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Smart Start of Pender County

Monthly Newsletter

March 2023


WHAT'S HAPPENING

Community Partner Spotlights


April is Child Abuse Prevention Month

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Pender County

Department of Social Services

Child Protective Services


About Child Abuse and Neglect


Child Protective Services (CPS) strives to ensure safe, permanent, nurturing families for children by protecting them from abuse and neglect while attempting to preserve the family unit.

CPS helps prevent further harm to children from intentional physical or mental injury, sexual abuse, exploitation, or neglect by a person responsible for a child's health or welfare.

CPS also protects children who have no parent, guardian, or custodian to provide care and supervision, or whose parents, guardians or custodian are unable to provide care or supervision and lacks an appropriate alternative childcare arrangement.

CPS staff accomplish these services through:

  • Assessing suspected cases of abuse and neglect
  • Assisting the family in identifying the problem
  • Providing in-home counseling and supportive services to help children stay at safety home with their families.
  • Coordinating community and agency services for the family
  • Petitioning the court for removal of the child, if necessary
  • Providing public information about child abuse, neglect, and dependency



More information about procedures and rights is available at North Carolina General Statutes Chapter 7B. For additional information, please refer to “Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect in North Carolina.”


People who suspect a child is being abused or neglected should contact their local county Department of Social Services.

Pender County Department of Social Services

Address: 810 S. Walker St., Burgaw, NC 28425

P.O. Drawer 1207

State Courier #: 04-69-11

Phone: 910-259-1240

Fax Number: 910-259-1418

Emergency Phone: 910-259-1212


For more Information about Child Abuse and Neglect

click here



National Library Week 2023

April 23-29th

Theme: There's More to the Story

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The Smart Start Board of Pender County and the entire staff would like to thank the Pender County Library staff for their service to the families in Pender County. We celebrate you not only duiring National Library Week, but every day. Your story time and outreach activities bring communities together for education and fun entertainment.

Pender County Library

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Dee Smith is the youth services librarian at the Pender County Library Burgaw Branch. She started in January 2018 and is originally from White Plains, New York. Dee does storytimes and programs for children ages 6-12. She loves that being a children's librarian allows her to be creative and try out many new ideas for programming. Programming is constantly changing and there is always something to new to learn and explore.

 

Terri Strong has been with the Pender County Library in Hampstead since 2006. She is their Youth Services Associate and works mostly with children ages 0-12. Terri loves serving young library patrons and their caregivers!


For more Information

Visit Pender County Library Website


Early Intervention

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Parenting Tips for Healthy Chilld Development - click here

Enlarge click here

Enlarge click here


CHILDREN'S DEVELOPMENTAL SERVICES AGENCIES (CDSA)


3311 Burnt Mill Drive, Suite 100

Wilmington, NC 28403-2654

Phone: 910-945-6021

Fax: 910-945-6169


For more information please visit,

https://beearly.nc.gov/index.php/contact/cdsa

 

Pender County Exceptional Children's Department


https://www.pender.k12.nc.us/page/exceptional-children/


Special Education services are available for children ages 3 through 5. For more information, please call (910) 623-6009. .



 


Trainings

PROVIDER TRAININGS

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April 20th- IT’S SIDS- In Person

6:30-8:30, Cost: $10, Location: SSPC, 2 Credit Hours, Presenter: Shelly Martin

Learn the steps that can be taken to reduce the risk of SIDS. At this training, we will review the Child Care Laws and regulations written on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. This training is required by the, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Child Development and Early Education for staff working with Infants. This training needs to be renewed every 3 years. You can attend up to 6 months prior to your expiration date.


May 11th- Building Your Bounce (Providers)- Via Zoom

6:30-8:30 pm, Cost: Free, 2 Credit Hours, Presenter: Regina Bass- Corley

Building Your Bounce is a workshop designed to meet you where you are and help you focus on your own health, happiness and overall well-being. Together, we will learn about resilience and how important it is that you learn to promote your social-emotional health; how your social and emotional well-being can impact the children and families your serve, in both positive and negative ways; and specific, simple and inexpensive strategies to reduce stress and promote your social -emotional health. The Devereux Adult Resilience Survey (DARS), a self-reflective tool, will be shared to help you gain insights into your resilience. Participants are sure to leave this workshop with energy, enthusiasm, and a commitment to make a few positive changes that will lead to greater happiness, fulfillment, and that will undoubtedly resonate in the work you do every day with children, families, teams and communities! All classes are FREE to participants. This is a two-hour class.


May 18th- CPR and First Aid - In Person

6:30-8:30 pm. Cost: $40, Location: SSPC, Presenter: Lakeasha Glaspie

This training teaches early childhood educators and others how to respond to and manage illness and injuries in a child or infant during the first few minutes until professional help arrives. Class size is limited. Register here: https://www.newhanoverkids.org/community/workshops-training/cpr-first-aid-recertification-in-person-pender-county/


May 23rd- Communication and Language Development – Via Zoom

6:30-8:30 pm Cost $10, 2 Credit Hours, Presenters: Candice Dillard & Shelly Martin

From The Growing the Brain: From Birth to 5 years old, A Zero to Three Curriculum for Early Childhood Professionals.

