2018 – 2023 Strategic Goals
Focus Area 1: Education & Child Development
NCS will enhance the school readiness by providing high quality early education and child development services to enrolled children, including those with disabilities and dual language learners, to promote children’s growth across each domain of development.
Goal 1: NCS will continue to strengthen the use of curriculum in its classrooms and home visits.
Objective 1: Improve the implementation of the home based curriculum with fidelity
Objective 2: Continue to implement Creative Curriculum with fidelity
Objective 3: Improve lesson plan development in EHS and HS center base
Goal 2: NCS will enhance teaching strategies in center and home based programs to cultivate supportive, intentional and engaging learning experiences.
Objective 1: NCS HS teachers will demonstrate positive emotional, organizational and instructional supports that contribute to children’s social, developmental, and academic achievement.
Objective 2: Explore the utilization of CLASS in toddler classrooms
Objective 3: NCS Home Visitors will emphasize parents as the child’s primary teacher and demonstrate positive home visitor strategies and family engagement.
Goal 3: Children will demonstrate age appropriate progress across domains of language and literacy, cognition and general knowledge, approaches to learning, physical well-being & motor development and social and emotional development that will support their readiness for kindergarten.
Objective 1: Approaches to Learning: Children will demonstrate initiative, curiosity, and positive approach to the joy of learning.
Objective 2: Social and Emotional Development: In the context of relationships, children will develop and learn the social-emotional skills necessary to act and interact with self-confidence, regulate their behavior, and be successful in the early years and beyond.
Objective 3: Language and Literacy: Children will demonstrate an understanding of concepts of print, increasing emergent writing skills, phonological awareness, alphabetics, word/print recognition, comprehension and analysis of age appropriate text, and literacy interest and response.
Objective 5: Cognition: Children will continue to develop their understanding of number sense, algebra and math functions (for classification and patterning).
Objective 6: Perceptual Motor and Physical Development: Children will demonstrate improvement in fundamental movement skills, perceptual motor skills, movement concepts, and physical play.
Focus Area 2: Health Services
NCS will work in partnership with parents to meet the health, oral health, nutritional and mental health and social emotional needs of children that support children’s growth and school readiness.
Goal 1: NCS will strengthen the capacity of families to support children and family’s ongoing physical and oral health and well-being.
Objective 1: NCS will provide more educational opportunities to families regarding the importance of ongoing health care and establishing a medical and dental home for their family.
Objective 2: NCS will partner with families to identify and receive follow up treatment for ongoing health and oral health need.
Objective 3: Perceptual Motor and Physical Development: Children will develop health habits of basic hygiene, oral health, and knowledge of wellness.
Goal 2: NCS will provide nurturing, responsive practices, interactions and environments that foster trust and emotional security in order to promote social emotional competence that supports good mental health and resiliency for children and families.
Objective 1: Identify Social and Emotional Curriula which best meets the needs of enrolled children and families.
Objective 2: Review & improve the procedures for supporting children with Social and Emotional Challenges.
Objective 3: Continue to provide staff and parents with more strategies to support children with social and emotional challenges.
Focus Area 3: Family Engagement
Recognizing the culture and the unique assets and experiences of each family, NCS will strengthen families by partnering with parents to identify and address family needs and support family goals to improve family well-being.
Goal 1: NCS will integrate family engagement strategies into systems and provide program services to support family well-being.
Objective 1: Continue to develop & revise systems for data collection that will drive decision making and strategic planning of services for children and families.
Objective 2: Develop a system to track the needs and progress of families over multiple years through the family self-survey process.
Objective 3: Continue to assure that families who identify food as a need will receive services through the ‘Food For Thought’ resource in order to increase food security.
Goal 2: NCS will enhance the role of parents as primary teachers by strengthening the ability of parents to promote positive developmental outcomes while cultivating positive parent child relationships and fostering parental confidence as lifelong educators.
Objective 1: Improve the data collection of ‘Families Give Back’ documentation identifying activities done in the home that extend children’s learning experiences.
Objective 2: Continue to support children with attendance concerns by providing services which support school readiness.
Objective 3: Support parents as the primary teachers of their children by providing a variety parenting education opportunities
Objective 4: Promote the parents’ role as the child’s primary teacher by expanding the role of parent as teacher and use of the home as a learning environment in home based programs.
Goal 3: NCS family engagement strategies will strengthen family protective factors by partnering with families to increase parental resilience, offering opportunities to build social connections, providing links to concrete supports in times of need, and increasing knowledge of parenting and child development.
Objective 1: Increase the education, skill and expertise of staff in the understanding of family engagement strategies through the Family Services Credential
Objective 2: Support families in the prevention of homelessness
Objective 3: Promote parental resilience by providing opportunities for parents to meet with peers while increasing their knowledge of parenting and child development
Objective 4: Provide education and support to parents experiencing substance use and or/ mental health concerns
Objective 5: Continue to assure that families receive services which are respectful, individualized and professional
Focus Area 4: Program Design and Management
NCS organizational and management systems will support high quality services which ensure the safety of children through maintaining accountability, efficiency and leadership within the program.
Goal 1: NCS will strengthen the approach to training and professional development that aligns with program goals and objectives and includes ongoing reflective supervision strategies, and the provision of individualized coaching.
Objective 1: Increase the education, skill, and expertise of staff
Objective 2: Implement Practice Based Coaching
Objective 3: Strengthen ongoing professional development opportunities for Staff
Objective 4: Strengthen the comprehensive new staff training plan
Goal 2: NCS will support staff health and wellness through integrating ongoing opportunities to learn about and build skills to improve mental health, wellness, and health education.
Objective 1: Identify and share with staff self-care practices which can be used to reduce stress and promote wellness
Objective 2: Encourage teams to include wellness activities in their team meetings
Goal 3: NCS will coordinate approaches to monitoring, ongoing compliance oversight and correction, analysis and continuous improvement which ensure the health and safety of children.
Objective 1: Continue to improve efficient use of data management systems such as Abila MIP, Child Plus and Learning Genie
Objective 2: Through the Quality Assurance and Management teams, continue to identify areas for needed improvement
Focus Area 5: Adverse Childhood Experiences
Goal 1: NCS will work to buffer the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences and trauma, building resilience and strengthening protective factors of staff, families and children.
Objective 1: Increase awareness of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and the effects of trauma.
Objective 2: Analyze NCS systems and services to improve support for staff, families, and children
Objective 3: Explore strategies to reduce the impact of adverse childhood experiences for staff, families, and children.