A robust body of evidence over the past half a century has documented the importance of early childhood experiences for adult outcomes. From maternal prenatal care to early interven­tion in infancy and toddlerhood, and through high-quality care and educational experiences in the preschool years, support services and programs for families and young children have been shown to improve children’s outcomes into the school years and adulthood.

Building on this promising evidence base, the Ready for School, Ready for Life initiative in Guilford County, North Carolina, aims to support interconnected programs and services for young chil­dren and their families with the goal of having children enter kindergarten ready for learning. Launched in 2018, the initiative aims to strengthen connections among existing programs in Guilford County and provide sustainable and comprehensive support for families and young children through universal screening for strengths and needs, followed by connections to targeted services.

This report describes findings about implementation of the initiative during 2023. After providing a brief overview of the initiative, the report describes findings from interviews and surveys that the MDRC team conducted in 2023 with directors and leaders of programs that serve young children and their families in Guilford County. It focuses on their views of the initiative, including their reasons for participating in it and what they see as the associated benefits and challenges, and their views about their programs’ efforts to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate with other programs in the county.

Directors of program partners in the initiative reported being committed to the goals of improving outcomes for families and young children in Guilford County. They also reported willingness to communicate, collaborate, coordinate activities, and align strategies to achieve those goals, and discussed current efforts to do so. At the same time, they expressed concerns about transparency, trust, and duplication of effort in the Ready for School, Ready for Life initiative. Program directors reported that greater communication between the initiative’s backbone organization and program partners about the initiative’s purpose, plans, funding, and governance might nurture and strengthen the community-wide, cross-program effort that the initiative seeks.