This session will explore how communication skills develop over the first 5 years. We will learn about key milestones in language development and strategies for supporting early communication skills. (This training is free to Pender County Early Educators, call for more info.)


June 8th- Building Your Bounce (Providers) – Via Zoom

6:30-8:30 pm, Cost: Free, 2 Credit Hours, Presenter: Regina Bass- Corley

Building Your Bounce is a workshop designed to meet you where you are and help you focus on your own health, happiness and overall well-being. Together, we will learn about resilience and how important it is that you learn to promote your social-emotional health; how your social and emotional well-being can impact the children and families your serve, in both positive and negative ways; and specific, simple and inexpensive strategies to reduce stress and promote your social -emotional health. The Devereux Adult Resilience Survey (DARS), a self-reflective tool, will be shared to help you gain insights into your resilience. Participants are sure to leave this workshop with energy, enthusiasm, and a commitment to make a few positive changes that will lead to greater happiness, fulfillment, and that will undoubtedly resonate in the work you do every day with children, families, teams and communities! All classes are FREE to participants. 

 

June 21st- Go NAPSACC Orientation- Via Zoom

6:30-7:30pm, Cost: Free, 1 Credit hour, Presenter: Shelly Martin

In this session, we will introduce Go NAPSACC, explain its simple 5-step improvement process, and build comfort with its online tools. Providers will explore how to use Go NAPSACC to improve practices, policies and environments to meet best practices in these seven areas: Child nutrition, Breastfeeding & Infant feeding, Oral Health, Infant & Child Physical Activity, Outdoor Play & Learning, Screen Time, and Farm to ECE.

 

Parent Trainings

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April 13, 2023, Cost: Free, 6:30-8:30 p.m - Via Zoomt

Facilitators: Regina Bass-Corley

Part II: Building Resilience:

Part II: Building Resilience is for parents, grandparents, foster parents and support persons. Building Resilience is a three-part series divided into three separate workshops due to the volume of content to cover. All sessions will help the participants understand trauma and its effects on the body. The Part II Building Resilience class is a continuation of the Resiliency tools and strategies to help participants reset their nervous systems and reduce daily stress levels. Part II Building Resilience is an implementation of the Resilience tools and practice. Participants completing all three parts will receive a bag of Resilience incentives based on availability. Let’s build a stronger more resilient environment. Reminder: ALL three classes are FREE to Pender County residents.

 

Ways to Donate

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Join Goodsearch.com to raise funds for Smart Start of Pender County. Goodsearch donates money to your favorite cause when you search the internet, shop online or dine out at local restaurants!  Use Goodsearch.com to search the internet and they donate a penny per search to your cause. Use Goodshop.com when you shop on line and they donate a percentage of every purchase and offer over 100,000 coupons to help you save money too! Sign up for their good dining program and they will donate a percentage of your restaurant bill when you eat at any one of thousands of participating restaurants. It's really easy; it's free and turns simple everyday actions into a way to make the world a better place. Please sign up today to support Smart Start of Pender County. 

Birthday Fundraiser for Smart Start of Pender County

Join in supporting a good cause for your birthday this year. Please consider Smart Start of Pender County as your facebook nonprofit fundraising project. Your contribution will make an impact. Every little bit helps. Meta will donate $5.00 too after the first donation.

The mission of Smart Start of Pender County, Inc. is to support services that help every child to grow into his or her potential as a person. Facebook takes care of the donation processing with no fees. 

Or 

PAYPAL

Donate
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About Us

Financial information about this organization and a copy of its license are available from the State Solicitation Licensing Branch at

919-814-5400.

The license is not an endorsement by the State.

Board of Directors

Leslie Green-

Board Chair

Donald Hall - Vice Chair

Sharon Willoughby - Treasurer

Allen Phillips-Bell– Secretary

James "Jimbo" Robbins

Angela Beacham

Stacie Poulin

Rev. Dean Walker

William Marshburn

Edith Meza

S. Eugene Jordan

Sandra Sarmiento

Kimberly Trotman

Avery Ellington

                         

     If you are interested in serving on the Smart Start of Pender County Board of Directors, or volunteering with our agency, please contact our office at (910) 259-9978 or stop by and visit with us. 

SSPC Team

                    

Connie Carr-Costin, MSW

Executive Director

ccarr-costin@pender4kids.com

 Ext: 31

 

Angel Parker

Program Manager

aparker@pender4kids.com  

 Ext: 24

 

Shelly Martin

Program Manager

smartin@pender4kids.com  

 Ext: 36

 

Regina Bass-Corley, M.A.Ed

Consultant

rbasscorley@pender4kids.com  

Ext: 26

 

Candice Dillard

Consultant

rcdillard@pender4kids.com   

Ext:22 


Lisa Worley

Program Evaluator/ Coordinator

lworley@pender4kids.com

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The staff of Smart Start of Pender County would like to

thank our board members, child care providers and our local

community for investing in early care and education.

Special thank

you to Lauretta Murray and Angela Ortiz.

 

Please like us on Facebook, check us out on Pinterest, follow on Twitter and connect with our website at www.pender4kids.com

The mission of Smart Start of Pender County, Inc. is to support services that provide opportunities for every child to grow into his or her potential as a person.