Over the past three years, our Local Child Care Planning Council, housed by CAPSLO, has worked to build Quality Counts, a collective effort to support quality early care and education for all children. Through partnerships with the Child Care Resource Connection, First 5 San Luis Obispo County, San Luis Obispo County Office of Education, and Cuesta College, our local consortia has joined a larger State and National movement to build a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS), aimed at recognizing the need for and establishing a common definition of quality in the early learning field.
We now have a complete system that is able to serve publically funded and privately funded center-based programs as well as family child care homes, providing professional development, resources, coaching, mentoring, assessment and consultation services to programs county-wide. To date, we have engaged 34 early education and care programs, both center-based and family child care homes with this new, innovative and collaborative approach. We are excited to continue this work, in partnership, to expand our scope, to support our community’s early care and education programs with continuous quality improvement, and to increase the quality of care accessible to children and families throughout the County. Join us in our effort to improve the quality of early care and education. Contact Quality Counts to learn how to participate!
