VISION: Washington State is a place where each child starts life with a solid foundation for success based on strong families, culturally relevant early learning practices, services, and supports that lead to racial equity and the well-being of all children and families.
The Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) has been the recipients of multiple federal Preschool Development Grant Birth Through Five (PDG B-5) awards from the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, and the Department of Education over the course of the past 5 years. In 2023, DCYF was awarded a planning grant for $4,860,000, to carry out approved activities over the next year. Previously, in 2018 DCYF received an Initial grant for $5,270,656 and in 2019 - 2023 a Renewal grant for $33,527,307 to conduct the activities described below.
Washington’s vision for an integrated, equitable, and responsive early childhood system requires the active collaboration of state-level, regional, and community partners across all programs, services, and supports that contribute to the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development of Washington’s children. Reflecting that collaborative approach, both a statewide Early Learning Coordination Plan and the needs assessment that serves as its foundation were developed in partnership with many organizations, tribal governments, agencies, and individuals (parents, caregivers, providers, and others) across the state.
PDG B-5 Equity Commitment
Our state has made great strides toward improving early learning outcomes, but achieving our bold goals requires DCYF and partners to center solutions on the system that continues to underserve and marginalize Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. One of the biggest challenges we face is that DCYF and our partners are part of the system that creates and perpetuates the racial inequities and other disparities we see in key success indicators, such as our kindergarten readiness rate.
To address this challenge, our work must center efforts to identify and interrupt patterns and practices that have reproduced inequities in our system. Central to this vision is an intentional focus on redesigning early learning systems to eliminate systemic racism and forms of oppression that have been part of the American legacy. These systems continue to marginalize, exclude, or impose cultural norms on communities within our state. If we want different results, we can’t keep doing the same thing. We are committed to facilitating intentional design to interrupt these patterns, with our Early Learning Coordination Plan leading the way.The PDG B-5 is committed to revolutionizing the way Washingtonians receive and access early learning resources and services. This work aims to revamp Washington State’s mixed delivery system to become more equitable for all, specifically for those who have had significant barriers with their interaction with it. It has been created with communities and for communities by relying heavily on the idea that people are the experts of their own stories. DCYF and partners are committed to building authentic relationships with communities most often marginalized by our system to listen to, lift up, and value their lived expertise in the spirit of co-creation.
Impacts of COVID-19 on the B-8 Workforce:
DCYF will update the needs assessment to inform strategies that aim to strengthen the workforce and enhance coordination. We will analyze the impacts of COVID-19 on the early care and education mixed delivery system workforce, including labor market competition, compensation and benefits, and mental health impacts to inform future stabilization efforts. To enhance coordination, DCYF will identify inter-agency and community-based collaborations within specific sectors to bolster existing collaborations, avoid duplicating efforts, and build on existing investments.
B-8 Landscape Analysis:
Our PDG work has intentionally integrated cross-agency participation with many different groups across the state. This work has been coordinated across the mixed delivery system and beyond with community-based partnerships that represent tribes, child care providers, early intervention, home visiting, philanthropy and more.
To identify opportunities to further enhance coordination and collaboration, our needs assessment update will include an inter-agency and community-based landscape analysis to learn about statewide early care and education programs and initiatives.
DCYF will complete an impact mapping process that will identify where other partners are making investments that overlap with our strategies to maximize the impact of available funding, avoid duplication, and leverage existing relationships. Our intended outcome is to produce a statewide relationship map that shows regional level coordination across inter-agency partners to inform implementation and coordination of the statewide strategic plan.
Workforce Landscape Analysis:
DCYF and its partners provide needed services and resources for our early learning workforce, in order to meet qualifications for various roles and to access quality professional learning opportunities for professional growth. With the array of organizations providing the needed services and resources, providers often experience siloed delivery, processes and procedures. Navigation difficulties can impact our providers in a negative way, which in turn impacts the children and families of our great state.
The purpose of this project is to complete a comprehensive workforce landscape analysis to compile training and qualification requirements for various career pathways, identify intersections, eliminate duplicative training, reduce confusion, and streamline career advancement. Creating and implementing equitable, relevant, connected, and navigable systems that support the early learning workforce in professional learning experiences, and facilitating the clear navigation of needed information for our early learning workforce is crucial.
