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Community Child Care Resources, Inc. Children in Centers Children' s Services Advisory Committee C. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION (Entire Section C, I — 6, not to exceed two ages) 1 . 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 six centers on 8 sites : Community Preschool (central Vero) , Nanny ' s (central Vero) , Learning Nest/Tiny Treasures ( Sebastian) , Maitland Farm (south county) , SunCoast Primary School (central Vero), and Turner' s I and II (Gifford) . The CCCR Family Resources Coordinator (FRC) closely monitors the quality by unannounced weekly site visits . The FRC looks closely at student: teacher ratios and at developmentally appropriate curriculum . There is parental choice among centers . 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 served 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 . CCCR tracks children after they leave to determine their promotion or retention to third grade . For nine years, CCCR paid centers $20 . 00 per day for preschool age children and $25 . 15 for infants and toddlers . Centers needed an increase in per diem to continue providing quality care at CCCR' s required standards . Last year CCCR was able to increase the per diem to $21 . 25 for preschoolers and $26 . 40 for infants and toddlers. It is our desire to increase the per diem again this year to $27 . 65 for infants and $22 . 50 for preschoolers to match the Consumer Price Index . Centers have expressed the need for additional funds to retain staff and maintain high quality curriculum and care . b. Center Quality : Program services require that each contracting center sets and maintains CCCR' s Standards of Quality, including appropriate teacher to student ratios, low staff turnover, adequate teacher compensation, teacher certification, meaningful teacher in-service training, and center accreditation. c . Parent Education : CCCR offers approximately 30 parent education opportunities throughout the year, alone and in collaborations with other agencies . Opportunities include : Re-Directing Children' s Behavior course, Parent/child interactive Saturday programs , Family Health and Safety, Creating Cooperative Children, Ready to Read at Home, Family Fun on a Budget, and Communicating Family Style . Individual centers also offer a variety of programs throughout the year for their families . In January 2004, a Parent Advisory Board was established to obtain feedback from parents and learn about other needed support and education from CCCR. d . Resource and Referral : CCCR provides in-house mentoring, identification of needs and problems with the family and/or at the center, and refers its families to other local agencies and resources . 3. Briefly describe how your program addresses the stated need/problem. Describe how your program follows a recognized " best practice" (see definition on page 12 of the Instructions) and provide evidence that indicates proposed strategies are effective with target population. Provides financial support for childcare , and families therefore have added income for other goods and services necessary for the safe and healthy development of their children, such as nutritional needs . 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. CCCR also provides the necessary resource to allow both parents to be in the work force . Providing childcare allows parents to work, achieve and improve their economic situation. Most importantly, for the majority of parents, CCCR provides the first opportunity for their children to be in quality childcare . Most children coming into the CCCR program transfer from centers that are far from CCCR Standards of Quality. This is painfully clear in the area of teacher: student ratios . Some of our children come to us from centers 6