Comprehensive Early Childhood Goals

Smart Start Colorado's comprehensive early childhood system is designed to achieve the following strategic goals.

1. Program and Quality Standards
2. Program Availability
3. Parent and Family Leadership
4. Professional and Workforce Development
5. Public Engagement
6. Accountability
7. Organizational Structure
8. Funding and Finance

1. Program Quality and Standards

Services and supports provided for all children and their families will be high quality, standards-driven and developmentally appropriate.

Rationale

To be successful, an early childhood system must have quality in its programs, in the community supervision and management for these programs, and in state support for the system and programs. To do this, an integrated system of quality measures will be developed that focuses on the programs, community systems, and state support. The intent is to build on and streamline current quality measurement and management efforts to be easy to use and non-duplicative for providers. The creation of standards provides an opportunity for state and local stakeholders to develop consensus regarding standards for early childhood programs; to assess our strengths and areas for growth; to identify and disseminate information on early childhood programs that meet and exceed standards; and to chart a course for sustaining and enhancing the quality of early childhood programs throughout Colorado.

Objectives

• Determine ways to measure quality across all service areas of the early childhood system.
• Define ways to report on quality measures across all service areas that will be useful in decision-making.
• Implement a plan to support ongoing improvements along a range of quality in meeting program standards.
• Develop and maintain resources to support continual improvement in meeting program standards.

2. Program Availability

The early childhood system has the capacity to provide accessible services and supports for all children and their families.

Rationale

Children and families must have easy access to services in any effective, efficient, and equitable early childhood system. These services must be comprehensive and non-duplicative. There must be a continuum of services to address common needs. The system shall have the capacity to meet the needs of families and children while maintaining the flexibility necessary to individualize and coordinate services based on family needs and culture.

Objectives

• Develop a consistent menu of comprehensive services and supports that effectively meet the needs of all young children and their families.
• Develop a process to support early childhood needs assessments locally and statewide.
• Develop a process to address the improvement of early childhood service access and program availability.
• Support the implementation of community and state plans to address program availability.

3. Parent and Family Leadership

All parents and families are partners in the early childhood system.

Rationale

Families are significant partners in creating a comprehensive and integrated early childhood system. Ready family is one of the four components (ready child, ready school and ready community) of school readiness. An integrated early childhood system honors parents/families as the primary reason that their children thrive. In addition:

• The development of a quality early childhood system is dependent on parent/family voice and choice in all phases of needs assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation.
• Best practice requires authentic parent/family involvement to show positive outcomes for the families served.
• Parents/families are strong and effective advocates for funding and legislation to support the system and to identify needed system change.
• Parents/families are best at identifying barriers to accessing programs and services.
• Community and school environments are created to listen and support parents and children, respond to family needs, and know how to partner with parents/families in the provision of services and in the systems.

Families should be significant partners in creating a comprehensive and integrated early childhood system. The development of an early childhood system is greatly enhanced through authentic involvement of consumers in all phases of needs assessment, planning, implementation and evaluation. The resulting system will support families as primary determinants of how their children thrive. This includes creating community and school environments that support parents and children, providing parental education and support to meet family needs, and partnering with families in the creation of family services.

Objectives

• Families are involved in governance and system level activities.
• Parents/families of diverse cultures are engaged in all system efforts.
• Parents/families and providers are partners on their children's services and care.
• Support is provided for parents to be partners in the provision of services.

4. Professional and Workforce Development

The early childhood system ensures integrated and formalized ongoing professional and workforce development.

Rationale

To provide quality services that will have the best outcomes for children and families, it is important that the staff providing the services are knowledgeable about their jobs, early childhood development, and the impact that they can have on positives outcomes for the development of young children. To do this workforce development must be a system and agency priority. One part of the goal is to create core competencies and a lattice of job opportunities that allow individuals to move laterally across disciplines as well as up in their own discipline as a way to develop a cross trained and integrated work force and to offer more opportunities for early childhood staff.

Objectives

• An overarching early childhood professional development structure is formed.
• A core knowledge base exists for all staff within the early childhood system.
• Professional development activities supplement the core knowledge base across disciplines.
• Improve the quality, availability and capacity of professional development resources to meet the needs of early childhood staff.
• Supports and incentives are accessible for professional development.
• An integrated plan exists for credentialing and licensing.

5. Public Engagement

The public understands the importance of, places a high priority on and promotes the early childhood system.

Rationale

To develop an effective early childhood system requires community support and understanding to use the system. This goal addresses the need for public engagement to ensure that all constituencies participating in the early childhood systems work understand and articulate the work in the same effective way. Public engagement establishes a brand and key message to define the early childhood system, action plans to mobilize key stakeholders, communication plans to share information and dissemination, and supports advocacy work to build and sustain the early childhood system.

Objectives

• Develop an identity for the early childhood system
• Develop a communications plan to support and promote Smart Start Colorado
• Develop a public engagement strategic plan

6. Accountability

The early childhood system is accountable for children's readiness for school and life.

Rationale

The accountability goal focuses on the ability of the Early Childhood System to provide positive child and family outcomes. To be successful, an early childhood system must monitor the outcomes and cost benefit of services and use this information to guide decision-making on policy and funding and support the continuous development of the system. It is also important that the system build on current measures (e.g., the school readiness indicators), be streamlined, and not duplicate current measures.

Objectives

• Develop a set of defined and prioritized child and family outcomes across all service areas of the early childhood system.
• Develop ways to measure child and family outcomes across all service areas of the early childhood system and coordinate to produce useable data.
• Define ways to monitor, report on and use outcome information across all service areas of the early childhood system that will be useful in decision-making on a program, community and state level.
• Define ways to measure the cost/benefit of outcomes and services.

7. Organizational Structure

The early childhood system has formally established governance and administrative structures at the state and local levels.

Rationale

Any organizational structure must contain mechanisms necessary to turn a system vision into reality. Consequently, an organizational structure must be created that can effectively envision, create, and implement core functions critical to achieving that reality. Effectively articulated core functions are the foundation of an early childhood system that is effective, efficient, and equitable for all children and families.

Objectives

• Develop a state level organizational structure to support the early childhood system
• Develop local organizational structures to support the early childhood system
• Create service and system Integration for the early childhood system

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.

Rationale

The early childhood system requires consistent and sustainable financing and resources to ensure consistent access and growth. This includes identifying the various sources of financing and resources, identifying potential funding mechanisms, identifying cost models for a high quality early childhood system, and engaging key financial champions in the process.

Objectives

• Identify funding partners and resources (public and private)
• Identify funding mechanisms
• Identify cost models for a high quality early childhood system
• Create a resource plan with implementation strategies