Building the Foundation for Life-Long Learning

The Foundation strongly believes that improving the capacity and quality of childcare programs in DuPage County will provide long-lasting benefits for our young children and will propel them on a course of lifelong learning and opportunity which ultimately prepares them to be successful in the workforce as adults.

The first five years of a child's life are vitally important because they lay the foundation for everything that follows - learning, behavior, physical and mental health.  One of the major aspects of what we're doing with Communityworks in the Early Childhood Care and Education area is to focus on improving the quality of services delivered to very young children and their families.

Despite its reputation as a well-educated community, recent research done by Northern Illinois University has revealed that many DuPage parents lack basic knowledge about child development and care.  While many rely on their pediatrician for basic information, it is important that all other childcare providers in the community have support to deliver the highest quality services to young children and their families.

The DuPage Community Foundation is focusing on quality of services as it relates specifically to early childcare providers and has partnered with DuPage organizations which have the ability to significantly impact children's learning from birth to five.


Early Childhood Care and Education Grant Funding and Impact

$7,500 to College of DuPage - January 2006
Support for two public forums on the issues of Early Childhood Care and Education and Workforce Development.


$1,000 to YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago, West Suburban - February 2006
Support for a public forum on the issue of Early Childhood Care and Education in DuPage County.


$25,000 to Positive Parenting DuPage (Positive) and the YWCA Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) - November 2007
Support for the implementation of a collaborative project between Positive and CCR&R to provide professional development for early childcare providers and to increase the capacity of these programs to pursue grant funding.  Three child care centers implemented Creative Curriculum with the professional assistance from a trained mentor.  Twelve childcare programs received technical and grant writing support.


$3,392 to Positive and CCR&R - June 2009
Support for the continuance of the capacity building project.


$25,000 to Positive and CCR&R - January 2010
In a collaborative partnership with Positive and the CCR&R, the Quality Enhancement Consultation Model was established.  This model provides interested childcare providers with a trained consultant who will draft a quality enhancement plan with goals and action steps that connect the provider or organization with the appropriate resources to carry out its quality improvement plan.  Once engaged in the process, the consultant will mentor and guide programs through a variety of technical assistance mechanisms:  leadership training and networking; enrollment into Creative Curriculum with mentoring around professional development; and technical and grant-writing assistance.

Positive provided technical and grant writing assistance to help child care programs obtain Quality Counts grants from the State of Illinois this past year.  While funding from Illinois has been minimal in recent year, Positive's direct assistance resulted in four child care programs receiving a total of $22,000 in quality improvement grants.

Additionally, 12 child care center directors and assistant directors participated in a 10-hour training course focused on developing leadership skills.  Strong leadership in child care centers in critical because it establishes a solid and strong foundation ensuring greater success when further quality measures, such as staff training, equipment and curriculum materials, are added.  Upon completion of the training, a leadership cohort was established and CCR&R staff now leads a monthly meeting for participants to continue skill development.  To date, the cohort has grown from the initial 12 participants to 24.  Approximately 600 children and their parents from the individual child care programs are initially impacted by this investment.  Additionally, two participants from the leadership cohort were accepted to receive 60 hours each of support from a trained mentor to help with the implementation of Creative Curriculum into their childcare center classrooms.


$25,000 to Educare of West DuPage - September 2010
Grant funding was given toward the construction and start-up programming for the new Educare facility in West Chicago.  Educare will offer an intensive full-day, year-round program for at-risk children from birth to kindergarten in this community.  In addition to the direct services provided to the 150 children who will be enrolled annually in the program, the facility will offer training and outreach to early childhood education providers throughout DuPage County and will serve as a model of best practices.


$7,805 to DuPage Children's Museum - November 2010
DCF funded the launching of the DuPage Children's Museum' pilot program, When Learning Comes into Play, which is a new collaboration with Head Start programs in Bensenville, Lombard/Villa Park, and Downers Grove/Woodridge.  Program activities are designed to advance young children's learning, creativity and problem solving and help parents, grandparents and caregivers develop learning partnerships and skills which promote school readiness.  By the end of the first year, 150 children, their respective parents, grandparents, caregivers and 16 classroom teachers will have benefited from the program.


$50,000 to Positive and CCR&R - June 2011
In an ongoing collaboration with Positive and CCR&R to build capacity within birth to five service providers, funding will allow for the continuation of the Quality Enhancement Consultation Model as well as to add professional training and development, technical assistance and grant writing support for DuPage home visiting programs.  Home visiting from families with young children is a strategy which offers information, guidance, risk assessment, and parenting support interventions.   The typical home visiting program is designed to improve some combination of pregnancy outcomes, parenting skills and early childhood health and development, particularly for families at higher social risk.  In DuPage County, Positive coordinates 13 home visiting programs in order to avoid duplication of effort and to maximize upon existing community assets.


$15,000 to Metropolitan Family Services - June 2011
Funding will support the Parents as Teachers (PAT) program, a home visiting program which serves low-income families in Woodridge.  PAT is designed to focus on the important role of parents as their child's first teacher, emphasizing parent-child interaction and parental ability to enhance intellectual development during their child's early years.  Through home visits, family nights, playgroups, screening and a resource network, trained providers help at-risk parents to develop skills in building the foundation for their child's school and life success.

Future Impact
Our overall goal in the early stages of our Communityworks programming was to put initiatives into place that had the capacity to grow as additional funding became available.  With the success of our existing partnerships, out intention is to continue growing each of these programs as well as to establish new partnerships that will further enrich quality learning opportunities for our youngest DuPage residents.