About Us
Every caregiver wants their child to grow up healthy, strong and able to succeed. But few parents can do it without support, and no parent should have to.
Nurturing social and emotional development (also known as “mental health”) during the first years of a child’s life is one of the most important tools we have to help children become healthy, strong, and ready for success.
Fortunately, in our community, there are many programs that can help families nurture social, emotional and mental health from the prenatal period through the critical early years (ages birth-8). This website can connect you with those programs and help you find resources based on your family’s needs or interests.
Although Nurturing Durham will be periodically updated, we acknowledge that certain relevant programs or categories of services may be missing. Our focus is on local or regional programs that offer support for free or low cost, and those whose work helps families directly or indirectly nurture their children’s social-emotional health. If you know of a program or service that should be added or would like more information about the criteria for inclusion in Nurturing Durham, please contact us.
Supported now by Durham’s Pediatrics Supporting Parents program and Thrive-NC in partnership with Durham Children’s Initiative, Nurturing Durham aims to advance Recommendation 3 of Durham’s Early Childhood Action Plan (ECAP): “Increase Resource Awareness and Create an Easily Navigable Service System for Families with Young Children”.
In 2025, funding from Durham County is supporting the launch of the Nurturing Durham Helpline, a first step in fulfilling the ECAP strategy 3.1: develop a peer navigation program for parents of young children accessing community resources and services.
Nurturing Durham was created and developed by the READY Project and Durham’s Early Childhood Mental Health Task Force. These former initiatives shared a goal of supporting the social, emotional and mental health needs of young children in Durham by building awareness and strengthening collaboration.
To learn more about the people and programs behind Nurturing Durham, contact us.