Recommendations to Support the B-8 Workforce:
Washington State's comprehensive birth-to-five strategic plan is known as the Early Learning Coordination Plan (ELCP). This plan is intended to help state leaders coordinate programs and funding to improve access to early care and education services, reduce duplication, and leverage partnerships for greater system alignment and coherence.
The purpose of this project is to develop recommendations based on the findings from the statewide needs assessment for cross-system approaches to strengthen the ECE workforce and to enhance coordination.
HMG and PFML Integration:
A proviso under the 2022 operating budget (Senate Bill 5693), directed the Employment Security Department (ESD) to submit an annual report on an ongoing basis to the Governor and Legislature concerning the abilities for the Paid Family and Medical Leave (Paid Leave) program. Over the past year, ESD, DCYF, HMG and WithinReach staff have met regularly to identify long-term and short-term strategies for integrating and communicating these services.
In 2022, ESD conducted a statewide awareness survey that found notably lower awareness regarding Paid Family and Medical Leave Program among Black workers. Current usage data also shows less participation in the Paid Leave Program from lower income workers and lower relative participation by Asian, AI/AN, and those selecting “other” identities. This partnership between ESD, DCYF, HMG and WithinReach proposes the development of an approach to raise awareness of the Paid Leave benefit among lower income workers and workers of color, and identify further opportunities to reduce disparities and eliminate barriers to Paid Leave. This strategy encompasses support for the early childhood workforce, as targeted messaging could reach the many providers who are of lower income.
It is anticipated that targeted strategies to raise awareness of the Paid Leave benefit among populations of focus will be launched with a focus on tailoring Paid Leave messaging to populations of focus and/or creating systems change to ease the application process for underserved families.
HMG and CCA Partnership:
Expanding off of the proviso under the 2022 operating budget (Senate Bill 5693) and the PFML work being done by the ESD, DCYF, HMG and WithinReach; the directive to facilitate the integration of a statewide family resource, referral, and linkage system to provide integrated services to eligible beneficiaries is the purpose of this project. The family resource, referral, and linkage system that will be used has been identified as Help Me Grow Washington (HMG), and WithinReach serves as the Washington Affiliate for this national system.
As child care is an essential service to working families, the partnership will be exploring the development of a referral pathway via Help Me Grow to connect families receiving the Paid Leave benefit with system partner Childcare Aware of Washington.
This project is tasked with the development of an approach to raise awareness and identify further opportunities to reduce disparities and eliminate barriers to Paid Leave. These efforts will foster the implementation of a streamlined referral pathway connecting families accessing Paid Leave to child care and wrap-around services. As a result, families will seamlessly be able to access critical services and supports during vulnerable times of transition.
While currently targeted to this specific Paid Leave population, these learnings will eventually support increased access for all Washington families as cross-system referrals happen between the HMG and Child Care Aware WA systems.
Migrant and Tribal Play & Learn Partnerships:
The Play and Learn program, regularly facilitated out of CSO offices, offers the necessary groundwork to provide developmental screening resources to families that are furthest from opportunity. However, some families face barriers in accessing those resources, including migrant families. In its creation, some of the of the strategies behind the program and its services were not explored from a cultural context, creating an added barrier to accessibility and applicability. Tribal families and tribal communities are another good example of a community that has been underserved by the current strategies and services offered from Play and Learn.
The purpose of this project is to partner with tribal and migrant parents, caregivers and Family, Friends, and Neighbor (FFN) providers to develop new approaches to developmental screenings in Play & Learn Groups that are culturally and linguistically attuned to reach marginalized parents and children.
QUIQ Linkages for Play & Learn Groups:
In addition to the co-development of culturally relevant supports via the Play and Learn program, it is necessary to further develop the technology used to provide connections for families and Family, Friend and Neighbor (FFN) providers outside formal ECE programs in rural communities. There is a need to further develop strategies to meet the needs of migrant families, tribal communities, exempt FFN providers, and to connect family voice and choice for services using text services which were developed during the pandemic in the CSO Play and Learn model.
