The John Rex Endowment announces grants for Arts Access and Wake County SmartStart for projects to support positive mental health of children. Arts Access will receive a $28,750 grant to plan for new and more intensive ways to make arts accessible to children with disabilities. Wake County SmartStart will receive $551,978 to improve Wake Connections, an online system that simplifies the process for connecting families of young children to home-based programs and community resources.  

Arts Access will use grant funding to bring together arts organizations and stakeholders to plan an initiative that will integrate arts activities into the physical and social environments that contribute to the mental health, and social and emotional development of all children.

The grant for Wake County SmartStart will provide funding to enhance Wake Connections by improving technology and expanding the referral pool of professionals and community entities to reach a greater number of families with children ages birth to 5 who have unmet social-emotional, development and health needs.

“These grant awards bring our total investment in positive mental health for children in Wake County to more than $7.5 million since the start of our five-year plan in 2013,” said Kevin Cain, president and CEO of the John Rex Endowment. “Our support of these projects is focused on building community networks that promote the healthy development of children.”