Developing Community Programs

Creating and Expanding Quality Care in Your Community

Have you ever wondered why some communities seem to be able to put a workable child care system in place while others seem to little to offer? Is it magic or luck? What does it take to create quality child care in a community? It takes knowledge, skill, money and yes, a little luck to get child care working well in a community. But most of all, it takes a team of dedicated individuals committed to make things happen.

Download the resources guide that will help you understand how to strengthen child care in your community by showing you how to:

• Build community child care team.
• Gather useful data.
• Evaluate the child care options available to your community.
• Develop short and long term goals.
• Market your child care vision.
• Implement an action plan.
• Begin developing community child care.

Downloads
	Illinois Child Care: Developing Community Programs

Building a Community Team

It is difficult for any parent or group acting alone to organize a community child care program or address community child care issues. When people work together towards a common goal, they can accomplish a great deal.

Three ingredients are needed to make things happen:

1. Skill in knowing how to pull people together to plan for action.
2. Knowledge about child care and your community.
3. Commitment to share vision and persistence towards achieving it.

Most community teams start out with one or two people idenifying a concern and having the desire to do something about it. However, desire is not enough. It takes real skill, leadership and perseverance to pull together a larger group of committed individuals who are willing to work hard to make things happen.

Ten Great Reasons to build a Community Team

1. To conduct a child care community needs assessment.
2. To inform and educate public policy makers about child care issues.
3. To enlist employer support for child care assistance.
4. To support a child care association or child care provider network
5. To build a center-based community child program for school-age or younger children.
6. To build a center-based community child program or family home child care network.
7. To support the child care needs of families and child with disabilities.
8. To establish a community child care scholarship fund for families with low income.
9. To direct city and county appropriations toward child care activities and projects.
10. To alter school or public transportation policies to allow parents greater access to quality programs of their choice.

Call Community Child Care, INC for additional information at 1-800-525-2805. We would like to join your team!