Healthy Children's Fund Strategies

To help ensure success, the Healthy Children’s Fund follows 10 core strategies developed in its implementation plan.

Early Learning & Care Strategies 

The Healthy Children’s Fund has six strategies for early learning and care. 

• Strategy 1: Use small capital projects to expand, renovate or repurpose buildings to increase early learning and care slots in a mixed-delivery system.
• Strategy 2: Coordinate current and develop additional pathways to ensure a stable early learning and care workforce that can deliver high-quality programs for children.
• Strategy 3: Improve access to early learning and care through subsidies that reduce the cost of programs for children from families that are cost-burdened.
• Strategy 4: Ensure access to early learning and care by promoting the expansion and retention of the early learning and care workforce.
• Strategy 5: Create regional early learning and care hubs that include shared administrative services, co-located early learning and other services for children and families, and support for smaller providers in the county (i.e., the “hub and spoke model”).
• Strategy 6: Support innovative approaches to meet various Healthy Children’s Fund goals for early learning and care.

Vulnerable Children Strategies

The Healthy Children’s Fund has four strategies focused on vulnerable children.

• Strategy 7: Recruit mental and behavioral health workforce to Whatcom County. 
• Strategy 8: Develop and/or expand resources and programs for families who disproportionately experience housing instability.
• Strategy 9: Expand and enhance early parenting support.
• Strategy 10: Integrate and co-locate services via coordinated access to resource navigation.