Quality Improvement Plan 2005

The Revere Council for Families and Children (RCFC)

is a local Community Partnership Council under

the leadership of the Revere Public Schools. Its

membership includes early care and education

professionals from child care, family child care,

Head Start, and public school programs. The

RCFC is committed to building a comprehensive,

collaborative network of family-centered services

that is sensitive to family needs and builds upon

community strengths and resources.

Revere Councilfor Families and Children

Associated Early Care and Education, Inc. Family/Child Care Program – Chelsea ■

Beachmont Arts &’ Educare, Inc ■ CAPIC ■ CAPIC Head Start ■ Chelsea/Revere Family

Network ■ Collaborative Psychotherapy ■ Early Childhood Associates, Inc. ■ Even Start ■

For Kids Only ■ Harbor Area Early Intervention ■ Healthy Families – ROCA ■ Healthy

Foundations Early Intervention ■ Kiddie Koop of Revere, Inc. ■ MGH Revere Cares ■

North Suffolk Mental Health ■ Office of the Mayor ■ Parents from the Revere Community ■

Revere Community Partnerships for Children ■ Revere Family Network ■ Revere Police

Department ■ Revere Public Library ■ Revere Public Schools ■ Team-Ups

Intergenerational Mentor Program ■ Tri-City Housing ■ Family Child Care Providers

from the Revere community ■ Parents from the Revere communityAssociatedEarly Care and Education and the Boston EQUIP

Model

Based on the belief that children’s first learning

experiences are the foundation for success in school

and adult life, the RCFC’s primary role is to:

■ Develop a comprehensivesystem linking childrenand families with existingsocial and human serviceagencies that is equallyaccessible to all families;

■ Implement parent educa-tion programs that helpfamilies develop a greatercapacity to educate theirchildren;

■ Insure developmentally-appropriate curriculumand practices in all earlycare and education programs;

■ Develop home-school partnerships;

■ Implement the MassachusettsEarly Childhood ProgramStandards and Guidelines;

■ Offer comprehensive professional developmentand support programs forearly childhood providersand other human serviceagency representatives;

■ Serve as an ongoing policyand planning body for newearly childhood and familycentered programs;

■ Advocate for expandedresources to better servefamilies and children; and

■ Move all programs to anEven Start model providingfamily literacy for all families.

For more information about the Revere

Council for Families and Children, call us

at 781-485-2719.

Associated Early Care and Educationand the Boston EQUIP Model

Associated’s mission is to leadthrough experience, as educators andadvocates, in urban early education of children from birth, in partnershipwith their families and communities.

Associated Early Care and Education,

Inc. is a direct service provider serving

primarily low-income children in the

Greater Metropolitan Boston area

through its six center-based programs

and three family child care networks.

Associated’s mission is to lead through

experience, as educators and advocates,

in urban early education of children

from birth, in partnership with their

families and communities.

Associated and a community-based

advisory of early care and education

providers, advocates, and policymakers

established the Boston Early Education

Quality Improvement Project (Boston

EQUIP) in 1995 in an effort to improve

the quality of early care and education

services in Boston. After completing

its first survey of licensed center-based

child care, family child care, public

pre-school programs, and after-school

programs, Boston EQUIP’s advisory

established benchmarks in five key

areas of quality improvement –

accreditation, facilities, teacher

education and training, teacher

salaries, and parent engagement.

Since that time, Boston EQUIP has

surveyed Boston’s licensed early care

and education and school-age child

care programs four times – in 1997,

1999, 2001, and most recently in

the winter of 2004, and has used the

data to leverage legislative change

and financial investment in improv-

ing the quality of early childhood

programs.

Revere’s Commitment to QualityIn 2002, Associated Early Care and Education, Inc. received a

grant from The F. B. Heron Foundation to replicate the Boston

EQUIP model in another local community, and integrate it with

efforts to measure quality at the program and child levels.

Associated partnered with the Revere Public Schools and the

Revere Council for Families and Children because of their

existing and ongoing commitment to improving the quality

of early care and education programs at all three levels: the

child, the program, and the community.

The child:In 2001, the Revere Public Schoolspartnered with Associated todevelop a child outcome measure-ment system for its public school-based early childhood classrooms.As a part of this process, Reveredeveloped educational benchmarksfor children’s development inmath, language arts, and sciencebased on the MassachusettsDepartment of Education’sCurriculum Frameworks for Pre-Kindergarten. Revere providedtraining to its early childhoodteachers in observing and recordingchild development indicators andusing that information to assessthe progress of children in theearly childhood classroom.

The program:Through a partnership betweenthe Revere Council for Familiesand Children and Associated, theRCFC has made a commitment tohelping center-based providersand other early care and educationprograms achieve national accreditation through the NationalAssociation for the Education ofYoung Children.

The community:In its new partnership withAssociated, the Revere Council forFamilies and Children adapted theBoston EQUIP model and wentthrough a process of setting longterm goals for quality improvementin Revere’s early care and educationservices – a vision that buildsupon the goals the RCFC hadalready established for itself and its members.

