“Quality Care for Children is working across systems and communities in Georgia to ensure language-rich environments and increase access to high-quality early learning opportunities. We’re using the four pillars as a guide to advance policies and practices that benefit children, families, and communities.”
Ellyn Cochran, President & CEO
To ensure Georgia’s infants and young children reach their full potential, Quality Care for Children (QCC) provides resources and knowledge to both parents and child care programs, helping them prepare the children in their care for success in school. The data and findings from its programs are then leveraged to advocate for policies and investments that increase child care quality and affordability at the local and state levels. The four pillars of the Get Georgia Reading Campaign provide a powerful framework that strengthens and informs the work of QCC.
To increase access to high-quality early learning programming, QCC works with child care providers to help them strengthen their business practices and maximize revenue to ensure there is adequate supply to meet the needs of Georgia’s children and families. It operates a Provider Resource Hub to deliver business and administrative tools and resources that help providers conserve both time and money.
Recognizing that child care programs operate on slim and fragile margins, QCC provides guidance to ensure programs are leveraging all available revenue sources, including nutrition programs, subsidies, and other financial supports. It also analyzes data to identify where families lack access—including geographic areas, hours, and/or types of care—and works with providers to address those gaps.
With child care costs consuming up to 40% of a low-income family’s budget, QCC also helps eligible families access Child and Parent Services (CAPS) subsidies to make high-quality care more affordable. As of 2023, just 15% of eligible families receive CAPS, so QCC also launched its Boost Child Care Initiative to increase access to quality child care for low-income families by providing financial scholarships paid directly to the child care program.
To help families identify and access early learning and afterschool programming, QCC provides the 877-ALL-GA-KIDS help line, funded by the Department of Early Care and Learning, offering referrals to high-quality programs in families’ communities and supplying information on other resources and assistance programs.
QCC also provides extensive professional development to early learning educators, providing them with the knowledge and resources they need to deliver language nutrition to the children in their care and to promote early brain development in high-quality environments. To support providers in demonstrating their commitment to providing high-quality experiences for young children, QCC also provides training and technical assistance to help their programs become Quality Rated.
To learn more about Quality Care for Children, visit their website.