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Providers of out-of-home child care and early education in centers and family child care homes meet the quality standards of national, state, and local accrediting agencies. They maximize their positive impact by incorporating the following characteristics:
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| Hope Street Family Center is a public-private partnership that provides comprehensive child care and preschool education to nearly 2,000 young children in inner-city Los Angeles. Hope Street responds to the varied needs of families with young children through partnerships and agreements to share facilities, staff, and funding with the Los Angeles School District, the County Department of Health Services, the University of California-Los Angeles, and the California Hospital Medical Center.
The Ounce of Prevention Fund reaches about 1,200 children daily through its Head Start and Early Head Start programs at 15 ethnically diverse sites around Chicago. The programs include an intense focus on the earliest days, months and years of life, and on fostering social-emotional development and healthy adult-child relationships, given their strong influence on children’s ability to cope, and their level of persistence and self-motivation. www.ounceofprevention.org. | |
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- Child groupings are small enough, and adult-child ratios are low enough, to permit young children (especially babies and toddlers) to have one-on-one time with caregivers.
- Staff turnover is low enough to allow stable, continuing relationships to develop between individual children and adults.
- Staff are culturally sensitive and responsive to the interests and needs of families. Staff encourage active involvement and participation by parents and frequent communication between home and the child care provider. Staff are well-informed, and they share information with parents about practices, schedules, and expectations for the transition to Kindergarten.
- Staff promote connections among parents to help them share child-rearing knowledge and experiences.
- Children interact socially with other children and adults in diverse situations. They learn to take turns, remember and follow directions, and use adults as sources of information, discipline, and enjoyment.
Staff and parents have high, age-appropriate expectations for children's behavior and for their ability to learn and achieve.
Program assessments and pre-professional and in-service training emphasize children's developmental and learning needs and help staff acquire requisite understanding and skills.
Professional development activities are integrated with the staff's daily work with children and families to ensure continuously improving interactions with children.
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| On the basis of lessons from scientific research, clinical practice, and real-world experience, the Ounce of Prevention Fund believes that the quality of training and support offered to staff directly affects the relationships they develop with families and, ultimately, each parent's ability to support their child's healthy development. The Fund provides training and technical assistance through its directly operated Early Head Start and Head Start programs, as well as annual training and face-to-face consultations for hundreds of other Illinois early childhood professionals. Training emphases include staff competencies in the early detection of developmental delays, support for children and families in highly stressed communities, recognition of child abuse and neglect, and language development. www.ounceofprevention.org/index.php?section=programs&action=program&program=3 | |
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Providers of child care and early education at centers and family child care sites use practices and curricula that foster social, emotional, and cognitive development by:
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| Curiosity Corner, a national program operating in multiple locations, gives preschool teachers 38 weekly guides with a detailed learning focus and objectives across developmental domains. Purposeful play and learning activities are supported by theme-related books and materials. | |
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- Engaging children as active learners in solving problems, making predictions, and discussing experiences
- Structuring daily activities and routines
- Providing opportunities for responsive interaction with adults, play time with peers, talk about numbers and books, and opportunities to recall/retell stories
- Providing a literacy-rich environment Child care providers take into consideration the needs of families when selecting hours of operation for child care services.
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