Child Care and Education
The child care services provided by Smart Start aid in early care and education of children. Programs are developed to provide resources and counseling in areas such as kindergarten transition, professional development and quality enhancement.

Family Support Services
A set of beliefs, and the approach that these beliefs engender: strengthening and empowering families and communities so that they can foster the optimal development of children, youth, and adult family members. Family support envisions a society in which all of us - families, communities, government, human service institutions, businesses - work together to provide healthy, safe environments for children and families to live and work in.

A type of grassroots, community-based program that provides resources for families. Building on shared beliefs, these programs embody the family support approach in their relationships with participating families and communities. These programs have been proliferating in neighborhoods across the country since the early 1970s, and continue to refine their practices and inform the field about the quality in family support services.

A shift in how agencies and organizations do their work and interact with families and communities. Family support beliefs guide and shape health, education, and human service systems and organizations to be more preventive, community based, culturally competent, flexible, family-focused, strength-based and comprehensive.

Principles of Family Support Practice

* Staff and families work together in relationships based on equality and respect.

* Staff enhance families’ capacity to support the growth and development of all family members - adults, youth and children.

* Families are resources to their own members, to other families, to programs, and to communities.

* Programs affirm and strengthen families’ cultural, racial, and linguistic identities and enhance their ability to function in a multi-cultural society.

* Programs are embedded in their communities and contribute to the community-building process.

* Programs advocate with families for services and systems that are fair, responsive, and accountable to the families served.

* Practitioners work with families to mobilize formal and informal resources to support family development.

* Programs are flexible and continually responsive to emerging family and community issues.

* Principles of family support are modeled in all program activities, including planning, governance, and administration.

Health and Safety Services
Smart Start provides health programs that seek to provide health education, awareness and safety to families within the community. Services include home visitations, behavior management counseling, child care education, outreach services and more.

Other Services