At the checkup, the couple from Greensboro, N.C. received far more than just medical advice. Thanks to a ground-breaking initiative called Routes to Ready, they also received a consultation with a community navigator who told them about additional early childhood resources, applying for affordable health coverage and obtaining help finding a job. The navigator also shared information about local dental providers and how to get car seats for the baby. 

It was a godsend for Abdoulaye, who had immigrated from the West African nation of Niger a few years earlier. 

“I didn’t have any information before that,” he said. “The navigator was very helpful.” 

Routes to Ready could offer a glimpse of the early childhood system of the future as it works to forge a seamless, smooth-functioning service ecosystem out of traditionally scattered, siloed programs and agencies. 

Underpinning Routes to Ready is a state-of-the art, community-wide database that links four central family-serving organizations to each other. There are also nearly 400 other partners connected as referral resources for families. 

Each time a family visits a Routes to Ready partner organization, all four Routes to Ready programs can see the new data in the system.

Families, who must consent for their data to be shared, are spared from having to retell their story to multiple agencies. Agencies get a fuller picture of the families’ issues. 

“That’s definitely very helpful,” said DaShawn Taylor, the community navigator who worked with Abdoulaye’s family. “As many people as we come in contact with, we [in human services agencies] can’t always shoot each other an email saying, ‘Hey, did you see this family recently?’” 

The database, called the Integrated Data System, represents a leap forward in the human services sector, where disconnected organizations and data often hamper coordination and efficiency. “It’s important to have access to resources,” Taylor said, “but it’s also important to have guidance through these complex systems.” 

Her organization, Children’s Home Society of North Carolina, operates two of the four main programs anchoring the Routes to Ready system in Guilford County, where Greensboro is located. Children’s Home Society offers prenatal and postnatal support for all county residents through its Community Navigation program. It offers additional help until the child turns three through the HealthySteps program. The Nurse-Family Partnership program, housed at the Generation Ed agency, sends nurses on home visits from pregnancy through the child’s second birthday. Family Connects Guilford, coordinated through the Guilford County Division of Public Health, completes in-home nurse visits for newborns, helping ensure healthy starts.

The interlocking programs, backed by the Integrated Data System, form Routes to Ready, a comprehensive system of psychosocial care and support for children and families in Guilford beginning prenatally and continuing through age 3. A school readiness system of care for children ages 3 to 5 is also planned. It is all part of a broader community-wide collaboration coordinated by Ready for School, Ready for Life, the “backbone” early childhood organization in the county. Building Routes to Ready is one of its top priorities. 

Routes to Ready often connects parents and caregivers with trained navigators through their medical providers. The navigators help each family find the most useful local resources, then provide ongoing support and regular check-ins. 

In 2024, the Routes to Ready system directly served at least 7,899 unduplicated children/ families, representing 34 percent of the estimated prenatal-through-age-three population in Guilford. Prenatal navigators are connected to 15 of 17 obstetric sites in the county. Family Connects nurses, meanwhile, maintain a presence at the county’s two main birthing hospitals, and HealthySteps connects with Guilford’s pediatric offices. 

Organizers are still fine-tuning Routes to Ready, but others are taking note. Stanford University’s Center on Early Childhood spotlighted the Routes to Ready system as part of a web series looking at innovative, place-based early childhood initiatives. 

Christina Dobson, director of analytics and insights at Ready for School, Ready for Life, said the navigation system is unique in that it allows cross-agency insight into individual child and family records, but also provides data aggregation to reveal broader community-wide patterns and needs. 

“This helps us understand child and family needs and how or whether they are met,” Dobson said, “so that we can leverage resources to serve more families and meet their needs more effectively.” 

The Endowment supports the work in conjunction with Blue Meridian Partners, a national philanthropic collaborative seeking to alleviate social problems confronting young people and families in poverty. 

“The community navigation work being done in Guilford could potentially pave the pathway to better early childhood outcomes in communities across the country,” said Meka Sales, Director of Special Initiatives at the Endowment. “We are proud to support families and staff at every level of the project as they work to help all Guilford County children get off to strong, healthy starts in life.”