Requests for Proposals

Periodically, Smart Start of Brunswick County solicits bids from individuals and/or vendors for various projects. Listed below are current, open Requests for Proposals.

Smart Start of Brunswick County

Request for Proposals

Smart Start of Brunswick County (SSBC), a private, non-profit agency, is the designated Local Partnership for Children authorized to administer and oversee the use of state Smart Start funding in order to help all Brunswick County children enter school healthy and ready to succeed.   SSBC strategically provides funding to qualified entities/organizations to support the vision and mission of the Partnership.  Smart Start legislation mandates how each Local Partnership's allocation is spent on specific evidence-based and/or evidence-informed services:

  • At least 70% of Smart Start funds are used to improve the quality of child care and/or make child care more affordable and accessible for working families; a percentage of which must be spent on child care subsidies.
  • Up to 30% of funds may be spent on improving children’s health, family support, and/or system support services such as monitoring and evaluation.

Funding Applications for January 2024-June 2024 (Due on Wed., January 3, 2024 by 5pm)

SSBC is accepting applications from organizations that:

  • Are currently accredited in Parents as Teachers and are able to initiate services starting in January 2024. Parents as Teachers is a home-visiting model that increases parent knowledge of child development, improves parenting practices, and prevents child abuse and neglect.
  • Will facilitate a child passenger safety education program with Nationally Certified CPS Technicians and coordinated through Safe Kids NC.

Funding Applications for July 2024-June 2025 (Due Thurs., February 29, 2024 by 5pm)

Applications are sought from qualified bidders to provide effective strategies, incorporating the use of evidence-based and/or evidence-informed programming, to meet state performance standards and address at least one of the areas below.

Child Care Availability

  • System-wide availability of, access to, and use of high-quality, affordable child care

Ealy Childhood Health

  • Prevention childhood obesity.
  • Improvement health and safety of young children.
  • Ensuring that more children are screened for developmental delays and referred to services.

Child Care Quality

  • Assistance with maintaining and/or improving quality of care and education in star-licensed facilities.
  • Targeted technical assistance and/or coaching to promote positive social-emotional development, language, and cognitive skills in young children; to enhance teacher-child interactions; and to promote health, wellness, and inclusion of all children.

Early Childhood Educator Professional Development

  • Support services for early care and education professionals, including but not limited to education and training to meet licensure requirements.
  • Support for and access to higher education and degree attainment for early care and education professionals working child care facilities.

Systems-Building

  • Community education and outreach related to child-development, child-care options (in collaboration with regional referrals services), transitioning to Kindergarten, parenting, and accessing services and connecting to resources.
  • Data collection and reporting on early care and education supply and demand and other early childhood system issues.

Early Literacy

  • Support for early literacy development within families of young children such as Motheread/Fatheread, Mothergoose.

Family Strengthening

  • Support aimed at enhancing parental nurturing skills across diverse populations to enhance knowledge of child development, build skills, increase confidence, promote positive interactions, and build peer and resource connections such as Parents as Teachers, Kaleidoscope Play & Learn, Incredible Years, and Triple P – Positive Parenting Program.

Evaluation criteria may include the following: evidence of effectiveness; proposed annual outcomes, knowledge/experience with model fidelity or other programmatic guidelines; complete and succinct proposal components; scope and feasibility of project; relevant organization and staff experience/expertise; substantiation of need; and cost effectiveness.

All funding is based on the appropriation of funds to Smart Start by the North Carolina General Assembly and the prioritization of services to best meet local needs, and state and local performance standards.

Request an electronic proposal packet by contacting Krista Campana, Executive Director of Smart Start of Brunswick County: [email protected] (910) 523-2969.