Approximately 11 million children age 5 and younger receive child care in the United States, and of these, one-quarter are served in child care centers. Although some of these centers are highly regulated and provide high-quality early education and care, most (90%) operate without national accreditation and with minimal quality standards. The goal of this project is to adapt an evidence-based school readiness program, REDI (Research-based, Developmentally Informed), for use in child care centers serving socioeconomically disadvantaged communities. Key to the adaptation will be the use of a sustainable on-line distance learning infrastructure, Better Kid Care (BKC), managed by Cooperative Extension, to provide accessible and affordable professional development support to teachers and their supervising center directors. In this talk we will provide a brief overview of REDI, the Better Kid Care system, and the planned project, and discuss several critical issues associated with the implementation and evaluation models, focusing especially on issues in the translation and scale-up of evidence-based programs.
- Wbmpresentation
