What is an Early Childhood Action Plan?

In 2018, Governor Roy Cooper and a team of stakeholders began creating the North Carolina Early Childhood Action Plan. This plan outlines a cohesive vision, sets benchmarks for impact by the year 2025, and establishes shared stakeholder accountability to achieve statewide goals for young children.

The plan centers on three themes: that North Carolina’s young children are healthy, grow up safe and nurtured, and are well-supported to be learning and ready to succeed.

Chatham County Partnership for Children is using this same framework developed for the state of North Carolina to create our own Early Childhood Action Plan, or ECAP, specific to Chatham County.

Over the next year, we will conduct a comprehensive Early Childhood Community Needs Assessment to gather information, perspectives, and ideas from Chatham County parents and caregivers that will inform the vision and benchmarks we have for early childhood in Chatham. We hope to engage as many stakeholders as possible during the assessment process and long after as we implement our community's vision for young children ages 0 to 5 in Chatham.