Elevate is the Office of Early Childhood’s (OEC) quality improvement system for licensed and many license-exempt child care programs in family, group, and center-based settings.
With Elevate, we don’t evaluate or rate providers. Instead, we meet you where you are and help you grow your program however you want. With Elevate, you’re in control.
Elevate builds on Connecticut’s licensing requirements and links to national accreditation standards. It also brings together OEC’s existing technical assistance and professional development opportunities with exciting new resources.
• “I want to have a plan for my staff’s professional development.”
• “I want to simplify some of our business practices, so I can focus more on children and families.”
• “I want to update and improve our curriculum and assessment practices.”
• “I want to explore accreditation for my program so I can showcase all of our hard work.”
With our resources, we can help you reach your goals.
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How we developed Elevate
The Office of Early Childhood has been focused on building a quality improvement system since it began. It was initially proposed in the law that established our Office (Public Act 14-39). Over the years, our technical assistance and professional development opportunities have been designed to support this aim.
From the start, we wanted a system that integrated our existing licensing standards with national accreditation standards. While accreditation is not a requirement for Elevate, we see it as the definition of high quality.
Watch NAEYC Executive Director Michelle Kang discuss Connecticut’s quality improvement system.
Building on experience
Over the past several years, we have learned about quality care in Connecticut through the study of state licensing compliance data, state accreditation data, earlier pilots of quality improvement systems, and feedback from providers.
- We’re building on existing infrastructure including the Accreditation Quality Improvement Supports (AQIS) and Staffed Family Child Care Networks (SFCCNs) that already support providers to meet the needs of children and families.
- Connecticut providers played an essential role in creating this system. We shared concepts with providers through NAEYC-led focus groups, a statewide webinar, a survey, and workgroups. Throughout the process, feedback from providers has helped us adjust our approach and improve Elevate. Learn about how provider feedback has shaped our system.
- We’re also in conversation with the National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC) about supporting our systems-level work.
- We’ve partnered with experts at the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the University of Connecticut School of Social Work to ensure a streamlined infrastructure based on existing, proven approaches to strengthen programs through continuous improvement. Learn more about our partnership with NAEYC.
Elevate is still a work in progress
We’re always looking for ways to improve our system. We already collect and document feedback from providers during calls with Service Navigators. And we plan to use other methods — such as provider surveys — to learn more about your needs so we can continue to refine Elevate.
Questions?
We can help. Connect with a Service Navigator to learn more about Elevate. You can also watch a recording of our webinar during Elevate’s launch.
You can also watch the video in Spanish.