Early Care and Education

Smart Start Colorado Work by Goal

Goal #1: Program Quality and Standards: Services and supports provided for all children and their families are high quality, standards-driven, and developmentally appropriate.
• White paper describing principles of standards work
• Working with Head Start ECE Program Standards Comparison database to synthesize and recommend core set of standards (DU Intern and Outcomes and Evaluation Task Force)

Goal #2: Program Availability: The early childhood system has the capacity to provide accessible services and supports for all children and their families.
• Updating the Community Needs Assessment Toolkit (Omni and Program Availability Task Force with TGYS support)
• Local Outreach Team providing technical assistance to local communities such as what is systems work, strategic planning, etc. (Gini Bradley and Wendy Watson with collaborative foundation support)
• Creating Local Early Childhood Councils Toolkit to help communities grow and sustain Councils (Conocer and Local Outreach Team with TGYS support)

Goal #3: Parent and Family Engagement: All parents and families are partners in the early childhood system.
• Parent Liaison manages Parent Leadership Task Force and voluntary Registry of Parent Leaders; populates other task forces with parent voice (Jen Vasquez with Rose support)
• Stipends given to parents to attend task force, ECSST meetings (Rose support)
• Family Resource Mapping project complete - next steps include dissemination and use (Children's Trust Fund support)
• Parent Ambassador position to be filled soon to do outreach to parents statewide to solicit feedback on systems work and connect to parent development resources (collaborative foundation support)

Goal #4: Professional and Workforce Development: The early childhood system ensures integrated and formalized ongoing professional and workforce development.
• Office of Professional Development established within Community College of Denver and in partnership with Qualistar (Kathleen Stiles and her staff with Piton and DHS support)
• Updating core standards for practitioners
• Promoting early childhood credential and online learning
• Conducting ongoing environmental scan and customer surveys
• Mental health specialist coordinating integration of mental health systems work

Goal #5: Public Engagement: The public understands the importance of, places a high priority on, and promotes the early childhood system.
• www.SmartStartColorado.org complete and updated continually (general foundation and DHS support)
• Working with Parent Leadership Task Force on Parenting Guide (pending funding)
• Working with Intermountain Corporate Affairs on communications plan and assistance to communities with local PR efforts (Buell and Denver support)

Goal #6: Organizational Structure: The early childhood system has formally established governance and administrative structures at the state and local levels.
• Working with Commission's Governance Task Force on public-private partnership ("3-legged stool") model that integrates state and local authority and accountability
• Researching possible courses of action for engagement of private entity(ies) in system governance (Fred Franko, Early Childhood State Systems Team and partners with Donnell-Kay support)

Goal #7: Accountability: The early childhood system is accountable for children's readiness for school and life.
• Created 16 draft outcomes based on School Readiness Indicators, Results Matter, Qualistar, etc.
• Finalizing outcomes and determining best methods for measuring them over time; eventually to be tied to standards work (Dr. Gail Joseph as Accountability Consultant with collaborative foundation support)

Goal #8: Funding and Finance: The early childhood system has adequate, sustainable and flexible funding and resources from a broad array of public and private partners.
• Completing financial modeling work including costing out the system and gaps analysis of funds we have versus funds we need (Children's Campaign and Institute for Women's Policy Research with collaborative foundation support)

Work that cuts across goals:
Policy Task Force
• Established five-point policy plan; working actively on CCCAP reimbursement rates

EC&SR Commission
• Established ongoing relationship; signed MOU

Pilot Leadership Alliance and SSC Partners
• Established ongoing relationship with Pilots; continually seek feedback
• Encourage partnerships with non-Pilot councils

Regional meetings
• Six from late-January to early-March; goal is to help communities/emerging EC Councils understand and do effective systems work