A pilot program through YWCA Child Care Resource & Referral (CCR&R) and Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) ended in September, launching a permanent service for child care centers in pursuit of excellence and parents seeking quality facilities and education.

Step Up to Quality, a volunteer rating system providing benchmarks for child care centers to achieve ODJFS recognition at three levels, celebrated a successful pilot at an awards reception Sept. 26. The event honored the hard work and dedication of the participants, according to Theresa Towner, director YWCA, CCR&R, who said 57 centers in Lucas County received ratings from one to three stars.

The centers had applied for specific ratings based on their own assessments of their standing with respect to the benchmarks established by the ODJFS. The program aims to assist centers in progressing through the levels, Towner added, emphasizing that the ratings are not intended as an apples-to-apples comparison.

“One of the goals to Step Up to Quality is to assist parents and making sure that it's an easy tool to help them identify quality child care to grow familiar with the star-rating-type system, and, you know the more stars the better,” she said. “The only thing I caution is that I want to make sure that people know that a one-star is good, too. That means they've gone beyond the basic licensing requirement so they meet licensing and they exceed it.”

Achieving successive levels requires extensive efforts for centers, especially smaller facilities serving fewer children, Towner said, which can weigh heavily on their budgets. As an incentive, the state rewards those who achieve their goals through payouts ranging from $3,000 to $36,000, depending on the number of children in attendance and the number of children from families in need of subsidized financial assistance.

CCR&R provides support for centers during their efforts, then ODJFS licensing officials visit centers to verify that they have reached their benchmarks “over and above minimum health and safety licensing standards.” The program applies national research identifying key areas of early care and education “that lead to improved outcomes for children.”

 The pilot began in 2005, with 24 centers achieving ratings within the first year.

Full text available at the Toledo Free Press