2005 revere quality improvement plan - full report
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The Revere Council for Families and Children (RCFC)
is a local Community Partnership Council under
the leadership of the Revere Public Schools. Its
membership includes early care and education
professionals from child care, family child care,
Head Start, and public school programs. The
RCFC is committed to building a comprehensive,
collaborative network of family-centered services
that is sensitive to family needs and builds upon
community strengths and resources.
Revere Councilfor Families and Children
Associated Early Care and Education, Inc. Family/Child Care Program – Chelsea ■
Beachmont Arts &’ Educare, Inc ■ CAPIC ■ CAPIC Head Start ■ Chelsea/Revere Family
Network ■ Collaborative Psychotherapy ■ Early Childhood Associates, Inc. ■ Even Start ■
For Kids Only ■ Harbor Area Early Intervention ■ Healthy Families – ROCA ■ Healthy
Foundations Early Intervention ■ Kiddie Koop of Revere, Inc. ■ MGH Revere Cares ■
North Suffolk Mental Health ■ Office of the Mayor ■ Parents from the Revere Community ■
Revere Community Partnerships for Children ■ Revere Family Network ■ Revere Police
Department ■ Revere Public Library ■ Revere Public Schools ■ Team-Ups
Intergenerational Mentor Program ■ Tri-City Housing ■ Family Child Care Providers
from the Revere community ■ Parents from the Revere communityAssociatedEarly Care and Education and the Boston EQUIP
Model
Based on the belief that children’s first learning
experiences are the foundation for success in school
and adult life, the RCFC’s primary role is to:
■ Develop a comprehensivesystem linking childrenand families with existingsocial and human serviceagencies that is equallyaccessible to all families;
■ Implement parent educa-tion programs that helpfamilies develop a greatercapacity to educate theirchildren;
■ Insure developmentally-appropriate curriculumand practices in all earlycare and education programs;
■ Develop home-school partnerships;
■ Implement the MassachusettsEarly Childhood ProgramStandards and Guidelines;
■ Offer comprehensive professional developmentand support programs forearly childhood providersand other human serviceagency representatives;
■ Serve as an ongoing policyand planning body for newearly childhood and familycentered programs;
■ Advocate for expandedresources to better servefamilies and children; and
■ Move all programs to anEven Start model providingfamily literacy for all families.
For more information about the Revere
Council for Families and Children, call us
at 781-485-2719.
Associated Early Care and Educationand the Boston EQUIP Model
Associated’s mission is to leadthrough experience, as educators andadvocates, in urban early education of children from birth, in partnershipwith their families and communities.
Associated Early Care and Education,
Inc. is a direct service provider serving
primarily low-income children in the
Greater Metropolitan Boston area
through its six center-based programs
and three family child care networks.
Associated’s mission is to lead through
experience, as educators and advocates,
in urban early education of children
from birth, in partnership with their
families and communities.
Associated and a community-based
advisory of early care and education
providers, advocates, and policymakers
established the Boston Early Education
Quality Improvement Project (Boston
EQUIP) in 1995 in an effort to improve
the quality of early care and education
services in Boston. After completing
its first survey of licensed center-based
child care, family child care, public
pre-school programs, and after-school
programs, Boston EQUIP’s advisory
established benchmarks in five key
areas of quality improvement –
accreditation, facilities, teacher
education and training, teacher
salaries, and parent engagement.
Since that time, Boston EQUIP has
surveyed Boston’s licensed early care
and education and school-age child
care programs four times – in 1997,
1999, 2001, and most recently in
the winter of 2004, and has used the
data to leverage legislative change
and financial investment in improv-
ing the quality of early childhood
programs.
Revere’s Commitment to QualityIn 2002, Associated Early Care and Education, Inc. received a
grant from The F. B. Heron Foundation to replicate the Boston
EQUIP model in another local community, and integrate it with
efforts to measure quality at the program and child levels.
Associated partnered with the Revere Public Schools and the
Revere Council for Families and Children because of their
existing and ongoing commitment to improving the quality
of early care and education programs at all three levels: the
child, the program, and the community.
The child:In 2001, the Revere Public Schoolspartnered with Associated todevelop a child outcome measure-ment system for its public school-based early childhood classrooms.As a part of this process, Reveredeveloped educational benchmarksfor children’s development inmath, language arts, and sciencebased on the MassachusettsDepartment of Education’sCurriculum Frameworks for Pre-Kindergarten. Revere providedtraining to its early childhoodteachers in observing and recordingchild development indicators andusing that information to assessthe progress of children in theearly childhood classroom.
The program:Through a partnership betweenthe Revere Council for Familiesand Children and Associated, theRCFC has made a commitment tohelping center-based providersand other early care and educationprograms achieve national accreditation through the NationalAssociation for the Education ofYoung Children.
The community:In its new partnership withAssociated, the Revere Council forFamilies and Children adapted theBoston EQUIP model and wentthrough a process of setting longterm goals for quality improvementin Revere’s early care and educationservices – a vision that buildsupon the goals the RCFC hadalready established for itself and its members.
