Going from Good to Great: Promoting Provider Participation in Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) and Accreditation Programs Track: Child Care Panelists from the Department of Defense (DoD), state licensing, and the provider community will discuss how to increase quality by encouraging greater participation in QRIS and accreditation programs. The DoD will describe how the Department made the transition from good to great. Other panelists will describe best practices in the states and how Race-to-the-Top Early Learning Challenge grants, quality dollars, QRIS and accreditation can promote higher quality early care and education and increased compliance with state laws and regulations Presenters: Katie Gallagher, Senior Associate Counsel, Corporate & Regulatory Affairs, Knowledge Universe Carolyn Stevens, Senior Program Analyst, Department of Defense Kathie Boe, Senior Director, Quality and Accreditation, Knowledge Universe David A. Collins, Interim Director, Division of Child Care, Colorado Department of Human Services

Child Care Licensing Early Childhood Development And the Economic Necessity of Thriving Child Care Businesses

The Balance Helping Children – Maximum Capacity: When child care providers thrive, when enrollment rises, less children are in unlicensed care. – Physically and emotionally safe environment – Advance quality of early care and education of children – Engage families in early childhood education – Well educated and continually trained early childhood educators and caregivers – Wrap-Around: Connecting children with other services – Evaluate early childhood providers for the quality of their early learning and care and compare data to performance of children at entry to kindergarten, and beyond. – Use data about correlations between quality and child outcomes to re-evaluate the purpose and frame of quality early learning and care. Helping Business – Maximum Capacity: Many providers only make a profit if the last few slots at their facility remain filled. – Saving costs for providers is just as valuable as raising revenues. – Subsiding some costs of quality and health safety and welfare standards – Save business money by reducing cost of quality rating achievement, validation, maintenance, and future advancement – Allow for core indicator evaluation at the 2 and 3 tier levels with self evaluation/reporting by the facility – Assist with entry into shared services until the annual savings exceed the annual costs by 50%. – Tiered Reimbursement: dollar amount of daily reimbursement rate per child tied to quality rating. – Resource and Referral network assistance.

(T)QRIS & Child Care Licensing The Current QRIS Voluntary Contracted: Qualistar 4-star point based system The Future TQRIS Model All licensed child care facilities rated at least at tier level one, which is maintenance of licensing laws and regulations. Option to rise to levels 2, 3, 4, and 5. 5 level bock and point hybrid:  blocks occur at level’s 1 and 2 where compliance with licensing at level 1 is followed by level 2’s free core competency training.  Points accrued at level 3 by combing scores for self evaluation and abbreviated Environmental Rating scale (ERS) core indicator.  Points accrued at levels 4 and 5 for ERS, Class, PAS, Accreditation, Shared Services, tiered reimbursement, training, education, credentials, experience,

6,500 TOTAL Home, Center, Pre-School, and School Age Licensees

The Role of the Licensing Specialist “To license and monitor Child Care facilities, insuring a safe and high quality experience for all children”

Caseloads include a variety of Facilities Family Child Care Homes Child Care Centers Preschools School Age Child Care Centers Current Staff Licensing Specialists (TOTAL ?) Contractor’s Staff (TOTAL ?) Colo Dept of Ed Qualistar Pyramid Plus Shared Services Project Management (Oldham) Current Caseload Weighted Case Load Licensing Specialists Health, Safety Welfare Professional Standards 540 facilities rated by Contractor’s Staff Future Caseload Weighted Case Load Licensing Specialists Health, Safety Welfare Professional Standards TQRIS Bottom Tier of the Rating Scale TQRIS 2 nd Tier of the Rating Scale Max 6500 facilities rated by Contractor’s Staff Current QRIS And the Next Generation TQRIS

Race to the Top Fall 2012 Application Colorado

The question has arisen; how we can award a level II rating for core competency training completion without verification of level I fidelity? About 1/3 of the 6500 facilities to become TQRIS rated are visited each year by licensing specialists. To enable every facility that wants to assert a rating higher than level I that is not due for a visit for months or years, we may be able to get 2-3 years worth of 2/3 more licensing specialists to verify licensing compliance and level II completion. Over time, the need for additional staff declines back to the previous caseload per staff ratio. The new registry maturing over three to four years saves licensing the cost of time spent paying staff to verify background checks, professional qualifications, certifications, trainings and other records. The time Licensing Specialists save is necessary for the 3 hours they must spend applying the elements of ERS that lead to a level I and II rating. In doing this, the ERS core indicator could be introduced at level II by licensing specialists and done again at level III when the licensee does a self evaluation and a contracted quality management entity evaluates and scales core elements of early learning and care. Then, level IV and V require full ERS and varied levels of other tools, such as Pas, Clas, accreditations, etc., and the other point generating elements, like family engagement, wrap-around services, tiered reimbursement, shared services, social emotional, and so on are completed and published by the contractor(s). We are then creating reliable validity when accepting a level II rating within the first three years of the TQRIS and taking the opportunity to use core indicators at levels II and III that are completed by two different teams of evaluators. Self evaluation credit should be embedded at all levels.

Date Management

The Registry Education Training Criminal Records Credentials Experience Certifications