QUALITY ENHANCEMENT PROGRAM

ll Mississippi's children deserve high-quality child care. Adequate financial support is critical to achieving this goal, especially in centers serving low-income communities. MLICCI advocates for sufficient funding and promotes quality enhancement by offering state-wide training and technical assistance in:

• preparing for the ECERS & ITERS assessments;
• parent engagement; and
• anti-bias work with children and families.

On-site Training and Technical Assistance

MLICCI participated as a state partner in the Kellogg Foundation-funded Mississippi SPARK (Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids) project spearheaded by the Southern Regional Office of the Children's Defense Fund. SPARK aims to align and improve the early childhood education experiences of children ages three-second grade in five public school districts in Mississippi. SPARK involves parents, child care centers, Head Start programs, public school districts, and other partners locally and state-wide. MLICCI provided training and technical assistance to child care centers located in these five school districts and contributed policy analysis related to child care issues on the SPARK Statewide Committee.

See MLICCI’s table comparing Head Start to child care subsidies.

MLICCI is offereing regional training and on-site techncial assistance (TA) and stipends throughout the state to improve quality in low-income child care centers. The training inculdes preparation for evaluation by the ECERS and ITERS scales, with the goal of climbing the ranks of Mississippi's new quality rating systems (MCCQSS). MLICCI has trained more than 100 providers in the regional trainings to date and is currently working with 30 centers statewide, which receive small stipends to help them with the costs of particpating in MCCQSS.

Curriculum Enhancement Kits

MLICCI is offering training and special curriculum enhancement kits with books, puppets, and other materials to interested low-income child care centers. The kits will focus on cultural diversity, parent engagement, and gender equity. These kits will be made available at training events where MLICCI will help providers understand how to utilize these materials to enhance early childhood experiences for children in their centers. Contact us for more information.    TOP  »

Prepare for ECERS & ITERS Assessment

Mississippi's new Quality Rating Scale utilizes the ECERS (Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale) and the ITERS (Infant Toddler Environmental Rating Scale) as one measure to ascribe which step—and therefore which reimbursement rate—a center can achieve on the new five-step scale. MLICCI can help centers understand these rating scales and offers resources to prepare for assessments. We have alimited supply of books and DVDs on this topic to give to centers. Contact us to find out more.    TOP  »

Assessing the Impact of Mississippi's
Quality Rating System (QRS)

The Mississippi Department of Human Services (DHS) is piloting a quality rating system (QRS) using tiered reimbursements. In tiered systems, child care providers receive higher ratings and rates of reimbursement for achieving specific quality improvements.

These improvements cost money. States that have successfully implemented tiered systems have made significant investments to help low-income child care centers pay for required improvements. However, DHS is proposing to implement Mississippi's system with no such additional funding. And it plans to target only the most financially vulnerable centers (due to their reliance on the inadequate and insecure child care certificate program).    TOP  »

This proposal threatens to create a segregated child care system in which only centers with the resources to finance quality improvements can afford to participate. Since most child care centers'  funds come from parent fees, centers serving parents who can afford to pay fees will get higher reimbursements, and centers serving parents who cannot afford to pay fees will be left behind.

MLICCI commissioned a study of the the program's impact on child care centers serving low-income families: read study>> We are supporting low-income child care centers quality improvement efforts through training, technical assistance, and parental engagement.    TOP  »