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Mini-Grant Application Resources Board of Supervisors Motion to Approve the Implementation Plan What is STEP? The Steps to Excellence Project (STEP) is a pilot project developed by the Policy Roundtable for Child Care. The purpose of STEP is to:
What will STEP measure? STEP examines six areas of a child care program’s operations that impact the quality of care and include:
Where will STEP start in Los Angeles County? Between July 2007 and June 2010, STEP will be piloted in the following communities:
Participation in STEP is voluntary. Who is participating in STEP? As of September 2008, approximately 198 family child care homes and child development centers have volunteered to participate in the Steps to Excellence Project. Click here to view a list of participants in each of the ten pilot communities. How will STEP help programs meet the standards? The Office of Child Care will be sponsoring training and offering small quality improvement grants to help programs meet higher standards. What do the STEP scores mean? All programs participating in STEP will have a three-year history of substantial compliance with child care licensing and health regulations. Programs rated at STEP 1 will meet these basic regulations. Programs with scores of 2 and above will exceed basic regulations. As STEP scores increase, so will the educational standards for teachers and the number of teachers working with children. Programs with higher STEP scores will be more experienced in accessing community resources for families and in providing environments that support early learning and healthy emotional development of young children. For more information, read the Frequently Asked Questions The six components to STEP that will be used to measure the level of quality offered by a child care program are described in the Scoring Matrices at the following links: Child care programs – centers and family child care homes – within the pilot communities are invited and encouraged to participate in STEP. For information on the process for initiating an application and taking part in STEP, click on the links as follows: For Centers: For Family Child Care Homes: To download the materials, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available at most browsers. Read the instruction on how to install Adobe Acrobat Reader. Mini-Grant Application Resources We have made the following resources available to assist providers that are interested in obtaining a STEP Mini-Grant award: The Office of Child Care is pleased to release the new STEP Training Catalogue for Early Childhood Educators. The catalogue features specially designed training opportunities to help STEP participants improve the quality of their child care programs and prepare for the STEP Quality Assessment Site Visit. Click here to view a copy of the catalogue. For more information, contact STEP Training Coordinator Doris Monterroso via email at dmonterroso@ceo.lacounty.gov or by telephone at (213) 974-9526 STEP recognizes ….. Teacher/Child Relationships (coming soon!) Learning Environments (coming soon!) Identification and Inclusion of Children with Special Needs Qualifications and Working Conditions (coming soon!) Family and Community Connections (coming soon!) Interested in receiving updates about the Steps to Excellence Project? For more information on STEP, contact Helen Chavez by e-mail at hchavez@ceo.lacounty.gov or by telephone at (213) 893-0505.
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