Early Childhood Council of Larimer County (ECCLC) engages in 5-year planning cycles, and has just completed the first year of the 2020-2025 plan. Each 5-year plan reflects the priorities of Larimer County’s early childhood community, and the 2020-2025 plan focuses on convening community partners to work collaboratively to:
Broaden and diversify a qualified and well-compensated early childhood workforce- Increase the number of families that can access and afford quality child care
- Elevate and support community involvement and investment in quality early childhood experiences
- Collaborate with families and community organizations to address and break down barriers to accessing services
- Support infant and early childhood mental health and social emotional development
Broaden and diversify a qualified and well-compensated early childhood workforceEarly Childhood Council of Larimer County made significant progress on the benchmarks set for our five year plan. Key highlights from FY2020-2021 include:
Early Childhood Workforce:
- ECCLC provided scholarships for higher education to 86 prospective early childhood education (ECE) providers during the 2020-2021 year totaling more than $54,000. Additionally, ECCLC partnered with Front Range Community College Foundation to expand access with their scholarship matching program, which increased our scholarship giving by another $15,000 in matching funds.
Child Care Quality and Affordability:
- Early Childhood Coaches supported quality child care for 40 early care and education programs with $100,000+ in quality improvement funding and more than 800 hours of direct coaching. Twelve programs went through a virtual Colorado Shines rating during this fiscal year.
- For the third time, ECCLC was awarded an Early Milestones Early Childhood Workforce Innovation Grant to focus on policy-level solutions to ECE access and compensation.
Community Involvement and Investment:
- ECCLC partnered with the United Way of Larimer County to support the establishment of the Larimer County Childcare Fund, a scholarship program for families struggling to afford care. The fund has garnered more than $500k from donors to support this effort.
- ECCLC partnered with consultants Cody Belzley and Lynea Hansen to lead a county-wide policy research process aimed at determining the feasibility of a local ballot campaign to fund the early childhood system. The 17-member cross-sector steering committee voted in June of 2021 to request that our County Commissioners refer a ballot measure in November of 2021, which if successful, would more than double our local investment in ECE.
Family Access:
- ECCLC launched Larimer Child Care Connect (LC3) in September of 2020 to support families with realtime access to child care openings county-wide. More than 1,000 local families have accessed the referral portal since its release last year.
Early Childhood Mental Health and Social Emotional Development:
- ECCLC integrated the Leap Coalition into a full-fledged program area of the Council, and increased the funding we dedicate to early childhood mental health in Larimer County by more than 400%.
Read the full ECCLC Annual Evaluation Report- July 2021 (FY21) here.