The texting service, also known as QUIQ, will be further developed to reach more families and to facilitate family connections to services and to collect parent voice, as well as conduct data collection and evaluation on parent and family needs from Spanish speaking underserved populations in rural areas. Using human centered design and co-creation principles, this project will have native Spanish speaking facilitators develop and interface with families and developers to ensure that equitable access and practices are centered in the development. At the end of the grant, the technology to leverage the text line to connect families to resources will be fully built out and functional.
Shared Services Analysis:
The development of the Shared Services Hub used a design process that engaged child care providers who would potentially access shared services and provided peer to peer support to create a program specific to the needs of a diverse workforce. Through this process, it was learned that child care providers' business support needs to continue to evolve and must include strategies to connect more with each other as well as with business support organizations to stabilize the workforce.
The purpose of this project is to complete an analysis of available business supports for child care providers and begin exploring the expansion of access to shared services (i.e., health and mental health consultations, healing-centered approaches and support for financial and administrative capacity building) including in languages and methods that work for all, so that every provider can be successful, including in rural communities.
DCYF will use this analysis to build on our state’s Shared Services model to disseminate best practices across the mixed delivery system and enhance child care providers’ business supports.
Market Analysis of the B-8 Workforce:
The hardships endured over the past three years illustrate the challenges of Early Care and Education business models and the need for public policies and funding that support the financial viability of the industry going forward.
The purpose of this project is to conduct a market gap-analysis in partnership with providers and stakeholders that will describe what is needed to ensure adequate minimum compensation and benefits for the ECE workforce beginning with subsidy providers.
Preservice Cohort for New Providers:
There is a critical shortage of early learning professionals needed in the field. The child care workforce crisis is influenced by many elements: poor compensation, lack of benefits, professional burn-out, post COVID impacts, lack of recognition for the importance of the profession, as well as inequitable systems, policies, procedures. All of these factors impact the way in which the professionals of the child care workforce navigate their profession and in turn deliver services and care to children.
The purpose of this project is to develop a pre-service cohort model that will address the recruitment and retention issues that the workforce faces. The cohort will include culturally and linguistically responsive delivery for those entering the field; local and language-specific start-up training with flexible delivery methods (in-person and hybrid); peer-connections; will serve as a one-stop-location for new educators in a streamlined approach to complete initial requirements needed before working alone with children; will serve as a pathway of advising for education by offering support from a Career Pathways Navigator who provides information on navigating options such as stackable certificates, degrees, or other means of education or credential completion; will provide follow-up Technical Assistance; as well as a community of support that will provide peer connections to support workforce well-being and peer-supports while completing role requirements.
Integrate WA pyramid Model into Professional Pathways:
More information below under Support Program Quality Improvement.
Enhance Data Integration:
The data for early learning within Washington State is currently managed among different data platforms making data use and the access to data and navigation of databases cumbersome to many.
The purpose of this project is to integrate DCYF’s workforce and training registry, MERIT, and the licensing data system, WaCompass into DCYF’s Cloud Based Data System.
By integrating MERIT (workforce and Early Achievers) and WaCompass (child care licensing) data into our early learning integrated data it will enable DCYF to view workforce, Early Achievers ratings, and child care licensing data altogether, along with child data from child care, ECEAP, and ESIT.
This, in turn, would allow us to produce integrated descriptive statistics over time about the settings where children are served, allow us to know better whether vulnerable children are being served more or less over time in what kinds of settings, as well as allow program eval questions to be answered.
Integrate WA pyramid Model into Professional Pathways:
Early learning providers consistently describe challenging behaviors as an area of needed support and ongoing training. As a strategy to address this continued need, DCYF is working with the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and other state partners on implementation of the Pyramid Model for early learning settings across systems.
The Pyramid Model is an early childhood program framework that uses a prevention approach to encourage social and emotional wellbeing. Data show the Pyramid Model framework reduces behavior that adults perceive as challenging and that it helps with social and emotional growth. Social emotional learning is a key focus for Pyramid Model and previous PDG funds allowed Washington to enhance the training with trauma-informed, inclusive, and anti-bias/anti-racist practices. We need to know more about how this training impacts practice of providers and coaches and we need to incorporate this in to a pathway that leads to specialized knowledge and skills for providers and coaches. We can further align this professional learning to the pathways for staff qualifications by integrating this content in the licensing qualifications pathway program for Washington State.
