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Community Child Care Resources Inc. "Children In Centers" Children' s Services Advisory Committee C . PROGRAM DESCRIPTION (Entire Section C, 1 — 6, not to exceed two pages) list Priority Needs area addressed. a. Child Care Access — increasing the availability of quality childcare . b. Parent Support and Education — promoting programs that focus on "individual" parenting programs . c. Mental Health Wellness — increasing programs that promote enhanced emotional- social skills . 2 . Briefly describe program activities including location of services. a.) Quality Child Care: CCCR contracts with 6 centers on 8 sites : Community Preschool (central Vero), Nanny ' s (central Vero) , Learning Nest/ Tiny Treasures (Sebastian), Maitland Farm (south county), Sun Coast Primary School (central Vero) , and Turner' s 1 & 2 (Gifford) . There is parental choice among the centers . CCCR pays the centers directly; $20 . 00 per day for preschool age children and $25 . 15 for infants and toddlers . Children attend the centers five days a week, up to ten hours a day. Parents are responsible for transporting their children to centers . Families qualify on a first come / first serve basis as application data is completed and verified . Once accepted, parents sign a contract with CCCR committing to a sliding fee scale for tuition, participation in orientations and parent/teacher conferences, and a minimum of 3 parent education programs . After children exit the program to transition into Kindergarten, CCCR tracks them through third grades in terms of their being promoted to the next grade . The CCCR Family Resources Coordinator (FRC) closely monitors the quality of the programs by unannounced weekly site visits . The FRC looks closely at student : teacher ratios and at developmentally appropriate curriculums . b.) Center Quality : Program services cannot be carried out without each contracting center setting and maintaining CCCR' s Standards of Quality. These include appropriate teacher to student ratios, low staff turnover, adequate teacher compensation, teacher certifications, meaningful teacher in-service training, and center accreditation. * C.) Parent Education : CCCR offers approximately 30 parent education opportunities throughout the year. Y of these are collaborations with other agencies and programs. Examples are : four week Re-Directing Children' s Behavior course, Parent/child interactive Saturday programs . Collaborative programs include titles such as : "Family Health and Safety", "Creating Cooperative Children", "Ready to Read at Home", "Family Fun on a Budget", "Communicating Family Style", and "I' ve got the Music in Me" . In addition, individual centers offer a variety of programs throughout the year for their families . d.) Resource and Referral: CCCR provides in-house mentoring, identification of needs and problems with the family and/or at the center, and referral to appropriate local agencies and resources. 3. Briefly describe how your program intends to address the stated need/problem. Include reference to any studies or evidence that indicate proposed strategies are effective with target population. By providing financial support in the area of childcare, families have more of the needed expendable income to provide those things necessary for the safe and healthy development of their children. Nutritional needs can better be met. In some cases, parents are now able to provide housing that is more adequate for the number of family members under one roof and/or move the family to a safer neighborhood. One family this year was able to purchase a used car for the first time because they now had available money to make a modest car payment. Secondly, the CCCR program provides the necessary resource to allow both parents to be in the work force . It is now economically sound for mom to go to work and not use her entire paycheck on childcare. Most importantly however, for the majority of parents the CCCR program provides for the first time the opportunity to have their children in quality care. Most children coming into the CCCR program transfer from centers that do not come close to holding the CCCR Standards of Quality. This is painfully clear in the area of teacher: student ratios . Some of our children come to us from centers where they were one of twenty children with a „ogle teacher. Parents consistently remark about how behavior and sleeping patterns improve both at home and in Dol . As the CCCR child transitions into Kindergarten, he/she has the school readiness skills necessary for school success. The post-testing on the Speed Dial cognitive screening tool and the Kindergarten transition form evidences 6