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The Early Childhood Advisory Council is comprised of six workgroups. Staff from the NYS Council on Children and Families and the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy serve to support the work groups.
Finance is focused on developing a consistent finance framework and model to apply across the ECAC’s four focus areas—Healthy Children, Strong Families, Early Learning, and Coordinated and Responsive Systems. Work will concentrate on identifying the key service components in New York’s vision for a comprehensive system of services for young children, as well as identifying current investments in those components. This work will inform the construction of an early childhood cost model, an analytical tool that will allow policymakers to gauge the impact of changes in access, quality, and funding levels. The cost model will also inform the workgroup’s analysis of the barriers to and opportunities for maximizing use of existing resources to support the goals of a coordinated and comprehensive system of services that meet agreed-upon standards. The Finance Workgroup also plans to identify new financing strategies including a mix of public and private resources to increase investments in a comprehensive system that includes key services, infrastructure supports, workforce retention and development, and ongoing quality assurance/improvement. Co-Chairs: Mark Jasinski, Director of Early Childhood Programs, NYS Prekindergarten Administrators Association; & Nancy Kolben, Executive Director, Child Care, Inc.
Quality Improvement is developing a system of actionable quality assurance across the ECAC’s three focus areas—Healthy Children, Strong Families, and Early Learning. One major activity includes overseeing the ongoing implementation of QUALITYstarsNY, New York’s Quality Rating and Improvement System for center- and family-based early care and education programs. The Quality Improvement Workgroup will also focus on family support and engagement by exploring its definition and practice across broad sectors of early childhood services, considering how to integrate it into existing quality assurance frameworks, and striving to create a common definition and common standards across sectors. Co-Chairs: Recy Dunn, Director, Office of Early Childhood Education—NYC Department of Education; Anne Mitchell, President, Early Childhood Policy Research; & Janice Molnar, Deputy Commissioner, Division of Child Care Services—NYS OCFS
Early Learning Workforce Development is organized to advance the components of an early learning career development system,”now called “New York Works for Children: Early Childhood Career Development System”, and respond to related issues such as coordination of pre-service education in early childhood (i.e., articulation agreements among institutions of higher education) and staff recruitment, retention, and compensation. In the coming months, the Early Learning Workforce Development Workgroup will revise the 2001 edition of NYS Core Body of Knowledge, oversee the development of a workforce registry, and propose a governance structure for professional development. Co-Chairs: Sherry Cleary, Executive Director, NYC Early Childhood Professional Development Institute; & Kristen Kerr, Executive Director, NYS Association for the Education of Young Children
Data Development is working to determine data needed for a cross-early learning program data system that helps state and local agencies and others identify trends in early learning programs, answer policy questions, and plan for program development. Co-Chairs: Carol Saginaw, Executive Director, Early Care & Learning Council; & Bob Frawley, Deputy Director, NYS Council on Children and Families
Strong Families is developing a workplan for New York State to support families that incorporates the principles of strengthening families, promoting resiliency, and enhancing protective factors as a framework for all health, education, and human services to ensure that we provide appropriate services and supports to strengthen families. Those services/supports include parent education, screening and assessment of children and families, and voluntary home visiting for all expectant and new families. Strong Families will compile information on best practices in each of these areas, disseminate that information, make recommendations when advisable, and assist existing efforts in implementation of strategies that will forward the Workgroup agenda. Co-Chairs: Evelyn Blanck, Associate Executive Director, NY Center for Child Development; & Denise Harlow, President, NYS Community Action Association
Promoting Healthy Development is building capacity among the many different providers in child-serving systems to improve the health and social-emotional development of young children. This includes identifying and responding to the social-emotional needs of young children and their families, promoting health and safety through the development of training and consultation, and identifying opportunities to collaborate with public health programs to achieve key health outcomes for young children. The group will gather information about current projects, best practices, and available trainings; and monitor and advise related activities that are already on-going in New York. The group will compile health and social-emotional trainings with the goal of developing an on-line resource. Co-Chairs: Dina Lieser, Executive Director, Docs for Tots NY; & Mary McHugh, Director of Strategic Direction and Training, NYS OMH