Alamance Achieves is proud of the continuing impact it has on helping
its broad coalition of people, organizations and systems who are working
together to improve health care and education outcomes for all in
Alamance County. Our 2020 annual report is an opportunity to show
our national partners, StriveTogether, the impact of our work, but it is also
a chance to let the community know about the efforts being made, so they
can get involved with us.
Here is a look back at 2020 to highlight many of our efforts last year and what will be our focus moving forward.
Early Health & Well-being
To support moms and babies from birth, the Alamance County Health Department is exploring the implementation of a Universal Home Visiting program that would help connect all families and infants in Alamance County with the support they need. The next steps are aligning funding sources, identifying existing gaps and opportunities in postpartum support for families, and engaging community stakeholders in implementation.
Kindergarten Readiness
Ensuring that children are prepared for kindergarten sets them up for success throughout elementary school and beyond. Last year, we expanded access to Ready Freddy, an evidence-based program that supports families and kids as they prepare for starting school.
Third-grade Reading
To support students learning remotely, Beyond the Classroom, a group of community partners and school leaders, created eight learning hubs to assist more than 100 students in Alamance County. The goal of the hubs was to help minimize learning loss, support families with limited access to high-speed internet and devices, and promote social-emotional health during this stressful time.
Pandemic Solutions
The disruption that resulted due to COVID-19 in 2020 is ongoing, but Alamance Achieves and our partners — the Alamance-Burlington School System, Alamance County Public Libraries, Burlington Housing Authority, Alamance County Government, S.A.F.E., Healthy Alamance and Alamance Partnership for Children — were quick in shifting our focus to adapt to the changing needs of children and families in Alamance County. One example was our support of the work of our partners who lead an effort to establish more than 240 food distribution sites to help those in need, as well as more than 200 grab-and-go bus stops were created to allow children to pick up meals even if their parents were working.
Other efforts to align strategies to fit the new and changing needs included testing a strategy to address the stress on families with young children by offering a service to a small group of families in two elementary school zones that delivered some basic hard-to-find household needs such as toilet paper, paper towels and disinfecting wipes.
Looking Ahead
As a result of the investments made by the community in 2020, 86 families were enrolled in Ready4K, 39 more kindergartens started school on track to succeed and, during the pandemic, 753 emotional/social books were delivered to students and 53 families with young children were able to divert additional funds toward expenses and bills.
Moving forward, we are focused on amplifying community voices and working toward ensuring more Black, Latinx and Indigenous families, students and youth are guiding the work to come. It was recently announced we were selected to receive a grant from the StriveTogether Challenge Fund to support our work. All of these efforts will include a push to ensuring we are partnering with an equity lens so as many voices as possible are contributing to our efforts in 2021.
