Alignment. Quality. Access.
OECD leads the state's initiatives to create an integrated system of quality, early learning and development programs to help give all Illinois children a strong educational foundation before they begin kindergarten.
Learn more.
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April 2 |
Executive Committee Meeting
April 3 |
See
calendar
for more events and details.
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Dear Early Childhood Community,
OECD is committed to continuing work with partners in the community systems space to organize more conversations at which other types of collaborations can share their experiences. This past month OECD had an opportunity to co-convene a summit of former Innovation Zones and other community collaboration leaders. In this issue, we are pleased to provide information on the summit.
We also have important resources to share on a multitude of topics, including a guide for parents in Illinois who are undocumented and the Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship. In the Policy Corner you will find information regarding the Governor's Cabinet on Children and Youth's new priority initiatives for the upcoming year.
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Message from the Illinois State Pyramid Model Leadership Team: Congratulations!
Illinois is participating in a new early childhood professional development opportunity designed to support the social and emotional development of children birth through five. Social and emotional well-being sets the foundation for the development and learning of infants, toddlers and young children. The Governor's Office of Early Childhood Development took the lead in bringing together a team of 14 public and private agencies to form the Illinois State Pyramid Model Partnership. This partnership will promote the statewide use of the Pyramid Model, an evidence-based framework proven to be an effective approach to building social and emotional competence in early care and education programs.
The Illinois State Pyramid Model Leadership Team wants to welcome the first cohort of the Pyramid Model Master Cadre! The Master Cadre Trainers will help carry out Illinois' vision and achieve the goals related to the Pyramid Model.These individuals have been selected through an application process to be part of Illinois' Pyramid Model Master Cadre. This Master Cadre approach creates a plan for offering training and coaching for high fidelity program site implementation, build the capacity of the workforce and support local implementation for children ages birth-5 years of age including those who are at risk for or who have delays or disabilities, as well as reduce suspensions and eliminate expulsions in early childhood settings.We are so pleased that the following individuals have decided to join our team and work collaboratively to promote children's success by creating an environment where every child feels acknowledged, welcomed and loved: Allen Rosales, Angela Herrington, Angela Searcy, Anna Owen, Antoinette Taylor, Bernice Shelton, Camille Gant, Casey Craft-Cortes, Courtney Kirk, Denise Henry, Desney Jordan Avery, Diane Richey, Donita Kirkland, Jac McBride, Jade Bumgarner, Joyce Senters, Kathleen Liffick, Kathy Davis, Lynn Barts, Pamela Reising Recher, Rosario Rodriguez, Sara Beach, Sharifa Townsend, Sheila Bauer, Sue Dierks, and Tamara Notter.
To find out more about the Illinois Pyramid Model for Social Emotional Competency click HERE
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Individual and Cohort Education Reimbursement Initiatives Summaries
A qualified and diverse early childhood workforce continues to be a high priority in Illinois.
With this frame in place, the Governor's Office of Early Childhood Development (GOECD), in partnership with the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and the Illinois Network of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (INCCRRA), developed and implemented a time-limited education reimbursement program for early childhood professionals. This initiative, supported by the Race to the Top-Early Learning Challenge grant (RTT), helped to identify effective targeted support to all early care and education professionals experiencing financial barriers to advancing their degree or credential. Applications were accepted from January 2017 through April 2017. As a result, reimbursements totaling over $455,000 were distributed to nearly 250 professionals for tuition, fees, and outstanding student debt. All recipients responded to a survey as part of their applications. Survey results can be found HERE.
The Illinois RTT grant also offered the opportunity to identify and implement effective strategies to support professionals, particularly bilingual and infant-toddler teachers. The Governor's Office of Early Childhood Development, through RTT, provided a $500,000 allocation to the Gateways Scholarship Program to develop and implement such a strategy. The result included flexible statewide educational cohorts for over 180 teachers to obtain their English as a Second Language (ESL) or Bilingual endorsement through the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE). These cohorts were designed to help Illinois school districts fulfill a July 2017 requirement for Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG) funded programs.
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Cohort Initiative Flyer |
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| Education Reimbursement Initiative Flyer |
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Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship
The Mayor's Office for Early Learning, Truman College's Office of College to Careers, Chicago Public Schools, and the Department of Family Support Services are collaborating to invest $2 million into the Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship that will provide access for Chicagoans to pursue additional coursework in early care and education to earn a state-certified credential.
