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Child Care
Programs
The following child care activities are funded by Smart Start and available to children
ages 0 - 5 and their families who are eligible for funding.
Child Care Resource &
Referral (CCR&R)
According to the North Carolina Children's Index Year 2000 shows there
were 5,761 children in Wilson
County with 45.1% (2,593 of 5,761) of those children of all ages in
regulated child care, above the state
average of 43.9%. In 1998, 18.4% of children in Wilson County were
enrolled in regulated child care above the state average of 14.6%. This number continues to
increase. Child Care Resource and Referral
services enhances the accessibility, improves the quality and increases the
availability of child care in Wilson County. CCR&R staff provides three core services: a
database of all child care options in the
county for parents to use as a referral service, resources and services for
child care providers and a database of information containing data
regarding children in Wilson County birth through five.
CCR&R
maintains a lending library for child care
providers. CCR&R coordinates
technical assistance,
group
trainings, and meetings and conferences and
provides support for
attendance at these events for child care providers and families in Wilson
County.
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Creative Outreach
Science is a discipline that allows children to observe, explore,
investigate, and discover the world around
them. These skills are a vital part of a child's educational
development as they prepare for school. Early
Creative Experiences in Science administered by the Imagination Station
Science Museum is a program
that focuses on teacher and parent education as conduit for facilitating
school readiness in science for
children ages 3 - 5. The primary objectives of this program are to
educate child care providers on the
utilization of science curriculum in the classroom; increase the ITERS AND
ECERS Scale rating of learning
through a series of workshops. In addition, child care providers who
are enrolled in the T.E.A.C.H. project
will receive college credit for taking Math and Science activities, a course
added to the Early Childhood
program at Wilson Technical Community College that is required for all
pre-service and in-service teachers.
Parents are invited to attend a workshop designed to teach them how to bring
science into their homes in
order to extend the educational development of their child. A Science
Educator implements outreach
activities held at the Science Museum.
More At Four
The Wilson County Partnership for Children provides More At Four
services to 90 children in the following type of facilities or activities:
Wilson County has five classrooms that are available in three existing
centers, all for-profit programs with one 5 star-rating and two 4 star
ratings respectively. The 5 star center and one of the 4 star centers
offer the need for our county. The Wilson County Partnership for
Children confirms compliance with all More at Four program guidelines.
The Wilson County Partnership for Children acts as the designated
administrative agency for the More At Four contract.
TEACH
Research demonstrates that teachers are an important element of program
quality. Quality of child care
programs is directly linked to the specialized training received by
practitioners in these programs.
The Wilson
County Partnership for Children in conjunction with Child Care Services
Association (CCSA)
will award and
assist caregivers in completing course work in the early childhood education
field of study.
The program
supplements each child care center and family child care home provider's
bonus portion of T.E.A.C.H.'s Early
Childhood Scholarship Programs for each participant during their contract
period or
awards the facility with
a one time grant of $200 for each participant if the provider chooses the
raise
option of the Scholarship
Program. All participants receive a salary increase through either a
raise or
bonus after completing a certain
amount of course work semester credit hours as established within the
contract period. The Partnership
performs the following duties to carry out this activity: collects the
number of caregivers enrolled in early
childhood courses at Wilson Technical Community College or any
other college
or university that may be
affiliated with the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood Scholarship Program
to
determine eligibility of grant from WCPC,
assesses barriers of those caregivers who do not participate in
the T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood Scholarship
Program and helps reduce staff turnover.
Quality Enhancement Grants Initiative
Fewer than 25% of Wilson County Family Child Care Homes currently have a
three-star rated license
or
higherand more than half of Wilson County Child Care centers have a four or
five star rated license. The Quality Enhancement Project will address
program improvement and the professional development of child care providers
by introducing and training child care providers in the use of the Family
Day Care Rating Scale, Infant/Toddler Rating Scale, and the Early Childhood
Rating Scale, and award grants to centers and homes who agree to increase
their licensure and/or apply for national accreditation. The Quality
Improvement Coordinator will provide technical assistance to providers to
increase the quality of care. Preference will be given to the neediest
child care providers with priority given from the lowest licensure rating
the highest. This activity will adhere to the Guidelines for Grants to
Child Care Providers, effective December 1, 2002.
