YoungStar Analysis and Update Project Información en español YoungStar Analysis and Update 2024 The Department of Children and Families (DCF) is conducting an analysis and update of the YoungStar Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). Our goal is to strengthen YoungStar and make it a more effective tool for: Setting expectations for child care quality Communicating information about child care quality to parents/caregivers so they can make informed child care decisions Supporting child care programs to meet quality expectations To achieve this goal, DCF is engaged with a diverse group of early childhood educators, families, tribes, and other community members for their input and feedback. This update will be a multi-year process and we will provide more information as this work progresses. 2024 Engagement Efforts In 2024, DCF was focused on collecting responses to our questions about how YoungStar is working or not working for a wide range of individuals and organizations. We then worked diligently to review the thousands of comments we received through surveys, listening sessions, and other outreach opportunities. Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts. You provided us with insightful and valuable information to help us analyze YoungStar and consider how we can improve it in the future. 2024 Community Engagement Findings from Providers and Parents/Caregivers Nuestros resultados sobre la participación de la comunidad en 2024 Sign Up for Our Email List Join our listserv to stay informed and receive important information on our YoungStar Analysis and Update Project. YoungStar Email List Archive December 2024 YoungStar Engagement Findings Thank you for your continued interest in child care quality and YoungStar. We have been working diligently to go through the thousands of comments we received through surveys, listening sessions, and other outreach opportunities earlier this year. Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts. You provided us with insightful and valuable information to help us analyze YoungStar and consider how we can improve it in the future. Summary of Findings The Department of Children and Families is excited to share our summary of key findings from these informative engagements. You’ll see participants’ answers to these and other questions: What does child care quality mean to you? Providers: Have you ever participated in YoungStar? Why or why not? What aspects of YoungStar are challenging for providers? Parents and Caregivers: Have you ever used YoungStar when making child care decisions? What information about child care quality should be made available to families? How could YoungStar be improved? Download our 2024 Community Engagement Findings to learn more. Descargue nuestros resultados sobre la participación de la comunidad en 2024 para obtener más información. Our next step is to identify ways to apply what we learned through these engagements in proposals for how to improve YoungStar. We will continue to share periodic updates through our YoungStar Analysis and Update Project listserv. If you know someone who might be interested in learning about this project, tell them to sign up to receive the listserv. Once again, thank you for your interest and we look forward to your input! August 2024 Welcome to the YoungStar Analysis and Update listserv! The Department of Children and Families (DCF) is looking for ways to improve the YoungStar child care quality rating and improvement system, and to start by listening to and learning from the providers, families, and partners most impacted by YoungStar. In this first issue of the YoungStar Analysis and Update listserv, we’re excited to share updates on who we’ve heard from, what we’ve heard, and what’s next in this project. Who we’ve heard from So far, we’ve conducted 36 engagement events, ranging from sessions at the annual conferences of partner organizations to DCF-led listening sessions that took place both in-person and virtually, in English and in Spanish. During these engagements we heard from: Over 440 child care providers/early educators/partners who work directly with providers Over 40 parents/caregivers 15 state legislators/legislative staff members For individuals who did not want to or were not able to attend an engagement session, we also opened a survey. So far, our survey results include responses from over: 400 parents/caregivers 280 providers/early educators 55 community members What we’ve heard With so many people engaging, we heard a whole lot about child care quality broadly and YoungStar specifically, and our team is hard at work analyzing the results. Once we’ve completed this analysis, we’ll share the full findings in a subsequent listserv. But for now, here’s a preview of some of the early themes that are coming through loud and clear: Families are struggling to find and afford any child care. While quality care remains important, this struggle means that for many families, YoungStar is not a key factor in their child care decision making. Providers are struggling to recruit and retain staff. This makes it difficult for providers to meet the staff education requirements needed for higher YoungStar ratings. There is interest in recognizing staff experience and/or prior learning that is relevant but does not lead to a college degree in the YoungStar system. Families and providers want better alignment between child care regulation (i.e. licensing and certification) and YoungStar. For example, can monitoring results impact YoungStar ratings? Can we ensure that licensing specialists and YoungStar coaches/raters offer consistent guidance? Not all providers know what services are available to them through YoungStar Connect or how to access them. And some providers are frustrated by long wait times for YoungStar Connect services. Providers appreciate the current supports to achieve and maintain quality, such as financial support through Child Care Counts, and want more of them, especially for lower-rated programs that are working to increase their ratings. What’s next Our team is hard at work analyzing all the feedback we’ve received to ensure that the perspective of every person who’s shared their time and experience with us is included in our analysis. We are also conducting research, including how other states’ quality rating and improvement systems are evolving, as well as parent/caregiver utilization of YoungStar. Once that analysis is complete in the fall of 2024, we will launch a second round of engagement sessions organized around the common themes from the analysis. The goal of these sessions will be to identify options for how to improve YoungStar and work through the tradeoffs of these options. As an example based on what we’ve heard so far, we will have a session to discuss options for how to incorporate staff experience into the YoungStar system and the pros and cons of those options. We will communicate about these upcoming issue-specific sessions in this YoungStar listserv and in our weekly provider listserv. The ultimate goal is to have recommendations for ways to improve YoungStar to bring to DCF Secretary Amundson and our partners in the Legislature. Thank you for your interest in and contribution to this important project. And if someone in your network would appreciate getting these listserv messages, they can sign up on our website: Sign Up to Receive YoungStar Analysis and Update Project Emails. Learn More YoungStar Analysis and Update Project Background and Overview 2024 YoungStar 101 PowerPoint Presentation Please check back to this webpage for updated information regarding this project and how you can be involved.
