Supporting Our Children & Their Caregivers
GetSet Transylvania is a collaborative of local non-profits, government departments and offices, faith-based organizations, child care providers, concerned community members, and businesses.
Our shared mission is to promote lifelong learning, health, and resilience in all young children in Transylvania County.
A Grassroots Effort
This is truly a grass-roots effort where there is no official GetSet organization or membership roster. Organizations and individuals show-up and participate as their capacity allows — or sometimes doesn’t, but they show up anyway. They show-up because we all know, in the tight-knit yet diverse communities within Transylvania County, we are able to serve more families and children when we can coordinate each other’s resources and leverage connections.
Achieving Our Mission
How are we working toward our achieving our mission? The coalition has a multi-pronged effort to lay foundational programs and resources to encourage growth, learning, and resilience for all children and their families. While most groups leading these efforts consist of staff from organizations, we welcome parent and caregiver involvement.
+ Learn more about our roots, past projects & Sesame Street collaboration
The Early Childhood Initiative (ECI) Task Force was formed in 2015 with a mission to build the capabilities of caregivers and to strengthen the communities that together form the environment of relationships essential to children’s lifelong learning, health and behavior.
The ECI Task Force, comprised of key stakeholders from a range of organizations in Transylvania County, authored a December 2015 State of the Young Child Report that identified the problems and challenges facing Transylvania County 0-5 population and explored opportunities for collaborative solutions.
You can find the full report here.
Between 2015 and 2018, the task force, along with other interested organizations and volunteers, acted on many of the insights and recommendations, strengthening and enlarging the support for Transylvania County’s child population in profound ways.
In October of 2018, the ECI developed a brand identity – GetSet Transylvania – to make it easier for parents and caregivers to access the support they need. In addition to continuing to be an advocate for Transylvania County’s 0-5 population, GetSet Transylvania will utilize tools like this website to become a one-stop clearinghouse for the myriad services, programs and activities that will help ensure a bright future for Transylvania County’s youngest citizens.
Coinciding with the re-branding to GetSet Transylvania, the work of the ECI was instrumental in attracting the attention of Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind Sesame Street. In 2018, Transylvania County was chosen to be the first rural county in the United States to be chosen for Sesame Street in Communities (SSIC). SSIC is a major initiative to support parents, caregivers, and community providers in their efforts to give all children, especially the most vulnerable, a strong, healthy start.
Thanks to this unique and valuable collaboration, Transylvania County has access to Sesame Street resources that include videos, storybooks and training that help children navigate through challenges large and small. Additionally, professional development resources for providers are available to better understand age-appropriate lessons on literacy, numeracy and more. We showcase these SSIC resources to families through our toolkit program.
The Sesame Street in Communities affiliation presented Transylvania County with a unique opportunity to become a model for how to improve early childhood from the ground up, family by family, community by community, and county by county. Indeed, our county has won several awards and been pursued for other partnership opportunities, like PBS NC and Waterford UPSTART, based upon the success we’ve seen.
In July of 2019, two of our coalition partners, Smart Start of Transylvania County and The Family Place, were awarded a Preschool Development Grant to create an Action Plan focused on improving Family Engagement and Leardership in Early Childhood programming. The resulting Transylvania County Family Engagement Action Plan, finalized in November 2019, can be found here.