Conway County kicked off their E8 initiative with Healthy Smiles, a Delta Dental-funded effort to get more children to the dentist before kindergarten by raising awareness about oral health for caregivers of infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. Healthy Smiles wraps up by fall 2022. Learn more about the project. 

The Conway County steering committee has identified strategies in other priority areas, such as child care quality and availability, child food security, and literacy. In order to successfully address these priority areas, the next effort will be to engage parents in the Excel by Eight initiative, as advocates and their child’s first teacher. By focusing on parent engagement, the steering committee believes that other E8 projects will have deeper and wider impact in the long run.

School districts in Conway County – Nemo Vista, South Conway County, and Wonderview – participated in a second round of the Early Development Instrument assessment during spring 2022. The EDI is a population measure of how young children are developing based on the five domains of early childhood development: physical health and wellbeing; social competence; emotional maturity; language and cognitive skills; and communication skills and general knowledge.