Setting Revere’s Early Careand Education BenchmarksTo establish its long-term quality
improvement goals and interim
benchmarks, the Revere Council
for Families and Children worked
with Associated Early Care and
Education and Early Childhood
Associates, Inc. to create a vision
for early care and education services
in Revere in 2005 and 2008.
After choosing the quality improve-
ment areas of accreditation, com-
munity collaboration, and serving
diverse children – priorities that
had been raised repeatedly in the
RCFC’s planning and evaluation
process – members took a close look
at Revere’s current status in each
area. This scan of the “baseline”
revealed that in an area like accred-
itation, there were existing data
which gave a complete picture of
the community’s level of success.
In the other two areas, community
collaboration and serving the needs
of diverse children, baseline data
were much more difficult to establish
and success will be much more
difficult to measure. The bench-
marks established in each of the
three areas reflect the relative
concreteness and measurability
of the quality improvement
areas selected by the Council
members as its priorities.
After reviewing existing baseline
data, Revere Council for Families
and Children members reflected on
their vision for Revere’s early care
and education quality in the future.
With that vision in the forefront,
participants established interim
steps toward that vision – the
benchmarks described in this report.
“Developing benchmarks as a
Council was a nice way of having
everyone be a part of our goals.
I think people work harder to
achieve goals that they are
invested in.”
Participant in the
2002 Revere Council
for Families and Children
Next Steps
It is important to have a vision, and to develop steps for getting
there. By setting benchmarks in three priority areas of early care
and education quality, Revere continues to make progress. Revere
is committed to providing quality services to families and children
and plans to use its benchmarks as a roadmap for planning and
investment as it proceeds into the 21st century.
Currently in
Revere:
Two of the nine licensed centers in Revere (one a Head Start program), and all three Early Childhood Program sites operated by the Revere Public Schools are accredited.
By 2008:
Accreditation will have been achieved and/ormaintained in:
➔ The three Revere Public School Early Childhood Program sites;
➔ One Head Start program;
➔ One additional licensed center; and
Four family child care programs.
All previously accredited centers, Head Startprograms, and Revere Public Schools EarlyChildhood Program sites will have maintainedaccreditation;
➔ Two school-age programs will have completed self-assessment using appropriate accreditation standards.
and➔ Six family child care programs will have
achieved accreditation through theNational Association for Family Child Care.
Accreditation Benchmarks
BEN
CHM
AR
KS
By 2005:
Collaboration is critical to the success of an early care and
education community in meeting the needs of families and
children yet it is often intangible and difficult to measure.
There is some evidence, however, that community collaboration
in Revere could improve.
Because community collaboration was an area of quality that
the Revere Council for Families and Children had identified and
prioritized in its planning and evaluation process, the Revere early
childhood community has made a commitment to achieving and
documenting progress in this area. While the goals may be less
quantifiable, these “action” benchmarks are no less critical to the
overall quality improvement of early care and education in Revere.
BEN
CHM
AR
KS The Revere early care and education community
will have: ➔ Engaged six businesses in the community
with the Council;
➔ Gained a commitment from all of these business partners to support the developmentof a resource guide and “tracking” book in which families can document their use of various early childhood programs andservices.
The Revere early care and education communitywill have published and distributed 250 resourceguides and tracking books to parents throughoutthe city.
By 2008:
By 2005:
Community CollaborationBenchmarks
Current ly :21% of parents
believed that theprograms serving
their children sup-ported families from
other cultures or thosewho are learning a second
language.
Serving Diverse ChildrenBenchmarks
Like many cities in America, Revere’s population is in a constant
state of change. It speaks a variety of languages, comes from a
variety of cultures, and has a variety of needs related to its young
children’s education. According to 2000 U.S. Census data, 9% of
individuals in Revere speak Spanish as their primary language at
home, 5% speak an Asian or Pacific Island language and 13% speak
another language other than English. One of every five individuals
in Revere was born outside the United States, with more than a third
of those born in Latin America, and 22% born in an African country.
It is not surprising, then, that the Revere Council for Families and
Children has made serving the city’s diverse children – not only
racially and linguistically diverse, but diverse in terms of their
educational and developmental needs – one of its highest priorities.
By 2008:
➔ Teachers and providers will attend at least one training per year in developing skills and curriculum to support cultural sensitivity, diversity awareness, and working with second-language learners.
➔ Classrooms and family child care homes will beprint-rich environments which reflect themajority of languages spoken by the childrenand families they serve.
➔ 40% of parents will be aware that programs areproviding services that support families fromother cultures and those who are learning a second language.
➔ All preschool children will understand and enjoy the diversity of their peers as demonstrated through play and conversation.
➔ Teachers and providers will attend at least twotrainings per year in developing skills and cur-riculum to support cultural sensitivity, diversityawareness, and working with second-languagelearners.
➔ In addition to the print rich environmentclassrooms and family child care homes willhave multicultural materials and books whichreflect the cultural diversity of the communityand the majority of languages spoken by thechildren and families they serve.
➔ All parents will be aware that programs are pro-viding services that support families from othercultures and those who are learning a secondlanguage.
➔ All preschool children will continue to under-stand and enjoy the diversity of their peers asdemonstrated through play and conversation.
BEN
CHM
AR
KS
By 2005: