Alignment. Quality. Access.
GOECD 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.
|
|
December 2 |
Early Learning Council Executive Committee Meeting
December 4 |
Integration and Alignment Committee Meeting
December 4 |
Family Engagement Implementation Subcommittee Meeting
December 17 |
Quality Committee Meeting
January 7 |
Family Engagement Implementation Subcommittee Meeting
January 7 |
Home Visiting Task Force Executive Committee Meeting
January 13 |
Health Subcommittee Meeting
January 16 |
ExceleRate Subcommittee Meeting
January 16 |
Community Systems Development Subcommittee Meeting
January 27 |
Home Visiting Task Force Meeting
January 29 |
Access Committee Meeting
|
|
 |
|
In response to a Funding Opportunity Announcement from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Administration for Children and Families) and the U.S. Department of Education, Illinois has submitted a proposal for Preschool Development Grant Birth through Five (PDG B-5) Renewal funds. Activities proposed in the three-year grant will build and expand upon work Illinois is conducting through the Initial PDG B-5 grant. Award announcements are expected before the end of 2019.
|
Welcome Michelle Zajac Esquivel!
Michelle Esquivel, MPH, recently joined GOECD as the MIECHV Assistant Project Director. Prior to coming to GOECD, Michelle was the Executive Director at Educare West DuPage, a state-of-the-art early childhood school that gives under-resourced young children and their families in West Chicago a strong start for a successful future. Prior to that, she served as Director of the Division of Children with Special Needs (DOCSN) and Principal Investigator and Director of the National Center on Medical Home Implementation (NCMHI) at the American Academy of Pediatrics. In this role, Ms. Esquivel oversaw DOCSN operations, functions, and projects. She provided vision and oversight for condition-specific initiatives and other practice transformation activities. Michelle holds a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and Business Administration, respectively, from the University of Iowa and a Master's Degree in Public Health from the University of Illinois, Chicago.
Michelle lives in Elgin with her husband, David, and two daughters; Ariana is a junior at the University of Kentucky and Annicka is a junior at St. Francis High School in Wheaton. Michelle is passionate about fitness and yoga, IndyCar racing, Spotify, and the Green Bay Packers!! She was born and raised on the northwest side of Chicago and has five siblings, one brother and four sisters. Her parents hailed from Wisconsin where her mother, who is vibrant and healthy at the age of 86, currently resides independently. She considers her mother among her most influential mentors.
|
GOECD Welcomes Cristina Barkowski!
GOECD welcomes Cristina Barkowski, MIECHV MSW Intern from Erikson Institute. Cristina is in her second and final year at Erikson Institute, where she is completing her Master of Social Work. She brings with her a background in psychology, biology, and a passion for child development, mental health care and research. Previously, Cristina interned at the Mothers and Babies Program at Northwestern University and now works on the team as a Research Assistant. She also works with a nonprofit in Chicago, Play Smart Literacy, which aims to improve the connections between caregivers and their children, making every interaction a learning and meaningful moment. Cristina is very eager for this next step in her career and looks forward to applying all that she will learn to her coursework and vice versa.
|
UIC's Cathy Main and Kate Zinsser Win Federal Grant for Chicago Early Childhood Preparation and Pathway Partnership
The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has received a $3.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education to support the preparation of early childhood educators. Cathy Main, a senior lecturer and program coordinator in the College of Education, is the grant's principal investigator, alongside Kate Zinsser, an associate professor of psychology who heads the Social-Emotional Teaching and Learning Lab at UIC. The grant will be used to support UIC's Alternative Early Childhood Licensure program, a residency program designed to train early childhood teachers serving Chicago's under-resourced communities. This licensure initiative recruits and selects traditionally disenfranchised, specifically women of color, to advance their education while strengthening their teaching practices. Over five years, the program will serve 100 residents and will involve around 2,000 Chicago preschoolers. A central programmatic aim is to help address pressing early childhood education issues: teacher shortages/turnover and the lack of diversity in lead teacher roles. The grant also helps to support partnerships between relevant stakeholders including government agencies, including GOECD, community organizations, university teachers and researchers.
Click here for more information.
|
UIC, IDPH Receive $9.5M for Maternal Outcomes Improvement Project
A $9.5 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration will help the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) improve maternal outcomes in Illinois. With the five-year funding, multidisciplinary researchers from UIC will work with the IDPH Illinois Title V Program and others to launch a series of new systems-level statewide efforts. Arden Handler, director of Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health at UIC and co-principal investigator, said that a key aspect of this grant is to build upon the university's prior work with the state to advance programs that address maternal mortality using a population approach. These initiatives include activities like improving emergency room intake processes to include routine screening for recent pregnancy or childbirth, providing women's health training to home visiting providers, supporting rural providers' ability to screen and treat postpartum depression, and launching and augmenting other training programs for maternal health care providers. For more information, click here.
|
Upcoming Webinar: Supporting Families Experiencing Homelessness
Decades of research reveal a relationship between housing and child development. This research shows the earlier and longer a child experiences homelessness and related adversities, the greater the toll on his or her development. This webinar provides an overview of family homelessness and its effects on family well-being and child development in the early years of life. The role of early childhood providers and other early intervention professionals in preventing and addressing family homelessness is also discussed. Anyone interested is welcome to attend.