The purpose of this project is to create a clear onboarding/new workforce foundational training, video series, and toolkits that connect trauma-informed care and social and emotional learning within the Washington State Pyramid Model and provide recommendations for future development.
DCYF is proposing to have a comprehensive review of SEL resources across the state, and specifically with Cultivate Learning at the University of Washington. This review will organize learning materials for a progression of learning from foundational to intensive; assess options for how these materials are available and accessed – self-paced micro-learning, training, coaching, etc; and co-design with the workforce to establish this progression of learning, identify gaps and needs, and provide recommendations for future development.
The Preschool Development Renewal Grant Birth through Five (PDG-R B-5) evaluation team supports data-driven decision-making by providing accurate and reliable information. This information is used to answer pertinent questions about our PDG funded projects and their contributions to Washington’s Early Learning Mixed Delivery System. The evaluation team ensures results are understood and applicable for all stakeholders, prioritizing the data needs of communities furthest from opportunity. This team is responsible for collecting and analyzing data to support continuous quality improvement, developing an evidence base, and assessing implementation. This includes leveraging the data lifecycle to reveal positive and problematic practices of data equity at various stages of planning, collection, analysis, use of statistical tools, analysis, and reporting and dissemination.
The Project Performance Evaluation Plan (PPEP) will be updated using tested strategies deployed in the most recent PDG award. Inputs will include OIAA evaluators, monthly conversations with project teams, implementation science, and more.
DCYF engages internal and external partners who bring diverse and innovative perspectives to inform evaluation design. Our PDG B-5 Program Performance Evaluation Plan (PPEP) partners are key to evaluation planning and will be key in this update. This range of stakeholders identified and prioritized questions and indicators and continue to be integral in the next steps of data analysis. Key partners include DCYF leadership, the implementing units within DCYF, and key external partner organizations represented on the Statewide Early Learning Strategic Plan Steering Committee, Core Strategy Team, and other stakeholder groups. Each internal and external organization has designated an individual staff to serve as a point of contact for the OIAA Evaluation Team for our PPEP.
The evaluation team believes that evaluation processes are most effective when they include strategies to build strong relationships, center equity, reveal power, and engage stakeholders throughout each stage of the PPEP.
Washington’s vision for early learning requires the active collaboration of state, regional, and community partners across all programs, services, and supports that contribute to the physical, cognitive, and social-emotional development of Washington’s children. Reflecting that collaborative approach, the needs assessment was developed in partnership with many organizations, tribal governments, agencies, and individuals (parents, caregivers, providers, and others) across the state. It reveals the rich diversity of the state’s children, families, communities, and providers. It shows the strength of community support for early learning and the leadership across the field — from families, providers, tribal communities, advocates, organizations, schools, state agencies, legislators, and more.
The needs assessment also shows that there is still much work to be done to support children and families, particularly those most vulnerable. There is deep disproportionality related to race and ethnicity in accessing services and achieving positive outcomes. Additionally, there are striking economic limitations in the current child care system for both families and providers, and there are areas of extremely limited access to services and supports in rural communities. Gaps still exist in the breadth of supports needed by parents, caregivers, and early learning professionals.
This report serves as a foundational document for the design and implementation of Washington State’s next statewide early learning plan. It will provide a valuable resource for state and local partners as they create the next generation of improvements and enhancements to the state’s early learning system. It is also important to note that the needs assessment is a snapshot in time. The current economic, public health, and political landscape is changing rapidly, which has created a need for dynamic collaboration and adaptability.
Additional Resources
Washington State Early Learning Needs Assessment Executive Summary
The Early Learning Coordination Plan (ELCP) creates an aspirational vision for how the state and community partners working with parents, caregivers, and early learning professionals can support the healthy development and school readiness of Washington’s youngest children (from prenatal to age 8) and their families. Central to this vision is an intentional focus on redesigning early learning systems to eliminate systemic racism and forms of oppression that have been part of the American legacy. The high-level goals and strategies in this plan aim to disrupt that legacy to realize an overarching vision that “Washington State is a place where each child starts life with a solid foundation for success based on strong families, culturally relevant learning practices, services, and supports that lead to racial equity and the well-being of all children and families.”
