Virginia Child Care Resource and Referral Network

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Virginia Child Care Resource and Referral Network

• Vision
• Every child is cared for in a nurturing
  environment.

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About VACCRRN

• Who are we?
• VACCRRN is a network of 12 child care resource
  and referral agencies (consisting of private
  nonprofit, local government and cooperative
  extension organizations) from across the
  commonwealth delivering services to parents,
  child care providers and the community at the
  local level.

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About VACCRRN

• What do we do?
• Provide families with the tools they need to be
  educated consumers of quality child care.
• Provide the child care field with the support
  they need to become providers of quality child
  care services.
• Provide the community with child care supply
  demand data to make wise investments in improving
  and enhancing the quality child care.

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How do parents find us?

• Internet (VACCRRN local agency websites)
• Phone book
• 2-1-1 and Information Referral
• Referrals from local DSS, schools, doctors, Head
  Start and community agencies (early intervention
  programs, Healthy Families, CHIP, Parks Rec,
  etc.)
• Word of mouth (other parents and child care
  providers
• VACCRRN is linked to Child Care Aware (A national
  child care information line funded through the
  Child Care Development Fund to link families to
  child care and provide consumer education
  information)

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What type of families are served?

• Single mother from Amelia with three preschool
  children
• Case worker from Goodwill in Richmond trying to
  help a client
• Navy mother looking for quality care in Loudoun
  County

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How many families are served?

• 5437 families received child care referrals in
  the past 12-months
• 44289 online searches
• 1268 requests for 3 4 year old full-time,
  full-year care
• 11 different languages were requested (French,
  Swahili, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Farsi, Korean,
  Vietnamese and Spanish)
• 698 requests were for special needs care
• 1245 requests were for extra care services such
  as overnight, evening, drop-in and weekend care
• 37 were single parents
• 76 were for children under the age of 3
• 17 had incomes under 30,000 a year

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What services do families need?

• Dependable, affordable and available care
• More providers to meet the needs of the families
  (evening, weekend, etc.)
• Approved preschool curriculum and educational
  settings
• Knowledgeable and well trained teachers
• Wrap around care in addition to preschool
  experiences
• Scholarships/financial assistance
• Quality programs and a way to determine quality
  (Quality Rating System)

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Information provided to parents

• Families are provided with access to a child care
  specialist available to counsel families on types
  of child, regulations, how to choose monitor
  care to meet the families needs. Information
  packets are sent including indicators of quality.
• Families are provided with referrals not
  recommendations and provided with the tools
  necessary to make informed choices.
• Quality indicators provided are based on best
  practices (i.e. national accreditation
  standards)and include adult/child ratios, group
  size, the physical environment, health safety
  practices, staff qualifications, adult/child
  interactions, etc.

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What are the results of services?

• 89 able to make a more informed decision child
  when choosing child care
• 76 choose care based on the the interactions
  between the child and caregiver
• 51 rate the quality of child care options as
  very good to excellent and 16 rate options as
  fair to poor.
• 66 report the following problems in finding
  child care no openings, cost and lack of
  available hours needed
• 87 have increase knowledge of available child
  care

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Parent Comment

• My children are 10 months and 7 years and I
  consider my contact with the local CCRR a
  personal success (really!). I have learned that
  I do not have to sit idly by and accept poor care
  and interactions from my childrens caregivers.
  I have learned that I am a consumer paying for a
  service and need to hold they accountable for
  certain standards and I do not have to feel
  guilty for blowing the whistle when things do
  not look right.

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Infrastructure to be created, improved, or
expanded

• Increase public awareness of importance of
  quality early education experiences
• Improve access to care (single point of entry)
• Create professional development system to
  include core competencies, career lattice,
  training registry and certification process)
• Improve quality of existing care through
  legislation and regulation
• Implement a universal licensure and rating system
  through incentives
• Increase availability and quality of training
• Create a support net for providers to progress to
  the highest level attainable through technical
  assistance, mentoring and consultation services
• Reach out to family, friends and neighbor
  caregivers
• Increase the number of slots available for
  infants, school age, special needs and odd-hour
  care.
• Create alignment and coordinate transition
  between and among programs (i.e. child care,
  preschool, kindergarten)
• Blend funds and increase funding to adequately
  support existing and any new services offered

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Biggest needs, concerns, issues, gaps for 4-year
olds in VA

• Lack of quality
• Lack of choices
• Lack of parental knowledge of quality
• Lack of good data
• Lack of funding

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Recommendations

• Address issues of qualified teachers
• Streamline existing framework rather than
  creating new bureaucracies
• Utilize a community approach to service delivery
  with incentives for collaboration
• Institute a consumer driven quality rating system
• Create a single point of entry
• Create a system that is inclusive and supportive
  of family choice whatever that choice may be

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• Literacy begins with the thousands of loving
  interactions with adults after an infant is born.
  It begins as a child develops a sense of
  self-worth by realizing that his or her
  accomplishments are important to others. It
  begins with sitting in a safe lap, hearing a
  familiar bedtime story. Reading, then, begins
  with meeting the childs physical, social, and
  emotional needs.
• Edward Zigler, 2002

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To reach a childs mind, a teacher must
capture his heartHiam Ginott