Date: Thursday, December 5, 2019
Time: 1:00 - 2:30 PM
Location: Online-ZOOM
|
Free On-Demand Learning Modules for Communities: Data Collection, Analysis, and Storytelling
The CS3 (Community Systems State Supports) team at Illinois Action for Children has launched a new foundational support available to anyone interested in community systems. CS3 On-Demand Learning provides free courses to help early childhood community collaboration members deepen their knowledge of community systems and understand the essential ingredients of systems thinking. Each year, CS3 will introduce new learning courses tailored to the needs of local communities across Illinois. The first course focuses on data and explores data collection, analysis, storytelling, and more.Not only is the course interactive and educational, but you can also receive Gateways Registry professional development credits for completing the course in its entirety.
|
Community-to-Community (C2C) Mentorship Program
Are you a leader or member of an early childhood collaboration? Do you ever wish you had an extra brain to pick, ear to listen and/or guidance from an expert as you move your work forward? Participate in Illinois Action for Children's CS3 C2C Mentorship Program to get paired with a leader in the early childhood community systems field! Through the program, mentees will be able to designate their professional growth areas and will receive monthly one-on-one meetings with their mentor (in person or via video conferencing). Mentees are asked to commit to monthly meetings for six months (January through June 2020). For more information, contact Grace Araya, Director of Community Systems Statewide Supports, at [email protected].
|
Ounce Illinois Policy Team Releases Annual Legislative Summary
The Ounce Illinois Policy Team works closely with partners and legislators to help shape the foundational elements of the state's early childhood system, including major funding streams, legislation, and federal and state initiatives. Over the last year, through legislative, administrative and grassroots advocacy, a number of noteworthy bills were championed to became law that are significant to young children, families, teachers and other early childhood practitioners. Perhaps most notably, the Illinois General Assembly passed the state's fiscal year 2020 (FY2020) budget with significant funding for the state's early childhood system. Review FY2020 legislation led by the Illinois Policy Team and its advocacy partners in its annual Legislative Summary.
|
Prevent Child Abuse America® Develops Resources and Releases Press to Support the Prevention of ACES
The latest CDC Vital Signs report contains the most comprehensive estimates to date on the widespread impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and recommendations for preventing them to improve the health and prosperity of Americans. Prevent Child Abuse America has developed numerous resources, including a short video, talking points, and links to infographics, around the health and socioeconomic impacts of ACEs and what can be done to prevent them. Additionally, click here for a press release specific to the role of business leaders and policymakers in preventing ACES. Feel free to share these resources widely!
|
NAEYC: New Report Highlights Path to Equitable Access to Higher Education for Early Childhood Educators of Color
The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) released new research, in collaboration with The Education Trust, that explores the responses, reactions, and recommendations from 50 early childhood educators (ECE) of color, located in New Jersey, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, around the structures, supports, and funding needed to support early childhood educators in increasing their educational qualifications.
The report, Increasing Qualifications, Centering Equity: Experiences and Advice from Early Childhood Educators of Color, provides policy implications based on the experiences and guidance shared by early childhood educators in response to three main questions: (1) How do early childhood educators of color perceive policies that raise the educational requirements they have to reach in order to keep their jobs? (2) In what ways, if any, has the implementation of these policies impacted the career trajectories of early childhood educators of color? (3) What advice do early childhood educators of color who have "lived through" these policy changes have for policymakers and leaders heading toward similar change?
The report
recounts participants' initial reactions to the prospect of earning a credential or degree; their reflections on their experiences; and their recommendations to policymakers on how to support this transition to increased qualifications for others. The report's findings indicate that when policies change so that credentials and/or degrees become requirements, a collective obligation is needed to support early childhood educators of color in tangible ways that respond to their expressed strengths and needs.
In the focus groups which informed the report, early childhood educators of color highlighted four interconnected buckets of support systems-financial, workplace, higher education, and personal-that policymakers should focus on to maintain and grow ECE workforce diversity. The report proposes ten policy implications and recommendations that should be implemented when policy changes that increase qualification requirements for educators go into effect:
1.
Make It Affordable and Accessible: Combining Debt-Free and Loan-Forgiveness Policies
2.
Make It Possible: Reduce and Eliminate Non-Financial Barriers to Success
3.
Make It Align with Our Realities: Count All Settings
4.
Make It Meaningful: Establish Comparable Compensation for Comparable Qualifications
5.
Make It More Efficient: Create Seamless, Articulated Teacher Preparation Pathways
6.
Make It Feasible: Lessen the Time It Takes Educators to Reach Attainment
7.
Make It Real: Value Experience with College Credit
8.
Make It Supportive: Use Cohort Models and Mentors
9.
Make It Consistent: Streamline Accountability Systems
10.
Make It Bigger: Think Outside the Classroom
|
|
|