The goals and strategies were co-created with a large and diverse group of community partners. More than 150 people from across the state were engaged through a project steering committee and community-based workgroups, using the targeted universalism framework to ensure the strategies explicitly name our commitment to eliminate racism, bias, and discrimination in communities. Additionally, strategic early learning priorities were developed by a workgroup at the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and a separate tribal group facilitated by the Indian Policy Early Learning (IPEL) committee. Their work is incorporated throughout the document.
Partners in the early learning system reflect the many people and agencies that play a pivotal role in supporting the health, development, and school readiness of children and their families. These partners include state and community agencies, tribal communities, legislators, advocates, parents, caregivers, early learning and K-12 professionals, and others. They must work together to coordinate the many supports and services designed to help children and families thrive. This vision will provide a catalyst for the early learning system partners to come together to discuss and coordinate priority actions, create more detailed implementation plans, coordinate policy efforts, and determine the metrics and outcomes needed to measure progress.
- A copy of the Washington State Early Learning Coordination Plan (ELCP) can be found here: ELCPwa.org
Help Me Grow® (HMG) is a community-driven resource and referral linkage system that connects young children and their families to appropriate services and community supports. Parents, caregivers, early learning, health, and other service providers can call, text, or email HMG and connect to caring people who are highly trained in child development. The resource navigators listen to families’ needs and link them to the most appropriate child development resources.
Help Me Grow® Washington is supported by a core team that includes representatives from WithinReach, Washington Communities for Children, and the DCYF. Help Me Grow® contracted with Washington Communities for Children (WCFC) to support implementation and create outreach and communication tools that market HMG to underserved families in each location. WCFC has used their existing relationships and expertise to create communication toolkits — developed in partnership with parents and providers — to maximize parents’ knowledge about how they can connect with a coordinated referral system all the while prioritizing approaches to reach parents and children who experience the greatest disparities within the current system. Help Me Grow® Washington contracted with WithinReach to provide regions with technical assistance.
Help Me Grow® Washington’s work is also supported by Actions Teams and a Leadership Council. As the regions continue to plan and implement at the local level, the Help Me Grow® Washington Action Teams have further developed the coordinated statewide system. The Action Teams carried out activities like integrating a robust evaluation component to help review opportunities and gaps to refine the statewide system; developed an equity plan that will be integrated into the statewide system; advised on a statewide messaging and outreach campaign that aimed to capture the voices of families and service providers; worked closely with DCYF to develop a tribal engagement strategy; and provided guidance on the development of a coordinated statewide early childhood resource directory. The Leadership Council is charged with further developing the coordinated statewide system and has carried out activities like identifying a way to implement a statewide infrastructure that includes an interconnected data system; integrating a robust evaluation component to help review opportunities and gaps to refine the statewide system; partnering with The Essentials for Childhood Help Me Grow workgroup to develop an equity plan that will be integrated into the statewide HMG system; developing a statewide messaging and outreach campaign that will target families and service providers; and working with communities to establish a plan for prioritization and equitable distribution of resources. The longer-term goal is to achieve full implementation of Help Me Grow® across Washington State by 2025 to equalize access to care coordination and referrals for families with children from prenatal to age 5.
Additional Resources
Developing a Statewide HMG System: Perspectives from Families, Service Providers and Administrators in the state of Washington
Child Trends report: English | Spanish
HMG Washington 2020 Accomplishments (available in English and Spanish)
PDG B-5 funding has provided a unique organizational benefit that integrates Early Learning and Child Welfare with a focus on preventing a child’s and their family’s deeper involvement within the child welfare system. Through PDG B-5 funding, DCYF collected and analyzed data to identify opportunities to better serve families and children through Child Welfare–Early Learning connections. Those connections are made by DCYF Child Welfare Early Learning Navigators (hereafter referred to as Navigators), who are tasked with collaborating with Child Protective Services (CPS) front-line staff to support child welfare-involved families to connect their children to high-quality early learning experiences. Currently, this work is being carried out across three diverse areas of the state: South King County; Grays Harbor, Mason, and Pacific counties; and Yakima County. The Navigators work alongside CPS investigators, Family Assessment Response (FAR) caseworkers, and Family Voluntary Services (FVS) caseworkers to ensure interested families connect with and successfully start in community-based early learning services. The Navigator identifies and reaches out to eligible families, assesses early learning needs, and then matches them with a service in their community. Navigators focus on services with a wrap-around component (e.g., Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program (ECEAP), Head Start, and Home Visiting) and licensed, quality child care programs. These methods achieve two interrelated outcomes: the process strengthens the CPS social worker’s knowledge about available community resources, and it helps families connect with critical services to fill unmet needs.
