Strategic Plan

Build community capacity for providing high-quality early childhood care and education programs and services.

5.3.1   Explore use of microloans, loan guarantees, credit enhancement programs, and tax incentives to address access to capital to enhance early childhood care and education capacity.

5.3.2   Target investments in high-quality, affordable child care options to expand capacity for families with nontraditional work schedules, infants, and/or children with special health care needs(Children birth to five who require special services due to developmental/ intellectual or social-emotional disabilities, sensory or motor impairment, or chronic illness.).

5.3.3   Promote mixed-media resources on topics specific to child care business development and entrepreneurship.

5.3.4   Encourage partnerships for a cooperative model for child care services that meets the unique needs of rural and family child care.

5.3.5   Provide technical assistance(Technical Assistance (TA) is the provision of targeted and customized aid to develop or strengthen processes, knowledge application, or implementation of services by a professional(s) with subject matter expertise and skills in adult learning practices.) to school districts to expand inclusive community preschool capacity without reducing overall community early childhood care and education capacity.

5.3.6   Explore options to fund early childhood special education to incentivize inclusive preschool programming, including a review of Kansas Special Education Categorical Aid.

What do these icons mean(To help Kansans see themselves as key contributors to the important work ahead, each tactic displays one or more icons representing where stakeholders can have impact.)?

Some PDG Quality Subgrants are working to enhance and expand child care services in their community. Subgrants were awarded to approximately eleven grantees across Kansas working towards increasing the availability of high-quality childcare for infants and toddlers, low-income families, migrant families, children with special healthcare needs, children experiencing homelessness, and children involved with foster care. An additional twelve grantees across the state were awarded subgrants to specifically address increasing capacity for early care and education in rural, frontier, and densely settled rural counties.

The Community Service Tax Credit Program led by the Kansas Department of Commerce supports nonprofit organizations looking to take on major capital campaigns through tax credits for donors.

There are several initiatives providing business training and/or resources for child care providers, including Kansas Quality Network, Links to Quality(A Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) is an approach to assess, improve, and communicate the level of quality in early care and education settings. In Kansas, our QRIS is called Links to Quality. Links to Quality is a child care quality recognition and improvement system created with the support of early childhood organizations across the state and led by the Kansas Department for Children and Families (DCF).), Child Care Aware of Kansas, and the Child Care Health Consultant Network which provides child care start-up assistance and grants. Adaptive TA conducted environmental scans to better understand the availability of child care in communities. Child Care Aware of Kansas publishes the Child Care Supply and Demand Report each year, funded by DCF’s CCDF program, and provides community capacity building TA.

The Garden City Early Childhood Summit: Reach for the PEAK (Preparing Early Learners to Achieve Kindergarten Readiness) brought together early childhood professionals to learn about early literacy development and collaborate with teachers and providers from around the region.

As part of the community centered Adaptive TA work, Lyon County developed and distributed a survey for parents focused on better understanding childcare needs and received over 700 responses. Through Adaptive TA, the Community-Centered Supports team was able to connect and provide $22,933 in financial assistance to these providers serving 434 children and increasing access to developmental health and diversity and inclusion materials.