The scholarship serves an important role in Chicago's efforts to expand access to early learning programs across the city and build a more robust workforce that can help the City expand high quality early learning programs. The scholarship will also improve the lives of the
recipients by giving parents a better understanding of child development and providing recipients with a meaningful career path.
Click HERE to learn more about eligibility, how the scholarship works, or to express interest in supporting a cohort of students.
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Oprah Winfrey Raises Awareness About Childhood Trauma
On Sunday, March 11, Oprah Winfrey presented a
60 Minutes segment
that explores the long-term effects of childhood trauma. In the segment,
Winfrey shared a fellow trauma-survivo
r's story, highlighting a treatment framework some experts are using to help those who've experienced trauma called trauma-informed care. Winfrey, said, "Trauma leaves a hole in the soul, and unless you fix the trauma that has caused people to be the way they are, you're working on the wrong thing." In reaction to traumatic occurrences - an
ever-increasing tragedy in the American fabric - we ask, "What's
wrong with that child?" Winfrey says this is the wrong question. We
must ask instead, "What happened to that child?" Trauma-informed care,
Winfrey explained, "focuses on a person's experiences before trying to correct their behavior, whether it be juvenile delinquency, poor performance in school or out-of-control anger."
Oprah spoke with Dr. Bruce Perry, a renowned American psychiatrist, leading expert on childhood trauma, and pioneering advocate for quality early childhood education. "That very same sensitivity that makes you able to learn language just like that as a little infant makes you highly vulnerable to chaos, threat, inconsistency, unpredictability, violence," Dr. Perry said in the interview. "Children are much more sensitive to developmental trauma than adults."
The good news is children's brains have the capacity to form new pathways with the right interventions. When Winfrey asked Perry why are some people able to overcome and thrive despite traumatic childhood experiences while others are not, it came down to one thing: relationships. Perry said, when someone seemingly pulled themselves up from their bootstraps, "somebody helped you pull up those boots."
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Registration is now open for Serving Families Together: Home Visiting, Early Intervention, and Child Welfare Cross-
Training Series
This cross-training series in Central Illinois will support early childhood providers in better understanding the impact of trauma on child development and how various early childhood programs and services can support children's recovery and developmental trajectory. In addition, cross-training attendees will have the opportunity to network, problem solve across systems, and identify community-level planning needs for improved cross-system collaboration and ensuring families can receive the services they need.
All cross-training sessions are free of charge.
CEUs, CPDUs, Gateways, and Early Intervention training credits, as well as lunch, will be available for each training.
Registration is available through the DCFS Virtual Training Center (VTC). If you have a VTC account, please register online at www.dcfstraining.org. If you do NOT have a VTC account, register by emailing [email protected] or calling 877-800-3393. If you need assistance with registration, please contact Brooke Taylor at [email protected].
Training locations, dates, and times include:
- April 12-Illinois Education Association in Springfield
- April 13-Decatur Public Library
- April 17-Illinois Law Enforcement Training Building in Urbana
- April 20-Illinois Central College East Peoria Campus
If you need additional information or have general questions about the cross-training series, please contact Carie Bires at [email protected] or 312-291-2160.
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Early Learning Council Meeting Calendar
 The committees and subcommittees of the Early Learning Council meet several times a year to work towards each of their goals and priorities. You can find a calendar of all Early Learning Council meetings on the OECD website on the
ELC Meeting Calendar, which lists the date, time, location, and links to any meeting materials. Some upcoming meetings are:
April 2, 2018 1:00pm-4:00
pm
April 3, 2018 11:30am-1:00pm
April 5, 2018 10:00am-12:00pm
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Governor's Children's Cabinet Adopts New Initiatives
On March 8, 2018 the Governor's Cabinet on Children and Youth selected new priority initiatives for the upcoming year. Over the past few months, agency representatives have collaborated to craft thoughtful proposals on issues affecting youth in Illinois. The Cabinet decided to move forward with four projects:
- Childcare Subsidies and Self-Sufficiency: link Childcare Assistance Program data to wage and employment information to better understand CCAP effects on family self-sufficiency.
- Dually Involved Multi-System Collaboration: create a cohesive strategy for improving outcomes for children simultaneously involved with the child welfare and the criminal justice systems.
- Statewide Community-Based Mentoring Network: enhance agency collaboration to ensure that the most-at-risk youth in Illinois can access strong mentors.
- College & Career Readiness through Transitional Math and Alternative High School Equivalency (HSE) Credentials: collaboratively develop transitional programs to facilitate post-secondary degrees and credentials.