Setting Revere’s Early Careand Education BenchmarksTo establish its long-term quality

improvement goals and interim

benchmarks, the Revere Council

for Families and Children worked

with Associated Early Care and

Education and Early Childhood

Associates, Inc. to create a vision

for early care and education services

in Revere in 2005 and 2008.

After choosing the quality improve-

ment areas of accreditation, com-

munity collaboration, and serving

diverse children – priorities that

had been raised repeatedly in the

RCFC’s planning and evaluation

process – members took a close look

at Revere’s current status in each

area. This scan of the “baseline”

revealed that in an area like accred-

itation, there were existing data

which gave a complete picture of

the community’s level of success.

In the other two areas, community

collaboration and serving the needs

of diverse children, baseline data

were much more difficult to establish

and success will be much more

difficult to measure. The bench-

marks established in each of the

three areas reflect the relative

concreteness and measurability

of the quality improvement

areas selected by the Council

members as its priorities.

After reviewing existing baseline

data, Revere Council for Families

and Children members reflected on

their vision for Revere’s early care

and education quality in the future.

With that vision in the forefront,

participants established interim

steps toward that vision – the

benchmarks described in this report.

“Developing benchmarks as a

Council was a nice way of having

everyone be a part of our goals.

I think people work harder to

achieve goals that they are

invested in.”

Participant in the

2002 Revere Council

for Families and Children

Next Steps

It is important to have a vision, and to develop steps for getting

there. By setting benchmarks in three priority areas of early care

and education quality, Revere continues to make progress. Revere

is committed to providing quality services to families and children

and plans to use its benchmarks as a roadmap for planning and

investment as it proceeds into the 21st century.

Currently in

Revere:

Two of the nine licensed centers in Revere (one a Head Start program), and all three Early Childhood Program sites operated by the Revere Public Schools are accredited.

By 2008:

Accreditation will have been achieved and/ormaintained in:

➔ The three Revere Public School Early Childhood Program sites;

➔ One Head Start program;

➔ One additional licensed center; and

Four family child care programs.

All previously accredited centers, Head Startprograms, and Revere Public Schools EarlyChildhood Program sites will have maintainedaccreditation;

➔ Two school-age programs will have completed self-assessment using appropriate accreditation standards.

and➔ Six family child care programs will have

achieved accreditation through theNational Association for Family Child Care.

Accreditation Benchmarks

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By 2005:

Collaboration is critical to the success of an early care and

education community in meeting the needs of families and

children yet it is often intangible and difficult to measure.

There is some evidence, however, that community collaboration

in Revere could improve.

Because community collaboration was an area of quality that

the Revere Council for Families and Children had identified and

prioritized in its planning and evaluation process, the Revere early

childhood community has made a commitment to achieving and

documenting progress in this area. While the goals may be less

quantifiable, these “action” benchmarks are no less critical to the

overall quality improvement of early care and education in Revere.

BEN

CHM

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KS The Revere early care and education community

will have: ➔ Engaged six businesses in the community

with the Council;

➔ Gained a commitment from all of these business partners to support the developmentof a resource guide and “tracking” book in which families can document their use of various early childhood programs andservices.

The Revere early care and education communitywill have published and distributed 250 resourceguides and tracking books to parents throughoutthe city.

By 2008:

By 2005:

Community CollaborationBenchmarks

Current ly :21% of parents

believed that theprograms serving

their children sup-ported families from

other cultures or thosewho are learning a second

language.

Serving Diverse ChildrenBenchmarks

Like many cities in America, Revere’s population is in a constant

state of change. It speaks a variety of languages, comes from a

variety of cultures, and has a variety of needs related to its young

children’s education. According to 2000 U.S. Census data, 9% of

individuals in Revere speak Spanish as their primary language at

home, 5% speak an Asian or Pacific Island language and 13% speak

another language other than English. One of every five individuals

in Revere was born outside the United States, with more than a third

of those born in Latin America, and 22% born in an African country.

It is not surprising, then, that the Revere Council for Families and

Children has made serving the city’s diverse children – not only

racially and linguistically diverse, but diverse in terms of their

educational and developmental needs – one of its highest priorities.

By 2008:

➔ Teachers and providers will attend at least one training per year in developing skills and curriculum to support cultural sensitivity, diversity awareness, and working with second-language learners.

➔ Classrooms and family child care homes will beprint-rich environments which reflect themajority of languages spoken by the childrenand families they serve.

➔ 40% of parents will be aware that programs areproviding services that support families fromother cultures and those who are learning a second language.

➔ All preschool children will understand and enjoy the diversity of their peers as demonstrated through play and conversation.

➔ Teachers and providers will attend at least twotrainings per year in developing skills and cur-riculum to support cultural sensitivity, diversityawareness, and working with second-languagelearners.

➔ In addition to the print rich environmentclassrooms and family child care homes willhave multicultural materials and books whichreflect the cultural diversity of the communityand the majority of languages spoken by thechildren and families they serve.

➔ All parents will be aware that programs are pro-viding services that support families from othercultures and those who are learning a secondlanguage.

➔ All preschool children will continue to under-stand and enjoy the diversity of their peers asdemonstrated through play and conversation.

BEN

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By 2005:

Garfield Community Magnet School176 Garfield AvenueRevere, Massachusetts 02151