LAKEPORT, Calif. — The Smart Start Eligibility Wizard is a new website designed specifically for Lake County parents and caregivers of children, prenatal through age 5.

The wizard goes beyond the limitations of an early childhood resource guide and gives families the ability to not only learn about services in the community, but also quickly determine their eligibility and begin the application process or be connected with service providers for more information with a simple click or tap on their mobile phone, tablet or computer.

“This is a game changer,” said Carla Ritz, First 5 Lake executive director and originator of the Eligibility Wizard concept.

Ritz said the idea for the wizard came to her while she was helping her son with the college enrollment process.

“I noticed how the financial aid information on the university website grouped all financial resources available to help cover the cost of tuition and expenses into a single list with the ability to opt in or out of each one. Grants, scholarships, and subsidized loans were all listed indiscriminately as potential sources of funding, even though qualifications and requirements for each were very different,” she said.

“I had an ‘Aha!’ moment and imagined what it would be like to provide parents of young children in Lake County with the ability to see a personalized master list of local programs and services they qualified for along with the ability to opt-in easily to those that were most valuable to their families,” Ritz added.

Ritz shared the idea with Lake County Health Services Director Denise Pomeroy, who agreed the idea had tremendous potential for connecting parents and children to services easily and effectively in the critical period of the first five years of life, and she appreciated the way the eligibility wizard would put the parent/caregiver in the driver’s seat.

With the support of the First 5 Lake Commission, Ritz convened Lake County’s Smart Start Collective in 2019 to begin working together on the project. The collective is a cross-sector network of local pregnancy and early childhood service providers who work together on projects that help to ensure all of Lake County’s children have the best possible start in life.

Members shared their intake forms and eligibility requirements and offered suggestions for a user-friendly website that would benefit their clients.

First 5 Lake then requested bids from web developers to turn their now-collective vision into reality and found synergy and funding for the project through a grant from Hope Rising Lake County.

The Smart Start Eligibility Wizard is now ready to launch as the first of four pillars of the Smart Start Bright Futures initiative — a transformational cradle-to-career investment by Hope Rising and its partners into the next generation of Lake County.

Parents and caregivers can now visit www.smartstartwizard.org on their smartphone, tablet or computer and follow the prompts to enter basic demographic information and view a personalized list of local programs and services for which their family is eligible.

They can then choose to have that list emailed to them for future reference, or they can immediately scroll through the services and opt-in to begin the application process for specific programs of interest.

District 4 Supervisor Tina Scott serves as a First 5 Lake Commissioner and Hope Rising Lake County Board member.

“This is not a tool that is available in larger, more resourced counties in the state,” said Scott. “It is unique to Lake County, and we couldn’t be prouder or happier to be able to offer it as a homegrown tool and gift to our community. We hope that it achieves its purpose of connecting families to needed resources as early as possible, thereby improving the lives and outcomes of our children.”

Members of the Smart Start Lake County Collective whose programs and services are included in the Smart Start Eligibility Wizard include:

• Adventist Health Clear Lake;
• Easterseals Northern California;
• E-Center WIC and Migrant Head Start;
• Lake County Department of Public Health;
• Lake County Libraries;
• Lake County Office of Education;
• Lake County Tribal Health Consortium;
• Lake Family Resource Center;
• Mother-Wise;
• North Coast Opportunities;
• Partnership Health Plan;
• Redwood Coast Regional Center;
• Sutter Lakeside Hospital.

New programs and services will be added to the wizard as they are established in the community and First 5 Lake has committed to hosting and maintaining the site for the good of children and families for many years to come.