"Crosswalks" Approved by

Quality Improvement Work Group

The Quality Improvement Work Group of the ECAC recently approved three documents which will facilitate the participation of many early care and education programs in QUALITYstarsNY.  When center-based programs or family-based providers are accredited by the National Association for the Education for Young Children (NAEYC) or the National Association of Family Child Care (NAFCC), or are in full compliance with Head Start, they can receive a significant number of QUALITYstarsNY points, putting them on their way to a better star rating.

QUALITYstarsNY wants to recognize the work that programs and providers have already done.  Accredited NAEYC or NAFCC programs and/or Head Start programs in full compliance with performance standards will be able to eliminate duplicative documentation efforts by automatically receiving the following points toward their star rating:

                NAEYC - 155 points

                NAFCC - 92 points

                Head Start - 149 points

To see the detailed comparison between each system and QUALITYstarsNY, Click here.

QUALITYstarsNY Implementation

Moves Forward

QUALITYstarsNY is moving forward on schedule:  

ECAC Produces New Resources to Advance Developmental Screening 

 All young children in New York State should receive developmental screenings during well-child visits at regular intervals starting in infancy. Developmental screenings  provide parents, health care and early childhood professionals with a standardized way to assess child development as early as possible, but they are not done as frequently as needed to ensure that all children, especially vulnerable children at risk for delays, are on target or get the services they require for optimal development .

To improve the state's rates of early childhood screenings, the ECAC has produced two new publications.

1. A brief, Improving Early Childhood Screenings in New York: Early, Routine, Coordinated provides all early childhood stakeholders in New York with background information, talking points, and recommendations that support the state's expansion of developmental screening efforts.

2. A  brochure for parents, Are You Pregnant or the Parent of a Young Child?, supports parents to become educated consumers and advocates for their children by explaining the need for routine developmental screenings as early as possible. Given that a 2007 national survey found only 11.7% of New York State parents recalled a doctor asking them to complete a standardized developmental screening questionnaire in the past 12 months, this brochure is timely and will help reverse this trend by increasing parents' ability to advocate for their children.  

Feel free to print copies of these materials for your networks. To obtain multiple copies, contact ecac@ccf.ny.gov.

Congratulations to Sara Bonam Welge, a member of the Promoting Healthy Development Work Group, who recently learned that the Department of Health (DOH) Bureau of Community Chronic Disease Prevention and the Obesity Prevention Program received two grants that will fund health-enhancing strategies  in early care and education settings around the state.  These grants are:

1. Community Transformation Grant (CTG) - Small Communities

The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH)/Health Research, Inc. (HRI) is receiving Center for Disease Control funding through the Community Transformation Grant (CTG) - Small Communities program to address tobacco-free living, active living and healthy eating, and healthy and safe physical environments for children ages 0-18 through policy, systems, environmental and infrastructure changes in eight small communities situated within the three small counties of Broome, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus in New York State. The eight communities, which are geographically defined according to school district boundaries, were selected based on high socioeconomic need and risk, high prevalence of obesity among school-age children, and on capacity to implement project objectives.   

Grant efforts will support efforts in these communities to increase the number of child care centers and child care homes that provide developmentally appropriate physical activity for young children and will increase participation in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). Early childhood physical activity specialists will be trained, mentored and placed in Child Care Resource and Referral organizations (CCR&Rs) to provide ongoing training and supportive coaching for child care providers.  The Obesity Prevention Program will work with CACFP, local sponsoring organizations and stakeholders to develop and implement an outreach and recruitment campaign to increase voluntary provider enrollment in CACFP, and work with local stakeholders and county social services to promote adoption of the CACFP mandate for legally exempt providers in Child and Family Services Plans.  The grant also includes funding for school and community-wide components. 

The goal of this initiative is to increase breastfeeding exclusivity and duration from hospital discharge through 3 months among low income women participating in WIC and Medicaid, who live in communities of color in Erie County.  This will be accomplished by enhancing and strengthening a community system of breastfeeding support through improving: partnership building and coordination; breastfeeding practices in provider offices and practices, home visiting services and programs, child care settings and community based organizations; and access to local breastfeeding centers.  This targeted intervention will work through 14 community based organizations currently serving and supporting breastfeeding mothers and their babies after discharge from the hospital.

The specific objectives for this initiative are:  

• Expand the Western New York Healthy Living Coalition to include organizations that focus on improving breastfeeding support in communities in Erie County;

 The work conducted in partnership with CACFP under this funding is designed to increase the number of Breastfeeding Friendly (BFF) early care and education settings and to strengthen the Breastfeeding Friendly designation process with the addition of provider training and consultation. Both funding opportunities permit the Department of Health to test and evaluate intervention methods and models for future dissemination.