quality Child Care
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Smart Start Briefing Materials (3-ring Binder)
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Economic Impact of the Child Care Industry in North Carolina
Both the Full Report and Executive Summary are available. Free online version of Executive Summary - Full Report |
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Success Stories: State Investment in Early Care and Education in Illinois, North Carolina and Rhode Island
Click here to order your hardcopy Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership |
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Smart Start in Action: Stories of Success from Three Communities
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Written by Karen Shellenback and published in December 2004, this publication is a collaboration between Smart Start's National Technical Assistance Center and Cornell University's Linking Economic Development and Child Care Project.
Written by Mildred Warner, Ph.D., Shira Adriance, Nikita Barai, Jenna Hallas, Bjorn Markeson, Taryn Morrisey, and Wendy Soref in 2004. This publication is a collaboration between Smart Start's National Technical Assistance Center and Cornell University's Linking Economic Development and Child Care Project.
This notebook includes detailed information on North Carolina's Smart Start Initiative including background information, governing structure, funding allocation formula, evaluation, the original authorizing and most recent legislation related to Smart Start, and information on such integral programs as T.E.A.C.H., More at Four, and the 5-star child care licensing system.
The child care industry is vital to the economy of North Carolina. Learn how it is making a difference to the state from a study that was undertaken in 2004 by the National Economic Development & Law Center. 
Read the strategies, successes and lessons learned in three states that have been very successful in securing significant public investment in early childhood.
Read the stories of how three very different communities in North Carolina developed comprehensive early childhood initiatives, what they learned along the way, and the tips they have to share with those who are doing similar work in their own regions.Available online with a National Smart Net membership: |
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Getting Started: How Smart Start Began
Provides an "up-close and personal" look at how Smart Start first began - when it was a gleam in the eye of Governor Jim Hunt and an almost impossible dream for the early childhood community.
What is Smart Start?
Provides a detailed description of the mechanics of Smart Start, its structure at the state and local level, examples of Smart Start programs, financing, the business community support, and its vision for the future. It is an excellent complement to Getting Started: How Smart Start Began.
Parent Resource Guide - English Version
This handy guide for parents provides key points to remember through the different phases of a young child's life from birth through age five as well as handy parenting tips, information on finding quality child care, and local resource information. For National Smart Net members, you may also access the template for this guide and adapt it for use in your own community or state.
Free online version or Click here to order your hardcopy, North Carolina residents may order one free hardcopy by calling 1-800-367-2229
Parent Resource Guide - Spanish Version
Same as above in Spanish.
Click here to order your hardcopy. North Carolina residents may order one free hardcopy by calling 1-800-367-2229
NC School Readiness Task Force Report
In FY 2000, North Carolina established a "Ready For School Goal Team" to answer the questions, "What does it mean for children to be ready for school?" and "What does it mean for schools to be ready for children?" This report is the result of that team's work and is now used as the statewide criteria for determining what "ready" children and "ready" schools should look like in North Carolina. While this report focuses on North Carolina, it is an excellent model for states and communities around the country to utilize in developing their own assessments of school readiness.
Free online version of the Executive Summary and Full Report
North Carolina's Kindergartners & Schools: Report on the School Readiness Pilot Assessment
An excellent companion to the NC School Readiness Task Force Report, providing a summary of the findings from the Fall 2000 North Carolina School Readiness Assessment. This was the first pilot study conducted under the guidelines established by the NC School Readiness Task Force.
Free online version of the Executive Summary and Full Report
Click here to order your hardcopy, one copy per customer
Children's Outdoor Environments: A Guide to Play and Learning
Children's Outdoor EnvironmentsThe Guide to Outdoor Play and Learning has been written to provide a tool for assisting in the development of outdoor environments in child care programs. This tool is designed to be useful to: a) local Partnerships as they design initiatives to improve the quality of child care programs, b) Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies and other agencies and organizations as they provide technical assistance to child care providers, and c) child care program directors and other professionals working with child care to address outdoor learning.
