Contact:
Rose Lynch (608) 266-6753
$480,000 made available to 230 day care centers
Madison – Department of Workforce Development Secretary Roberta Gassman today announced that her agency has awarded $474,810 in grants from the Early Childhood Excellence Initiative to accredited child care programs serving low-income children under the age of five.
The awards were made to 192 accredited group day care centers and 38 family day care centers throughout Wisconsin. The centers receiving the awards are Accredited Day Care Centers.
DWD administers a series of grants and programs to increase the quality and supply of child care services statewide. Initiatives focus on attracting and retaining qualified child care staff, helping child care programs maintain accreditation, increasing the availability of high quality child care services to families in need, and providing public information. These initiatives are implemented primarily through grants to private non-profit agencies and to child care programs.
Said Gassman, “This funding allows the accredited centers to maintain the highest quality of care. This is the infrastructure that the state will build on as we move forward on the Governor’s initiative of ‘Quality Care for Quality Kids,’ a program to rate child care based on quality. Study after study has shown that giving children good, quality child care pays enormous returns for every dollar invested.”
To be eligible, applicants must be an accredited center by November 23, 2004 by one of these organizations:
* National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) Accreditation, administered by the National Academy of Early Childhood Programs
* National Association for Family Child Care (NAFCC)
* City of Madison Accreditation
* National Association of Child Care Professionals (NACCP)
Attached is a list of the centers and the amount of the grants they have received.
