8.4 Public-Private Partnerships

Lead Agencies must demonstrate how they encourage partnerships among other public agencies, Tribal organizations, private entities, faith-based organizations, businesses, or organizations that promote business involvement, and/or community-based organizations to leverage existing service delivery (i.e., cooperative agreement among providers to pool resources to pay for shared fixed costs and operation) to leverage existing child care and early education service delivery systems and to increase the supply and quality of child care services for children younger than age 13. 8.4.1 Lead Agency public-private partnerships Identify and describe any public-private partnerships encouraged by the Lead Agency to leverage public and private resources to further the goals of CCDF: Social Venture Partners-Connecticut (SVP-CT) SVP SVP supported the Blue Ribbon Panel and the Office of Early Childhood (OEC) in developing the Blue Ribbon Plan on Child Care. SVP, with the leadership of staff Jennifer Gerber and Dr. Monisha Gibson, played a wide range of roles, including project planning and management, financial modeling and analysis; and consulting support for two of the workgroups. SVP supported the extensive stakeholder engagement and outreach effort, led by Dr. Gibson￿involving nearly 3,000 people and over 300 meetings￿that made the final plan stronger and more reflective of the needs of constituents across the state. The Hunt Institute: Dr. Dan Wuori and the Hunt Institute provided subject matter expertise on the landscape of early childhood fiscally in America as well as, research and subject matter expertise on the subject of brain development from the womb through early childhood and the importance of brain development and high-quality early childhood environments for the Blue Ribbon Plan. Dr Wuori also served as a consultant and guide in creating the final draft of the plan. Social Finance Social Finance created a seven-year term plan to ensure that the pay for early childhood educators in Connecticut meets the suggested levels outlined in the Unifying Framework (UF) for the Early Childhood Education profession as part of the Blue Ribbon Plan. Social Finance supported the OEC in planning for the Blue Ribbon Panel, including acting as project manager for the Workforce and Quality working group, which was tasked with outlining a plan to develop a high quality, well compensated provider workforce. Odonnell Company The Odonnell Marketing company provided Blue Ribbon Panel support by taking copious notes at all the Blue-Ribbon Panel meetings, public sharing sessions, and stakeholder engagement. Additionally, Odonnell provided support to organize and coordinate meeting agendas, marketing, logos, informational pages, meeting presentations and the final copy of the Blue-Ribbon Panel Plan. They acted as consultants for marketing the Blue Ribbon Plan and the overall communication of the Blue Ribbon Plan. Rhian Evans, Workforce Advisor: Former Executive Officer of the National Education of Young Children supported the Blue Ribbon Panel by serving as an advisor to the Workforce and Quality work team. Evans provided clear guidance on the Unifying Framework, a professional alignment of skills and compensation for early childhood educators created by NAEYC. Her expertise greatly influenced the plans’ adoption of the Unifying Framework, which calls for increased compensation and a clear path for professional development. Linda Smith-BPC, Policy Advisor: Linda Smith served as the former deputy assistant secretary for early childhood development at the Department of Health and Human Services, and currently serves as the Director of The Bipartisan Policy Center Early Childhood Development Initiative. Smith provided her expertise on policy and government systems and funding, as well as, provided insight to the conditions that are needed to change the overall infrastructure within a state to support early childhood. Simon Workman, Fiscal Advisor: Simon workman and the P5 Fiscal Strategies organization provided support around systems funding and infrastructures. Simon served as the subject matter expert of the Blue- Ribbon Panel Funding Group, advising on the funding mechanisms and systems that are needed to support a high-quality early childhood infrastructure within a state.