The second part of this work was to test engagement approaches. The Navigators identified approaches that connected families to high-quality early learning and tested the impact of approaches that vary by timing, voluntary engagement, involvement parent who suggests an early learning service, and frequency of initiating early learning conversations. Navigators tracked the results of referrals and contacts with families and submitted data to DCYF’s Harvard Graduate Performance Lab Fellow, who performed an analysis to identify which local solutions show the most promise for future scaling of Specialized Pathways for Child Welfare-Early Learning. The learnings from this work have been disseminated and replicated. This information can be found below in the additional resources section.
The Navigators have continually improved and adapted this work to meet the goals of the Early Learning Coordination Plan. For example, this project has a goal of expanding services to include an intentional focus on Indian Child Welfare services in response to initial data findings from the needs assessment that demonstrated out-of-home placements are significantly higher for American Indians and Alaska Natives. An Indian Child Welfare Navigator will join the team and will begin to serve tribal communities. Working with DCYF’s Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice (RESJ), the team will broaden this goal to increase and expand services to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). Activities would include community forums (possibly virtually) with parents and community members to identify and create BIPOC specific resources.
Additional Resources
Navigator Pilot Program Fact Sheet
Conversation Guide: Talking With Parents About Early Learning and Family Support Programs
Children and Families Spotlight
Analysis on Local Solutions for Scaling Specialized Pathways for Child Welfare-Early Learning
In the collaborative efforts of DCYF, the Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS), and Child Care Aware (CCA) of Washington, the Early Connections Play and Learn Groups at Community Service Offices (CSO) lead the way with new approaches in early learning and social services integration. This partnership sets the stage for invaluable social connections and pathways for a circle of mutual support for young children, families, and caregivers. The goal of Early Connections Play and Learn is to bring high-quality early learning experiences to families and children who access services from their local DSHS CSO. The Early Connections Play and Learn model has shown success in supporting child outcomes for families not accessing formal care. Modifying the model to include a drop-in approach in a high-traffic office has helped reach many additional children in our state.
The program has been providing services in Yakima and Sunnyside since 2017. In late 2019 and early 2020, the program expanded to four additional CSO sites, including Toppenish, Moses Lake, Wenatchee, and Spokane. In March 2020, the CSOs and Early Connection Play and Learn groups were forced to close in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Services continued to be delivered through remote contact with families and working relationships with CSO staff. A talk and text line was developed and promotional materials were created in English and Spanish to inform CSO workers and families about the modification of services. An evaluation of the CSO Early Connections Play and Learn model was also completed. One additional CSO office is now offering Early Connections Play and Learn through partnership funding from Catholic Charities of Yakima County.
Early Learning Play and Learn groups have proven to be an effective means of connecting with parents and caregivers who access child care through Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) providers and builds their knowledge and skills to promote strong parent-child relationships. Families are provided information and resources to continue to support early learning for their children.
Additional Resources
Shared Services has realigned its plan to meet the most immediate needs of child care providers: business supports, health consultation, infant and early childhood mental health consultation (IECMHC), and trauma-informed care (TIC). This reframing of the shared services delivery allows for the continuance of offering Business of Child Care training and follow up coaching through Child Care Aware (CCA)of WA, as well as a plan to expand access to IECMHC by increasing the number of mental health consultants (MHC) to the IECMHC pool. The increase will support TIC, social-emotional development, and reduce expulsion.
The Washington Statewide Early Learning Needs Assessment revealed the need for a deeper level of services to support providers struggling to care for children with the highest needs and to prevent expulsion of children from care. CCA will address this need by connecting providers with direct training from IECMH consultants. IECMHC, TIC, and Health Care Consultations strengthen provider capacity through practice-based coaching and mentoring. Applied learning allows providers to ask questions and test competencies so they gain the confidence to practice what they learn.