The Guide to Outdoor Play and Learning demonstrates the importance of developing the outdoor environment through addressing the needs of children and the needs of caregivers outdoors. It will provide ideas for activities to consider, and tactics for developing strategies in local communities to address these needs. It will also provide resources and ideas for locating other useful resources nationally, state-wide and in the community.
North Carolina residents may view a free online version - contact Gerry Cobb
Toolkit
A collection of resources organized into seven broad topic areas to inform decisions that lead to quality programs and sound organizations within an early childhood initiative. While targeted to the Smart Start Initiative, the information contained in each section would be helpful to anyone who is involved in any of these program areas. Each unit contains examples of things to consider, lessons learned, and steps to take when planning and delivering similar programs. It also includes actual examples of promising practices and the contact information on each of the examples should you have follow-up questions. Topic areas are:
- Child care (includes 2 notebooks)
- Evaluation
- Family support and involvement
- Fiscal and contracts management
- Health support
- Needs and resources assessment
- Planning.
Financing Early Care and Education in North Carolina
Financing Early Care and EducationsThis user-friendly manual provides an overview of the various approaches to child care financing, the current sources of financial support for early care and education in North Carolina and other parts of the United States, and new thinking on the financing of early care and education. Charts and graphs and concrete examples are provided as part of the manual.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Sharing the Stories - Lessons Learned from 5 Years of Smart Start
Written by two executive directors of local Smart Start partnerships who "learned the lessons" along with many others as Smart Start was first being implemented. An engaging and personal view of Smart Start, the authors share what worked and what did not along with the stories gathered along the way from other Smart Start pioneers.
Click here to order your free hardcopy, one copy per customer
Sharing the Stories - Lessons Learned from 10 Years of Smart Start
Following the widespread acclaim of their first publication on Smart Start, two current and former executive directors of local Smart Start partnerships have written a second book based on their 10-year perspective on Smart Start from the local level. Again what makes this latest edition so helpful is the unique stories shared by other staff and volunteers that have been a part of the initiative over the past decade.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Effective Practices - What it Takes to Support School Readiness: Building Collaborative Partnerships
This brochure provides useful information on the many factors that impact children's readiness for school. It is intended to help collaborative groups work together more effectively to promote children's readiness.
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Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Effective Practices - Kindergarten Transitions: How Pre-K Teachers Can Help
This brochure will increase the early childhood educator's understanding of transitions to school and consider the steps teachers can take to improve children's transitions.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Effective Practices - School Readiness: Starting Your Child Off Right
If parents have a child entering kindergarten soon they may have questions about how to help their child become prepared for school success. This is a brochure that gives parents ideas on how to help their child be successful in school and what to expect when school starts. Many schools use this as part of their Kindergarten transition program
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Preparación De La Escuela: Comenzando A Su Niño En El Paso Correcto
Preparación De La Escuela: Comenzando A Su Niño En El Paso Correcto
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Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Effective Practices: Creating a Successful Child Care Substitute Program
An excellent overview of child care substitute programs, why they are so needed, the different models that can be developed and the appropriate evaluation standards for such a program. While this publication focuses on North Carolina's programs, this information is relevant to anyone who is trying to develop a child care substitute program, regardless of where they live.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Early Care and Education, Program Management and Support Services: North Carolina Approaches to Sustain Quality
Running a child care business includes many different functions. Learn of examples in North Carolina of programs that use a variety of collective management approaches to support some of these functions. Such approaches can improve quality as well as creating economies of scale.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Effective Strategies for Integrating Family Support into Early Care and Education
Research has firmly established that children perform better when their parents are involved in their early education. Learn of several examples of effective practice from across the U.S. that have successfully integrated family supportive programs, services and principles into the early care and education system.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Early Childhood Leadership Development: Programs, Challenges and Lessons Learned
This paper profiles a variety of early childhood leadership development programs, identifying their common characteristics and discussing challenges and lessons learned.
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Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Developing Effective Child Care Business Management Training Programs
Learn about the many innovative programs designed to teach business and management skills in the child care industry.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Family Support and School Readiness: The Connection
This paper profiles a variety of family support programs and makes the link between family support and a child's
readiness for school.