Subsidized Care & Emergency Funding
The need for child care continues to exceed the number of families
currently receiving child care subsidy.
Full utilization of state child care subsidy and Smart Start funding would
help reduce the child care
waiting
list, continue services for those already receiving child care subsidy, and
prevent children from
entering into
foster care system. The Wilson County Department of Social Services
administers programs
to supplement all
or partial cost of child care for families with children between the ages of
0 - 5.
First component, child care
assistance enables a family to work while being able to provide for the
basic
needs of the family and children.
Secondly, emergency child care provides term subsidy services to
families
who experience emergency
situations and are above 200% of the state income poverty level.
WAGES
Lack of resources and an effort to maintain affordability for parents
often make it difficult for individual
child care programs to reward or encourage teacher education through salaries.
Because of low pay,
many of our most qualified teachers leave the field creating high turnover for
children. Others may
avoid the field
altogether, reducing the number of well-educated teachers in the classrooms
with children.
In light of national
research which shows that the quality of care children receive is lowered by
high
turnover rates and
inadequate teacher education, this cycle is particularly distressing.
Child Care
Services Association (CCSA) provides supplements made available through this
program to encourage the educational pursuits of the child care workforce
and help to reduce the turnover rates of the most educated population of
providers. The central activity of the program is the disbursement of
salary supplements after each six month period of employment in the same
child care center or home. Supplement amounts are based on the
education levels achieved.
WINGS
In Wilson County Schools, 70-90 percent of the students who enter
kindergarten each year are already
behind academically. At the conclusion of the 1999-2000 school year at
one of the Wilson County's
elementary schools where students are found to be significantly behind
their peers, only 39% of the first
graders at that school were able to read books designated as first grade
reading material. W.I.N.G.S. helps
to improve cognitive and linguistic skills in children ages 0 - 5 in Wilson
County to assure that they are
prepared to enter school ready to succeed. Staff of each participating
facility along with the WINGS
Coordinator performs the pre- and post- testing, distributes the kits,
assesses the center's use of the kits
and initiates or offers assistance to help a center begin the program.
WINGS Coordinator will host
trainings for participants. Parents are involved in the "games" during
the tutoring sessions" and families
are encouraged to use activities at home to improve parenting skills.
The activity takes place at selected child care centers.
Contact Tracy Connor,
Program Coordinator, at (252)206-4235, Ext. 13, for more questions about
Child Care Programs.
BLOCK OF HOPE PARENTS AS TEACHERS PROGRAM
The Block of Hope Parents as Teachers Program, administered by Jackson
Chapel Church, provides a comprehensive parenting program following the
Parents as Teachers National curriculum for parents with children from birth
to age five years. Certified Parent Educators utilize the Born to
Learn curriculum, which focuses on four components: personal visits,
group meetings, screenings, and a resource network. Parent group
meetings are held monthly.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT SPECIALIST
WCPFC's Professional Development Specialist
assists child care professionals as they enroll and successfully complete
credit-bearing early childhood coursework. She develops and maintains
a data base consisting of the educational background information of child
care professionals working in licensed facilities in Wilson County and
currently enrolled in college, assists with identifying the coursework and
programs they need as they work toward goals established in their
individualized professional development plans, and helps child care
professionals connect with resources such as financial aid, TEACH, and
WAGES$. An incentive of $50 is awarded for each course completed with
a grade C or better, for up to six semester credit hours included in
the professional development plan. The Professional Development
Specialist works closely with community college staff, college and
university staff, and provides a wide array of support services to those
child care workers seeking to improve their education and certification
status.
Programmatic Monitoring Policy for Direct Service Providers
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