SB6 Child Care Conference

On August 10, Success By 6 (SB6) hosted their Annual Child Care Conference, open to United Way Community Impact Partners. The goal of the conference was to assist agencies with improving their current Quality Start rating, a condition of United Way funding.

The purpose of UWGNOA’s SB6 initiative is to support high-quality child care that prepares children for success in school. Since it began in 2006, SB6 has been focused on bringing child care facilities in the greater New Orleans area up to NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) accreditation and have centers meet the state of Louisiana’s Star Quality Rating System – Quality Start Louisiana. SB6, with support from United Way’s Women’s Leadership Council, was instrumental in bringing Quality Start into existence.

This year’s conference was only open to United Way partner agencies. As a condition of United Way funding, child care providers must be engaged in Quality Start and actively move to the next star level to be considered in the 2011-2012 United Way Grant Application process.  Child care centers that have achieved 3 or 4 stars must maintain their star rating to be considered for future funding. SB6 provides training and technical assistance to help centers meet and exceed these expectations. 

SB6 is currently working with 15 United Way partner agencies - one 4-star, two 2-star and 12 1-star centers. Centers with a star rating of 1 are licensed as Class A, and have no deficiencies. 

In order to advance from 1 to 2 stars, a center must meet the following requirements:

• Maintain its 1-star requirement
• Operate for at least six (6) months
• Meet personnel policies, parent components and program classroom management components
• Staff must apply for Louisiana Pathways, a career ladder program that offers scholarships to teachers and directors in the early childcare industry
• Director must attend a 3-hour training and meet other additional education qualifications. 

To advance from 2 to 3 stars requires monetary assistance for supplies and materials, particularly books of all kinds, so as to sufficiently accommodate the needs and options of all children in every classroom.

SB6 welcomed Lavonselle Longmyle to the training, a representative from the Child Care Division of the Louisiana Department of Social Services (LDSS). Longmyle inspects licensed child care centers and rates them, and also walks participants through the requirements to advance their stars. Also in attendance was Olga Jackson with Louisiana Pathways, who spoke about the Career Ladder for child care providers.

One lucky child care center, Arc of Greater New Orleans, received a Lil Tikes Young Explorer™ computer.

Want to learn more about Success by 6? Visit www.unitedwaynola.org/education to learn about this and other initiatives of United Way.

Photo Captions:

Conference attendees practice child care techniques at the conference.

Michelle Higgins, with Arc of GNO, accepts the Lil Tikes computer.