History
Our History
Development of a Quality Early Care and Education System
In 1996, a community based collaboration of philanthropic organizations, businesses, government, schools, and other interested organizations created The Child Care and Early Education Partnership and funded, managed, and submitted to the Fort Wayne community a report titled, Child Care & Early Education: Everyone’s Business. Findings from the report resulted in a grassroots community vision for a strong, quality early child care and education system that would do the following:
The following steps were taken by the partnership to make this community vision a reality:
- Affirm and support the role of parents.
- Provide opportunities for all children to develop optimally, whether their parents work or not.
- Develop well-trained, qualified child care and early education staff in homes and centers.
- Provide experiences which help children succeed in school.
- Make affordable, high quality child care available when and where families from throughout the community need it.
- Encourage a more stable child care workforce through increased stature and improved salaries and benefits.
- Help children make a smooth transition from preschool to kindergarten.
1996 – The Child care and Early Education Partnership released findings from the report Child Care & Early Education – Everyone’s Business. 1997 – The ‘Partnership’ invited a community leader to champion early childhood issues with business and other key community people. Local funding was secured to hire a full-time staff person to begin development and implementation of the quality rating system. 1998 – Began campaign to raise awareness in our community that children need and deserve high quality early care and education experiences if they are going to develop to their fullest potential. Key advocacy strategies included:
Define and gain broad consensus to what constitutes “high quality programs”. Identify programs and providers that are already achieving high quality. Honor and celebrate providers who have high quality programs through broad-based promotional and recognition programs. Share how providers who achieve high quality can assist and encourage others to do the same. Encourage other organizations to join the partnership to accelerate our efforts
1999 – Developed the work plan to ensure the success of the quality rating system. Focus groups were conducted with parents, child care providers and programs. Surveys were conducted to determine what methods parents used to find child care. April, 2000 – The Early Childhood Alliance implemented Paths to QUALITY in Allen County. Informational meetings were held with providers and programs. Media campaign kick-off. July, 2000 – Incentive program was introduced to participating providers and programs. July, 2001 – Paths to QUALITY was introduced to the surrounding counties served by the Early Childhood Alliance, including DeKalb, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben and Whitley Counties. Incentives were secured through local community foundations. 2005 – 4Cs of Southern Indiana implemented Paths to QUALITY in 11 counties including Evansville in southwest Indiana with the support of a local community foundation. May, 2006 – The Indiana Family and Social Services Administration, Bureau of Child Care, convened a State Child Care Quality Rating System Advisory Group and began considering the feasibility of implementing a statewide quality rating system as a strategy to improve child care, coordinate child care quality initiatives, and to help parents identify and select quality care for their children. Paths to QUALITY was suggested and studied as a possible model that could be implemented statewide. June, 2006 – The Indiana Department of Education determined that the Paths to QUALITY standards aligned with Indiana’s Early Learning Guidelines,Foundations to Indiana Academic Standards for Young Children from Birth to Age 5. March, 2007 – A license agreement was signed between the Bureau of Child Care and Early Childhood Alliance to adopt Paths to QUALITY as the state’s quality rating system. The Secretary of FSSA attended a press conference in Fort Wayne to make the announcement. May, 2007 – The Bureau of Child Care formed a Steering Committee and four sub committees with key partners and developed a project plan for the successful statewide introduction and roll out of Paths to QUALITY. Key partners included the pilot models, the Indiana Association of Child Care Resource and Referrals, and the Indiana Association for the Education of Young Children. July, 2007 – A contract was signed with Purdue University for an ongoing evaluation of the Paths to QUALITY system over a 5 year roll out period. January 2008 thru January 2009 – Statewide roll out and implementation of Paths to QUALITY.
