7.1 Quality Activities Needs Assessment

7.1.1 Needs assessment process and findings a. Describe the Lead Agency needs assessment process for expending CCDF funds on activities to improve the quality of child care, including the frequency of assessment, how a diverse range of parents and providers were consulted, and how their views are incorporated: Kentucky uses funding from the Tobacco Settlement to fully fund this endeavor. The Kentucky All STARS Program requires a yearly review requiring the child care center to explain the type of assessment they’ve completed, their findings, and how they use the assessment to improve the quality of care for all age groups served. This is a requirement for levels 2-5 providers which currently reaches over 800 providers from Type I Licensed Providers to Family Child Care Centers across the state of Kentucky. Providers and parents are able to communicate with the Division of Child Care by phone, fax, and email to relay any concerns or input. When Kentucky created Kentucky All STARS and started the transition in 2017, our initial plan was to wait to the first major round of renewals in 2020 however Covid-19 hit which put a delay on our program as it was frozen for over two years. This is something we’ve discussed internally and plan to implement in the year 2025 as this will align with our regulations opening up and allow for changes to be made according to findings. A Quality Needs Assessment was conducted by PDG and presented to the Early Childhood Advisory Council in August 2019. Kentucky’s emergent system uses a Prenatal-Third Grade framework, which expands and enhances the prior Birth-Five approach. This creates opportunities for the alignment of policy and practices across state and local agencies and the development of sustainable processes to ensure eligible children and families can be served effectively and efficiently. A central goal is to increase the number and proportion of children and families served in high-quality and responsive programs. The Needs Assessment relied on multiple data sources, including publicly available data from state and federal agencies, surveys, focus groups, and interviews. The study team also reviewed partner agency reports and assessments as well as a variety of relatively current study findings. The data and information researched required elements that capture key definitions, a description of the state’s system, identification of focal populations, need for and participation in early care and education programs, need for and participation in other system services, gaps in data or research, the quality and availability of programs and supports, indicators of progress, barriers to funding and the efficient use of funds, transitions, and system collaborations. Initial feedback from parents suggests that parents most often receive information from friends, family, internet searches, and teachers or child care providers in their communities. Thus, there may be an opportunity to raise awareness in general about the nature of high-quality care and how to find it. Before many elements of this could be implemented to guide how quality dollars were spent Covid-19 happened which not only put Kentucky’s QRIS System into a two-year freeze but also changed the childcare landscape. Due to this when the freeze was lifted Kentucky wanted to reevaluate the current needs of childcare centers. Child Care Aware (CCA) was tasked with this through needs assessments that are built into their collaborative, relationship-based model of coaching. After developing a relationship with the childcare provider, coaches introduce the Quality Self Study and review the Kentucky All STARS Standards to gather data on strengths and opportunities for growth. This information was used to develop a comprehensive plan for technical assistance allowing providers to articulate their needs and goals. In addition, the Kentucky All STARS Standards include several standards that require input from families and staff on their child's education and development. The Self Study describes research-based recommended policies and practices that contribute to program quality and to successful outcomes for children in early care and education programs. Kentucky’s Early Childhood Quality Self Study helps program personnel identify adult behaviors, environment characteristics, program structural factors, and personnel considerations that are supporting contributors to high quality learning environments for children birth to five years of age. b. Describe the findings of the assessment, including any findings related to needs of different populations and types of providers, and if any overarching goals for quality improvement were identified: Overall findings indicated that providers who have access to additional supports like Community Action, Head Start, and centers associated with a college, had fewer needs compared to smaller centers and family child care homes. We also found that certain existing All STARS Standards favored Type I and larger child care centers and caused barriers for our smaller centers. Due to these findings Kentucky All STARS enacted policy changes to help alleviate the barriers to smaller child care centers and provided instructions to our contracted recipients Child Care Aware and Family Child Care Network, both of whom we pay, to provide technical assistance to these centers. This has resulted in centers rising in level which results in them receiving more All STARS Incentive Money. Findings from the PDG Quality Needs Assessment showcased providers who have additional supports such as Head Starts and Preschools scored higher in our QRIS Program. We also saw from families perspectives that they were largely unaware of the QRIS program. In regard to the limited exposure of Kentucky All STARS to families we’ve worked to incorporate a newer website which showcases Kentucky All STARS towards the public’s (families) viewpoint by going over what Kentucky All STARS is and why they should want their children enrolled in Kentucky All STARS centers. We’ve also spent funding on marketing items to hand out at the last two Kentucky State Fairs and are currently researching if we’d be able to spend funding towards Kentucky All STARS Banners and Yard’s signs for our High Quality Centers to display to families. The Needs Assessments conducted by CCA through their coaching echoed similar results for providers around those who have access to additional supports like Community Action, Head Start, and centers associated with a college, had fewer needs compared to smaller centers and family childcare homes. The Lead Agency also found that due to Covid-19 we were dealing with a lot of new childcare center directors who were not as familiar with Kentucky All STARS and were needing additional supports. The steps we took were to ensure they received focused TA from CCA, we worked without training agencies to ensure they were able to better explain to providers which training spoke to quality of care for children. We’ve found success with this and are currently working towards having QRIS Standard indicators for trainings within our training system ECE-Tris. These changes have resulted in centers rising in level which results in meeting higher quality standards and issuance of more All-STARS Incentive funds.