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Exploring State-by-state Definitions of Kindergarten Readiness to Support Informed Policymaking
More than half of states have a definition for kindergarten readiness, and at least 25 states require kindergarten entry assessments (KEAs) to help educators better understand what students know upon entering kindergarten. Other states are gradually phasing in KEAs and/or making them optional. However, nationwide, there is no common understanding or definition of "kindergarten readiness" or "school readiness." Instead, many states have developed their own definitions of kindergarten readiness.
In spring 2016, REL Northwest searched state education agency websites to document existing state-adopted definitions of kindergarten readiness and KEAs. The results were compiled into a 50-state scan.
The findings include:
- 26 states had a definition of kindergarten readiness that was either formally adopted or promoted throughout the state
- 6 states were developing one
- Most states use KEAs for at least one of the following purposes:
- To inform classroom instruction, curriculum planning, and professional development needs
- To identify students in need of specialized supports or interventions
- To provide a statewide snapshot of what children know when they enter kindergarten, monitor changes over subsequent kindergarten cohorts, and inform public policy and public investments in early childhood
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Innovation Zone Follow-Up Summit
In partnership with the Erikson Institute, the Build Initiative, Illinois
Action for Children, and Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, the Governor's Office of Early Childhood Development convened a summit of former Innovation Zones and other community collaboration leaders on March 2, 2018 at the Erikson Institute. The purpose of this event was twofold: first, to draw upon the expertise of this group of early childhood leaders to inform the planning of statewide supports for community systems development; and second, for our partner organizations to share information on current and future projects that would support the work of communities and their early childhood collaborations.
Leaders from nine of the eleven Innovation Zones attended the summit, in addition to representatives from the AOK Network and the IL Head Start Association. Participants shared their experiences in five roundtable discussions, covering the topics of best practices in partnership building, successful initiatives, sustainability and funding, implementation and process challenges, and data usage readiness. These conversations reaffirmed the importance of aligning work to actual community needs-the most impactful and successfully sustained projects were usually the ones that were driven by community initiative, and the most helpful supports were ones that were directly in response to challenges that collaboration partners experienced as they carried out their work.
Lessons learned from the roundtable discussions are currently being compiled into a report which will be shared with Summit participants, partner agencies that support community collaborations, and other stakeholders. The Governor's Office of Early Childhood Development will continue to work with partners in the community systems space to organize more conversations at which other types of collaborations can share their experiences. We hope that these and future conversations will better inform our field's supports and policies for community systems development.
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| A Guide for Parents in Illinois who are Undocumented
Many families who are undocumented
Please share the Guide widely with families and with providers who may find the information helpful.
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Early Childhood Symposium "A Child's First 1100 Days Lasts Forever"
Skokie-Morton Grove School District 69 and Infant Welfare Society of Evanston invite you for an evening focused on a child's first three years of life and why they matter. The featured speaker for this event will be Geoffrey A. Nagle, President & CEO of Erikson Institute. Dr. Geoff Nagle, will discuss how a child's earliest experiences have lifelong consequences for children, and how it is in these years that the disparities begin in education. Following his talk, a panel of leaders will engage in a conversation about the role of the community in supporting early childhood development and discuss how we can work together to create ideas and solutions starting from birth.
April 5th, 2018
6:30pm-8:00pm
Skokie School District 69 Administrative Offices
5050 Madison Street Skokie, Illinois 60077
Please RSVP: 847-675-7666
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IAFC Announces New Positions
Illinois Action for Children (IAFC) has announced a new partnership with the Illinois State Board of Education! IAFC will provide a system of statewide supports for early childhood community systems development: training, technical assistance, and coaching to community collaborations that are focused on enrollment of children ages 0-5 with high needs into high quality early learning programs. IAFC is hiring new positions to support this work; click
HERE to learn more.
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Anti-Bias Teaching Practices and Our Connections with Families
Last fall the Y hosted "I Dreamed A World: Committing to Anti-Bias Teaching Practices." The positive response served as a catalyst for the Y to create the "I Dreamed A World: Deepening Our Commitment to Anti-Bias Education" series.
As the journey continues, the Y will be sharing promising practices of how anti-bias teaching can support relationships with families and caregivers. Join the discussion and learn ways to stay engaged.
Friday, May 11, 2018
8:45 - 11:45 a.m.
The YMCA Center, Learning Institute, 1030 W. Van Buren Street, Chicago, IL 60607
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