Business supports include administrative and financial, such as help with subsidy billing, enrollment, fee collection, understanding, and implementing the iron triangle, facilities improvement, strategic planning, and budget development. Additional Business of Child Care modules and trainings will continue to occur.
Additional Resources
Expulsion Prevention Landscape Report
Trauma Informed Care Professional Development Landscape Report
DCYF has collaborated with the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) under a shared vision that kindergarten transition is not a single event that ends once a child passes the threshold of the kindergarten classroom, but instead transitions create continuity in the growth and development of children and the cultivation of relationships that begins well before kindergarten and extends far beyond. Successful transitions include the child, family, early care and education providers, pre-K and school district staff, and the larger community.
Implementation of Strengthening Transitions projects was informed by the research on current practices and barriers to effective transitions with a focus on culturally specific groups – especially those furthest from educational justice. Two separate grant projects support strengthening transitions practices across systems. In collaboration with the Office of Head Start, the 100 Schools Reach initiative is an opportunity for cross-sector teams to co-design transition approaches that fit the needs of their individual community. Transitional Kindergarten – Partners in Transition provides grants to support school districts to plan and implement Transitional Kindergarten with strategic support in curriculum, classroom setup, and professional development. The second round of these grants runs through October 2021.
An important finding in our initial study of transitions practices in Washington included the challenge of identifying family voice in transitions. This critical component of effective transitions, notably absent in our initial research, posed a clear priority for the remainder of the Strengthening Transitions work. The PDG B-5 transitions leadership team has begun working with trusted partners to develop a series of listening sessions to lift up the family voice, leadership, and advocacy in transitions. In May 2021, the PDG B-5 Transitions team began meeting with a group of family members who are former WSA Parent Ambassadors. These Family Voice Leaders meet with DCYF and OSPI staff monthly to plan and design listening session formats and protocols to learn about the birth through kindergarten transition experiences of families across Washington – particularly families from historically marginalized and underserved populations.
The PDG B-5 Transitions Team initiated conversations with tribal early learning directors. These discussions guide our work in seeking a family voice in tribal communities and support dialogue on transition practices with neighboring public school districts. What we learn from these families and communities will go far to building a system that supports effective transitions and perseveres through serving each child by need and stage of development.
Additional Resources
Successes and Challenges of Early Learning Transitions in Washington
DCYF and OSPI have launched cross-agency efforts to increase and sustain the involvement of children aged birth-5 with special and complex needs in inclusive, community-based learning and licensed-care settings. This partnership is committed to supporting children with special and complex needs across agencies. DCYF implemented a multi-day virtual training and community of practice for 300 Early Achievers (QRIS) coaches to introduce them to the Pyramid Model. The Pyramid Model is a positive behavioral intervention and support (PBIS) framework to help early educators build skills for supporting nurturing and responsive caregiving, create learning environments, provide targeted social-emotional skills, and support children with challenging behavior.
Inclusion Practices also recognizes the importance of Trauma Informed Care and how those practices support the creation of an inclusive environment. Therefore, they simultaneously launched Trauma Informed Care Professional Development training to add an additional layer of support to participants. These trainings were delivered to coaches, mental health consultants, and early childhood support staff.
Looking forward to further integration, the Pyramid Model Training will be implemented in coach onboarding and will continue to hold anti-bias/anti-racist, inclusion, and behavioral supports at the forefront of what is delivered. The Trauma Informed Care Professional Development training will take what they’ve learned to finalize a visual display of the scaffold learning opportunities that are currently available and begin to make direct connections to Washington’s existing efforts related to the Pyramid Model.
Additional Resources
National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations (NCPMI) website
In 2019, with federal funds from PDG B-5, Senate Bill 5437 required DCYF to “develop a plan for phased implementation of a birth to three early childhood education and assistance program pilot project,” now named Early ECEAP. Early ECEAP is one program among many that allow DCYF to bring innovation and increased capacity to the early learning and family support systems in Washington State for infants and toddlers and their families. This model will encompass many features. All of these features will come together to address the main goals of the pilot: Increasing high-quality comprehensive center-based services to infants and toddlers and their families; fostering the health, education, and well-being of infants and toddlers prenatal to three years old; providing strength-based family support and parent education; build trusting, respectful partnerships between families, staff, and community; and lastly in partnership with each contractor, identify and test innovative strategies for improving services to BIPOC communities, children that have experienced trauma, and children with disabilities.
