Community Resources for Children

Community Resources for Children promotes quality early learning experiences for young children and envisions a future in which every parent and caregiver has access to the necessary resources and knowledge during the critical first years of life so that the children under their care can reach their full potential, succeed in life, and become contributing members of society. Our goal is to reach the children who need our services the most, to identify any potential challenges to learning and to increase the number of children in Napa County who enter school ready to learn. Access to quality early learning and care has been linked to improved outcomes in life; higher graduation rates, lower unemployment rates and a reduction in chronic disease and health care costs.

Our programs aim to reach children ages 0-5 whether they are at home, in child care, in preschool or cared for by family, friends or neighbors. We do this by providing support, training, and programs to the adults in a child's life. Our quality coaches provide 1:1 coaching and professional development programs to preschool directors, staff, and child care providers. Our early learning specialists work with families and caregivers at our Early Learning Center to provide early learning tools and resources. We also reach out to informal caregivers who are not able to come to our Center. Our Toy Library and Early Learning Center serves as our hub for providing workshops, classes and offering developmental screenings for children from 2 months to 5 years. As an organization, we advocate at the state and local level for the quality early learning and care of all children.

People
Over the last year, CRC has filled three key positions integral to better meeting the needs of our community. We now have a higher percentage of bilingual college educated staff than ever before and we continue to invest significantly in organizational and professional development. CRC now has six staff members able to administer the ASQ screening tool, a critical first step in identifying potential developmental delays and ensuring timely access to early intervention.

Strategic Investments
CRC continues to make strategic investments that yield savings and more efficiencies in years to come; as an example, we migrated our data to the cloud, eliminating the need for internal servers, reducing IT-related costs and ensuring data integrity and security. This trend indicates CRC’s success at building towards a sustainable future. CRC’s revenue is a mix of foundation/corporate grants, government contracts, individual donations, and earned income.

Financial sustainability
CRC has continued to make strategic investments that maximize our impact while increasing efficiencies. For the last 16 years, CRC has received a "clean" or "unqualified" audit opinion, which is the highest level of assurance an audit form can issue. CRC's LUNA Reserves totaled $1,099,136, or approximately 10.5 months of operating expenses as of September 30th, 2021. This has been achieved by increasing the focus on the organization’s financial health and focusing our resources in the areas that generate the greatest impact.

Data Collection
Our program achievements make us a sound data-based early learning investment. Program outcomes are tracked, such as parents/providers increased knowledge about how to support children's early education and how to foster quality interactions, providers continuously improving the quality of their care; etc. Qualitative and quantitative data is collected for programs, departments, and the agency as a whole from several sources.

The "go to" organization in Napa County for Early Learning
CRC is well positioned as the Napa County leader in providing quality early learning tools and resources to all types of caregivers (parents, grandparents, licensed providers, informal providers; etc.) Additionally, as the lead implementer of Quality Counts we are reaching out to Napa County libraries and other alternative sites; further reinforcing our role in the community as the "go to" organization for quality early learning.

In 2021 we served more than 3,800 individuals in Napa County. Our programs to provide quality support and training to families, preschools and child care providers now reach more than 2,500 children ages 0-5 in Napa County. We continue to refine and redesign our programs in order to ensure maximum impact and to make sure that we are reaching the children and families who need our services the most. We will continue to focus on reaching more low-to-moderate income families and those with limited quality early learning experiences. We will also be expanding the use of the Ages & Stages Questionnaire (ASQ-3) in order to reach more children who might be at risk of developmental delay. By training four additional staff members in administering the screening, we are one step closer to achieving this goal.