May 2006

Illinois SchoolReadiness Initiative

Key Strategies for Young Children in theChild Welfare System

Illinois School Readiness Initiative:Key Strategies for Young Children inthe Child Welfare System

Quality preschool is crucial in getting children ready forschool and supporting social and emotional develop-ment. It is especially important for children in the childwelfare system, who need extra help getting ready forschool due to the trauma and stigma they often face.As of 2004, approximately half of 3-to-5-year-old wardsin Illinois were enrolled in such a program. The IllinoisDepartment of Children and Family Services (IDCFS)has undertaken a new School Readiness Initiative to:

1. Within one year, achieve 100-percent enrollmentof 3-to-5-year-olds in Head Start, state-funded pre-Kindergarten, or—when one of these options is notavailable—an accredited early care and educationprogram, for at least part of the day

2. Keep those educational placements as stable aspossible for as long as possible, even as childrenchange foster care placements and achieve perma-nency

3. If children must move, assist with the transition byhaving caseworkers and teachers help them saygoodbye, take along artwork, etc.

In addition, the School Readiness Initiative is planningfor the future by:

4. Articulating best practices in child welfare for chil-dren 0 to 3

IDCFS and its partners have adopted several key strate-gies which are at the center of the School ReadinessInitiative. These strategies are distinctly different fromthose employed recently in locations where schoolreadiness initiatives have not been successful.

1. Framing the Initiative as EducationEntitlement

The single most important strategic choice in placingchildren in Head Start, Pre-K, and accredited early careand education centers is to differentiate between child-care and education. In the past, early care and educa-tion has been viewed primarily as a service that is nec-essary for working parents. The School ReadinessInitiative in Illinois is acknowledging this need, butspreading the message that regardless of the foster par-ents’ work situation, all wards need quality preschool.

The initiative is making education—not just childcare—a part of the service plan for each child involved in thechild welfare system. As described below, a work groupis drafting policies to implement that shift in serviceplanning requirements, and stakeholders are reviewingand giving feedback on these policies.

Key Action Steps

n Forge an agreement with Head Start organizationsresulting in more wards being enrolled in HeadStart programs (see below).

n Create a logic model defining school readiness as“comprehensive child development,” which includesphysical, social, emotional, and cognitive well-being.

n Cite research from the Annie E. Casey Foundation’sStrengthening Families Through Early Care andEducation Initiative (www.cssp.org/doris_duke/)showing that these measures of school readinessare strengthened by quality preschool.

2. Planning for Change Before enacting a policy that increases placements inquality preschools, it is vital that child welfare agenciesand their partners begin shifting child welfare and earlychildhood practices in the direction of the desiredchanges. When this is done successfully, by the timepolicy mandates take effect: (1) stakeholders havealready modified their practices and do not feel thatthey are being asked to make drastic changes withoutsufficient preparation, and (2) all stakeholders and poli-cy-setters have worked out the “kinks,” resulting inpolicies that can be realistically implemented. One yearis a reasonable timeframe for setting goals and shiftingpractices prior to the introduction of policy mandates.

Key Action Steps

Policy

n Education must be part of the service plan for allchildren 3 years of age and older. (In Illinois, thismandate previously began at age 6, with firstgrade, although children involved in early interven-tion services could be required to be in preschool.)

n Caseworkers no longer may write “DNA” [“does notapply”] in the education section of a child’s service plan.

n Innovative performance-based contracts for allchild welfare agencies provide for full compensa-tion only when the agencies include education ineach service plan.

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Training and Technical Assistance

n Convene a work group from the state’s childcare,Head Start, and education departments to draftguidelines for caseworkers in placing children.

n Conduct a needs assessment to determine whatfrontline caseworkers need in order to place chil-dren in quality preschool.

n Enlist the child welfare system’s training departmentto develop desk aids and an implementation manu-al, and use these in required caseworker training.

n Identify staff resources within the department toprovide TA and support caseworkers in implemen-tation. For example, in Illinois: (1) IDCFS alreadyemployed staff to provide educational support forfoster parents and children starting withKindergarten; now, these liaisons start earlier, byhelping families locate quality preschools. (2) Earlychildhood services coordinators are trouble-shooting special cases. (3) Licensing staff areincluding quality early childhood education prac-tice in the training and licensing of daycare / pre-school providers. (4) Contract monitors are ensur-ing that contracted child welfare agencies are cre-ating and following through on educational plansfor all wards.

Communications

n Disseminate a key message that stresses education/ school readiness.

n Provide consultation to case workers regardingeducation; disseminate the message that educa-tion starts at age 3.

n Tap the communications department to launch aninternal awareness campaign that is tailored to work-ers and foster parents. In Illinois, key componentswere: (1) a message from the IDCFS director promi-nently posted on the Web page that all staff log ontodaily and (2) a brochure circulated to all stakehold-ers, with the message “Our Kids Deserve a Fair Start:Enroll Them in a Quality Preschool Today.”

