FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Heather Strickland

Date: May 12, 2014 Phone: (919) 821- 9564 Cell: 919-749-5013

Early Childhood Champion Debra Torrence Honored at National Conference with Karen W. Ponder Leadership Award

GREENSBORO— Debra Torrence, Director of the North Carolina Institute for Child Development Professionals (NCICDP), was awarded the Karen W. Ponder Leadership Award at the 2014 National Smart Start Conference. The award, named for Smart Start’s former president, recognizes outstanding service to young children and families in North Carolina. A $1,000 cash award will be made to the Beaufort-Hyde County Partnership for Children in her name.

From her early days as a family child care home provider in 1990 through over two decades of work for the NCICDP, Smart Start, Child Care Resource and Referral, the Frank Porter Graham Institute, North Carolina community colleges, universities and the Division of Child Development and Early Education, Torrence has transformed North Carolina’s child care workforce.

“Debra continues to be the collaborative force that defines and advocates for the implementation of a comprehensive early childhood professional development system,” said Dr. Nancy H. Brown, Board Chair of the North Carolina Partnership for Children. “Through her efforts, the field has advanced its recognition of professionals and increased opportunities.”

Torrence has been active in the early childhood field for over 25 years, with experiences that include the provision of direct services to children in home, university lab and center-based settings, work in both a local and state levels of child care resource and referral agency, state government, Smart Start, and teaching in two- and four-year institutions of higher education. These experiences served to inform a series of training and research projects designed to increase access to education for the early care and education workforce through distance learning and professional development supports and resources, implemented during her nine year tenure at UNC-Chapel Hill’s FPG Child Development Institute. Collectively this body of work provides her with a strong foundation that supports her direction of the NC Institute for Child Development Professionals and her work as Director of Resource Development for the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood National Center.

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Smart Start, a network of nonprofit local partnerships led by The North Carolina Partnership for Children, Inc. (NCPC), creates innovative solutions to measurably increase learning and the healthy development of children birth to five. Smart Start gives local communities the freedom and responsibility to determine how to increase the health, well-being and development of their children based on the needs and resources of their local communities. NCPC establishes measurable statewide goals and communities determine the best approach to achieving them. Click here for more information.

The North Carolina Partnership for Children, Inc.

office: 1100 Wake Forest Road voice: 919-821-7999 fax: 919-821-8050

Raleigh, North Carolina 27604 web: www.ncsmartstart.org