Priority or Goal Description

Community Need Addressed

Status update 10-07

For the Coalition to implement a program to centrally recruit and train preschool teachers and substitutes at the community level

Maintain goal

High turnover and difficulty recruiting and retaining child care staff (because without adequate staffing, all efforts to improve quality will not produce results)

Need for substitute teachers has been addressed. Directors still need assistance to recruit, and effectively train and retain new permanent teachers

Substitute, Training and Recruitment Program (STAR) program was fully implemented 11-06 with over 512 substitute day use in its first year. Plan for 07-08 is to now implement a generalized centralized recruitment program building on this successful model

Strengthen the overall infrastructure of local child care sites through partnerships within the Quality Child Care Council, encourage investment of additional community dollars into child care system; promote an effective quality rating system

Maintain this goal and also see the related goal to specifically implement the QRIS

Many child care sites are in state of crisis with high turnover and facility needs. They need financial assistance for capital improvements and to achieve quality indicators

Local child care sites want to strive for quality, many have attained high quality programs and need support to maintain them. There is widespread interest among child care sites to participate in the QRIS

The Quality Child Care Council became fully operational, and established goals and expected outcomes, new sources of financial support have been identified and those are in process. Next set of specific tasks for council are being developed

Continue to provide onsite support, training and technical assistance to providers on working with children with special needs including those with challenging behaviors. Collaborate with community partners to address the mental health needs of young children

Maintain goal- ongoing

Teachers need the tools and support to handle challenging children. With limited resources, children with extreme mental health needs are increasingly being expelled from preschools and there are inadequate therapeutic services in the community. Need to focus overall on universal measures to promote social/emotional well-being of all young children.

Programs to address this area show promising results, need continues

Specific programs are in place and show promising results for addressing needs of challenging children and helping them succeed in their care placements

Strong partnership between ELC and Sarasota Partnership for Children’s Mental Health has been established and additional areas for working together have been identified.

ELC re- introducing DECA program again within child care community

Continue to successfully engage child care sites in quality improvement plans that lead to high quality sites, with positive outcomes for children

Maintain; ongoing

Ensure that all providers are in compliance with legislative standards and are striving for high quality environments beyond minimum requirements; children need to be ready for school

Family child care homes still an area of focus

All providers are held accountable for meeting legislative mandates through agreements and self-assessments. Support for this is ongoing. The QRIS provides a framework for providers to move along continuum of quality

The Coalition continues to sponsor an extensive system of provider trainings, mentoring and on-site technical assistance services for child care providers.

Maintain; ongoing

Ensure that all providers are in compliance with legislative standards and have the resources and support to create and maintain high quality environments; children need to be ready for school

Tremendous array of training, mentoring, on site support and TA is offered, comprehensive system in place that will fold into the QRIS

Focus for 07-08-ELC targeting family homes that still are not using appropriate curriculum

The Coalition will develop and implement a Quality Rating Improvement System for child care sites and recognize those sites that exceed minimal licensing and basic legislative standards (in conjunction with any statewide system and/or with local community partners (i.e. QCC)

QRIS is developed, ready for implementation

Child care sites are at different points, or levels, on a continuum toward high quality and need recognition along the way; parents need additional locally specific information for choosing quality child care, local funders need an objective method to evaluate outcomes and to determine focus of their investments

QRIS is developed, ready for implementation as soon as all funding pieces are secured to meet the matching requirements for the challenge grant issued by GCCFV.

Implementation expected January 2008, A 5- Star system, “Look for the Stars”

Partner with others to ensure strong parent involvement in readiness and literacy activities for their preschool children

Maintain, ongoing

SR readiness and early literacy rates in community need to be improved, this is also a priority area identified through community focus groups, need to reach all parents, not just those in scholarship care or VPK

Continue to work with others including the library to promote early reading, new parenting materials developed and distributed. New Partnership with WEDU for series of workshops for family child care homes on this

Activities to promote effective transition and communication from/between preschool to Kindergarten

Ongoing

Children to be ready for school, improved SR rates and early literacy skills

Addition: help link the parents from the preschool level to participation in K-12 system

Kindergarten Transition Checklists in its second year; through QRIS evaluation piece there is now a mechanism to track children from preschool to K; new activities/partnering in south county schools through GCCFV K-12 transition coordinators who want to expand efforts to pre-K

In partnership with others, assess factors that influence working families ability to access child care

Ongoing

Fluctuations in utilization of child care scholarship; transient nature of some families in community; need to look at families who are over income for routine assistance; evaluate choices related to child care

Continue to work with others in community dealing with similar issues to identify trends and try to anticipate needs and enrollment factors

In partnership with others, including the QCC, raise community awareness and support for early childhood issues; develop an effective communications plan; determine appropriate messages and talking points. 

Communications plan has been developed; need to continue overall goal

Overall need for broader community and businesses, etc to understand connection between early childhood and issues later in life and the value of investing in early years

Still need to raise community awareness and support for early childhood issues and to increase awareness of Coalition in the community

ELC Communications Plan has been developed, needs to be fully implemented

Board development

Ongoing

Ongoing: All Boards need to grow and evolve, promote leadership and continually evaluate and develop

Board participates each year in the annual Building Better Boards self-assessment process.  Need to consider leadership development for Board and effective plan for recruitment of new members, and effective ways to engage Board in the ELC Communications Plan