Smart Start Advocacy E-Alert

• Life changing innovation.
• Expertise.
• Vision.
• Engagement.
• Results.

This is the work of Smart Start as so eloquently explained by Dr. Ernie Johnson in an op-ed published on Sunday in the Fayetteville Observer. It’s a good reminder that while we often talk about early childhood work in terms of programs, it is so much bigger than that. Just read the first two paragraphs:

To paraphrase the ancient Greek mathematician and inventor Archimedes, “Give me a place to stand, a lever long enough, and I alone can move the world.” Smart Start uses the power of leverage to create change. Like a man lifting a boulder three times his weight with a lever and fulcrum, Smart Start is able to achieve greater social change than its mere size or structure would suggest.

The Smart Start model provides “a place to stand” – a platform. Smart Start has developed and implemented the early-childhood education infrastructure that is the standard not only across our state but recognized nationally. Smart Start provides a platform to fill the role of: (1) a community change agent influencing early childhood planning and practice throughout the community; (2) a catalyst impacting all young children, not just those directly touched by our funding resources; (3) an investor leveraging resources to create sizable, lasting, and positive change in the lives of young children; and (4) a strategic lever enhancing core capacities.

You can read the rest of the op-ed online. But don’t stop there. Email it to your network and post it on Facebook. And then point people to the First 2,000 Days website. Remind them that this work is critical. There are only 2,000 days from the time a child is born to when that child begins kindergarten. Ninety percent of critical brain development happens during that time.