Press Release: Pilot Programs Focusing on Family Child Care Underway in Louisville
July 15, 2019FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEFor more information, contact:Brigitte Blom Ramsey, Executive Director(office) 859-233-9849(cell) 859-322-8999Louisville, KY – Increasing the availability of quality family child care for infants and toddlers in the state’s underserved areas is the focus of pilot programs now underway in Eastern Kentucky.The work is being done by the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, in partnership with the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services Division of Child Care.Louisville’s has undertaken a pilot, headed by Cori Gadansky, executive director of Community Coordinated Child Care and Terry Tolan, consultant with the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, to support the work of Spanish-speaking family child care homes and communities, to both enhance quality for existing providers and to recruit more providers for infant and toddler care.These organizations are working in partnership with Ready for K Alliance, Metro United Way, Community Coordinated Child Care, Passport Health, Americana Community Center, La Casita, Doors to Hope, Child Care Aware, C, E, & S Foundation, Lift-a-Life Foundation, and the James Graham Brown Foundation.The team with Community Coordinated Child Care is working on an ambitious program that will provide supporting services, opportunities for training, and other professional development in Spanish.“We are pleased to have this opportunity to support our Spanish-speaking family child care providers, who help improve the kindergarten readiness of the children in their care,” said Ms. Gadansky.“Quality early learning, when the brain is developing most rapidly, is the most important precursor to success in school and life,” said Brigitte Blom Ramsey, executive director of the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence. “We look forward to learning from the implementation of these pilots as we seek to contribute to national best practices to expand access to quality, home-based child care for more youngsters and their families.”###The Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence is an independent, nonpartisan, citizen-led organization working to improve education in Kentucky – early childhood through postsecondary.