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Mid-Sioux’s Child Care Resource & Referral Services are Making a Difference!
Mid-Sioux Opportunity, Inc. is the sponsoring agency for Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) services in NW Iowa. Our Child Care Consultants work hard to build a connection with providers in order to support individual and program goals that contribute to the success, growth and quality of their business. These connections are made by working side-by-side with providers, including listening to and supporting the direction they want to take in their early childhood careers.
Child Development Home Providers can complete the ChildNet series, a 25-hour professional development class that provides the foundational skills needed to operate a successful child care business. Upon completion of the class, providers may choose to become ChildNet Certified. To achieve certification, a child care consultant will meet on-site with the child care provider, where they work together to meet specific criteria that show the provider has implemented the improvement practices they learned during the classes.
Iowa Quality for Kids (IQ4K®) is a quality rating and improvement system available to licensed child care centers, registered child development homes and Department of Education preschools. IQ4K provides five levels of quality (building blocks) that programs can achieve and continue to improve on. By implementing Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI), IQ4K allows programs to assess their current grade across all areas of programming and devise a structured plan to increase the overall level of program quality. Child Care Consultants and IQ4K Specialists work side by side with programs to help them achieve a quality grade.
While each program may have different talents, we are proud to share the journey of one Northwest Iowa program:
Recently, Shanna Barton, a Child Development Home provider in NW Iowa, achieved ChildNet Certification and reached IQ4K level 2. Shanna and her Child Care Consultant, Amber Kollbaum, met weekly to work together on completing individual components for each quality measure. The time spent together helped them to build a great working relationship. Each time they met, they set goals and created action plans, which helped to guide Shanna on her path toward an IQ4K rating. During this process, Shanna was also able to build her skills and comfort level in working with technology as she completed the online application, for which she expressed excitement about the confidence she gained. Shanna’s goal moving forward is to continue her quality improvement work and reach IQ4K level 3 next year. Congratulations Shanna!
"Collaborating with my CCR&R Child Care Consultant has been a beneficial experience to celebrate the great things I am already doing in my program while learning new tactics to add to daily routines and activities to implement. We had a great dialogue back and forth to workshop ideas which, inspired me to dive deeper into implementing practices and partnerships. Supportive collaboration throughout the visits allowed me to accomplish tasks and keep momentum and motivation strong. Along the way, we celebrated many milestones and achievements. As a home provider who is very busy, the flexibility with both in-person and virtual meetings assisted my schedule and progress," states Shanna.
Some of the highlights of our collaborations so far include:
- Getting ChildNet Certified and ChildNet Certified Renewed
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Completing the IQ4K Application and receiving a rating
- Building resources to share with families
- Sharing ideas and learning together through personal experience
- Handbook Refinement
- Developed milestone tracking process and meeting individual needs of participants
- Aligning curriculum and care practices with those needs
- Technology support, which included navigating barriers
If your child care program is looking for assistance with professional development planning, action plans, goal setting, continuous quality improvement, environment observations, room arrangement, behavior concerns, creating policies or any number of other free services offered by CCR&R, be sure to visit with your CCR&R Child Care Consultant!
Mid-Sioux Opportunity, Inc. is proud to provide Child Care Resource & Referral services. It is one way that we meet our mission of “Helping People. Changing Lives."
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