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Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Developing and Promoting Professionalism in in the Early Care & Education Field
Learn strategies that child care directors, trainers and planners can use to develop and promote professionalism in the child care workplace.
Not available for purchase
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Quality Enhancement: Staffing for a Strong System
Effective staff is critical to the success of a child care quality enhancement program. Learn the essential skills necessary for such staff and examples of how they have been best utilized in quality enhancement programs in North Carolina and other areas of the United States.
Not available for purchase.
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Effective Practices: Family Resource Centers - Strategies to Empower Families
Effective Practices: Family Resource CentersThis report is a concise, user-friendly guide which provides the principles for a strong family support program and excellent examples of successful family resource center models. Each example includes contact information for who to talk to about developing each of those models.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Effective Practices: Early Intervention Services - a Masterpiece of Collaboration
North Carolina has a rich history of statewide, regional, and local collaborative efforts to help meet the needs of young children and their families. Collaboration between local Smart Start partnerships and the Local Interagency Coordinating Council (LICC) is even more imperative in the current climate of budget shortfalls and performance-based evaluations. Funds are limited and must be used for priority needs with no duplication of services. Smart Start standards for Early Care and Education, Health, and Family Support apply to ALL children and families. Every child and his or her family may at some time need access to child care, parent education/support, and health services. North Carolina children and families deserve QUALITY services and supports when they have these needs.
Not available for purchase
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Effective Practices: Quality Enhancement - An Overview
Effective PracticesThis brochure will help local communities consider the most effective strategies in designing and implementing programs that improve the quality of child care. None of these suggestions is a "quick fix" or inexpensive. Communmities must be willing to commit time and resources to develop learning environments, an educated and reasonable compensated workforce, and high social expectations for quality care to produce the best early care and education possible for our young children.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Effective Practices: Family Support - A Solid Foundation for Children
This paper is designed to help local communities gain a better understanding of family support as foundational to the lives of children and their families, and as essential to effective program planning. Family support in action and theory should be imbedded throughout ALL services and the organizations that provide services to children and their families. This paper can help serve as a guide to 1) provide a better understanding of family support, family support principles and their implementation in all core service areas 2) the benefits of and mandates around family support and 3) generate and promote dialogue and discussion around the importance of family support.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Effective Practices: The Medical Home - Every Child Deserves One!
Health is a cornerstone of development, particularly in young children. For this reason, the health benefits of children should be one of the principal goals of a comprehensive early childhood initiative. The objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of what a medical home is and its importance to the overall health of children. Community strategies are included to help promote a medical home for every child.
Not Available for purchase
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Outreach and Advocacy Guide with accompanying CD
This handy guide and CD are filled with resources and samples on outreach, public and media relations. From the "how to" pages to the actual examples of newsletters, press releases and promotional materials, it tells you everything you need to know in promoting your early childhood initiative.
Smart Start Evaluation Notebook
A compilation of ideas and materials that have been developed about Smart Start evaluation at the local level. It is meant to serve as a reference and provide a central collection of information related to the Smart Start evaluation process.
Video - What is Smart Start?
This VHS video can be used at meetings and other events where you may be trying to build support for your own early childhood initiative or for information that will help you in developing a program. 7 minutes.
Measuring the Regional Economic Importance of Early Care and Education: The Cornell Methodology Guide
This guide is part of the larger Cornell University Linking Economic Development and Child Care Research Project and is designed to help study teams answer basic questions about how to conduct a regional economic analysis of the child care sector.
Click here to order your hardcopy, one copy per customer
Available online with a National Smart Net membership - How to get a membership
Collective Management of Early Childhood Programs
Collective management of early childhood programs offers multiple benefits for participating programs. This publication shares 17 examples from across the U.S. of collective management among child care centers, homes and support services as well as lessons learned from taking such an approach.
Click here to order your hardcopy
Available online with a National Smart.Net membership - How to get a membership
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