An evidence-based practice called Mobility Mentoring® is embedded in Early ECEAP pilots. Mobility Mentoring® has proven effective within ECEAP for supporting families to promote economic mobility and goal achievement. Mobility Mentoring® aims to overcome the extreme stresses of poverty by improving focus, planning, and decision-making. It is designed to help people set and achieve future-oriented goals, despite the immediate challenges and weight of poverty.
Additional Resources
To fulfill the goal that DCYF become an evidence-driven organization with a focus on child and family outcomes, a priority for the DCYF Office of Innovation, Alignment, and Accountability (OIAA) is to create a data integration platform that will combine the legacy databases from the existing agencies and incorporate advanced data analytics capabilities to understand and improve outcomes for Washington’s children. Data integration will help ensure our policies and practices respond to child and family needs and facilitate continuous improvement and accountability in our system.
PDG B-5 funds are allocated to help OIAA begin data integration across seven early learning data systems. OIAA has established a Digital Innovation (DI) team that will build and maintain a cloud-based data platform to support traditional descriptive and diagnostic reporting as well as advanced research, analysis, and predictive analytics across all of DCYF. A cloud-based platform to launch this work has been secured, and the DI team has begun to develop the data products and services that will enable researchers and analysts to synthesize operational data into actionable information for staff across the agency.
OIAA has begun some of the data integration work. The analyst team has started to design the external-facing data dashboards. OIAA’s vision is to create Tableau-supported interactive, drillable dashboards with the functionality to allow local community stakeholders to analyze the indicators most relevant to their community and help them determine strategies to improve early learning. OIAA envisions that dashboard templates will be created through an iterative process informed by the data priorities of local stakeholders. Dashboard creation was stewarded by learnings from the community, staff, and stakeholders about their local data needs and requirements. OIAA will design and build draft dashboards and perform quality assurance and testing with stakeholders before final approval and publication.
Additional Resources
Washington Communities for Children (WCFC) is a network of coalitions dedicated to improving the well-being of children, families, and communities. WCFC utilizes the Help Me Grow® (HMG) framework to link local, regional, and statewide efforts, and PDG B-5 resources have supported the organizing of these efforts. Ten WCFC Regions across the state have trusted relationships with more than 600 organizations and individuals. Trusted partners include early learning providers, social service agencies, early intervention services, child welfare organizations, libraries, juvenile courts, school districts, public health agencies, higher education, families, and many others.
At the regional level, parents are already an integral part of WCFC. Through this relationship, they have leveraged opportunities to lead planning, implementation, and evaluation efforts. WCFC’s parental engagement process has aided the engagement of parents who represent ELL, urban, semi-urban, and rural parents, and parents who represent the cultural and linguistic diversity that exists across the regions of our state.
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The Preschool Development Renewal Grant Birth through Five (PDG-R B-5) evaluation team supports data-driven decision-making by providing accurate and reliable information. This information is used to answer pertinent questions about our PDG-R funded projects and their contributions to Washington’s Early Learning Mixed Delivery System. The evaluation team ensures results are understood and applicable for all stakeholders, prioritizing the data needs of communities furthest from opportunity. This team is responsible for collecting and analyzing data to support continuous quality improvement, developing an evidence base, and assessing implementation. This includes leveraging the data lifecycle to reveal positive and problematic practices of data equity at various stages of planning, collection, analysis, use of statistical tools, analysis, and reporting and dissemination.
DCYF engages internal and external partners who bring diverse and innovative perspectives to inform evaluation design. Our PDG B-5 Program Performance Evaluation (PPE) partners are key to evaluation planning. This range of stakeholders identified and prioritized questions and indicators, and continue to be integral in the next steps of data analysis. Key partners include DCYF leadership, the implementing units within DCYF, and key external partner organizations represented on the Statewide Early Learning Strategic Plan Steering Committee, Core Strategy Team, and other stakeholder groups. Each internal and external organization has designated an individual staff to serve as a point of contact for the OIAA Evaluation Team for our PPE.
The evaluation team believes that evaluation processes are most effective when they include strategies to build strong relationships, center equity, reveal power, and engage stakeholders throughout each stage of the PPE.