Data

n Each child entering the system has an “educationalpassport”—a database record that the child’s caseworker, teachers, and other preschool staff andservice providers use to make and carry out his orher educational plan.

3. Working from the Bottom Up and theTop Down

To successfully enroll all wards in quality preschool, it isnecessary to simultaneously (1) issue a mandate fromthe child welfare agency’s top leadership and (2) havethose who will be implementing the plan construct it.

Key Action Steps: Bottom-Up

A hallmark of IDCFS’s School Readiness Initiative—anda strategy that has been absent from other initiativesseeking to enroll wards in preschool—has been theconvening of a group of stakeholders from the verybeginning in order to build support and buy-in.Stakeholders include foster parents, supervisors of pri-vate agencies, department supervisors, deputy direc-tors, educational liaisons, and early childhood servicescoordinators. Partnerships with these stakeholders isnecessary in enhancing the capacity of early childhoodcenters to care for children who have experienced trau-ma and to work with families. Seven state child welfaredepartments (including IDCFS) are engaged instatewide collaborations through StrengtheningFamilies through Early Care and Education.

Early Childhood Community

n Work with the state’s Network of Child CareResource and Referral agencies to support case-workers in placing children: In Illinois, IDCFS staffmet with all of the state’s major early childhoodeducation advocates and organizations to apprisethem of the initiative and the anticipated changesin IDCFS policy and practice. They encounteredresistance because many of these advocates andorganizations (1) did not understand that the state’srole is that of a parent to all wards and (2) werereluctant to differentiate between programs thatprovide quality early care and education (“qualitypreschools”) and those that do not (“daycare” or“childcare” programs).

n Sign agreements with Head Start agencies and pro-grams: IDCFS is signing collaborative agreementswith local Head Start programs across the state. Theseagreements result in more wards ages 0 to 3 beingenrolled in these programs rather than programs thatdo not emphasize education. The groundwork forthese agreements was set when a statewide memo-randum of understanding was signed among the

Illinois School Readiness Initiative: Key Strategies for Young Children in the Child Welfare System p. 3

Illinois Head Start Association, IDCFS, and the IllinoisDepartment of Human Services Collaboration Unit(Region V). The state’s regional Head Start offices ini-tiated this memorandum.

n Ensure communication and collaboration betweenthe child welfare system and early childhood edu-cation providers statewide: This enables providersand child welfare staff to work together to carry outservice plans for wards. Providers need to get infor-mation from child welfare staff on wards (both ingeneral and in specific cases) so that they can workto keep them safe. And the child welfare systemneeds to know the capacity of specific programs tocare for wards. Either existing collaborations or anew statewide collaborative body can be used toachieve these results.

Foster Parents

One challenge facing school readiness initiatives is theissue of who is responsible for placing children. Whenchildcare was the only required placement for children0 to 3, foster parents were the decision makers and hadcomplete responsibility for making childcare arrange-ments. When quality preschool is a requirement, theresponsibility for implementing that policy shifts tocaseworkers. The process of explaining and negotiat-ing this shift can be difficult and requires a good deal ofdiplomacy, which can be aided by the following steps:

n Present the initiative to the Foster ParentsAdvisory Council.

n Develop and send a brochure to foster parents withpayments.

n Work with caseworkers to clarify the role of fos-ter parents.

n Provide incentives for taking part in the new process.n Negotiate issues such as transportation of wards,

part-day schedules, etc.

Senior Child Welfare Managers

n Get buy-in from all deputy directors early inthe process.

All Stakeholders

n Before the policy is implemented, meet with stake-holders to inform them of the changes, discusstheir roles and their concerns, and—in the case ofpartners outside the child welfare system—forgecollaborative agreements.

n Start with a general message (such as “educationstarts at age 3”) and, as stakeholders become moreexperienced with early care and education, increasethe amount of detail communicated to them.

Key Action Steps: Top-Down

IDCFS Director Bryan Samuels started the initiative bymaking a bold declaration of the School ReadinessInitiative’s goal of 100-percent enrollment in one year.The department is backing up this declaration withexecutive-level guidance and oversight.

n Convene a work group to oversee the initiativeacross the agency’s service area. In Illinois, IDCFS’ssix Regional Administrators (RA’s), who oversee allchild welfare staff statewide, are members of thegroup; they assigned their staff and contractualagencies the responsibility of gathering the need-ed data on early education placements.

n Assemble a work group to develop a school readi-ness plan on the local level: In Illinois, this groupincludes RA’s, quality assurance staff in charge ofrelationships with contract child welfare agencies(where 80% of children are served), staff in chargeof licensing and educational services, and adminis-trators in the director’s office.

n Staff the work group with a consultant with executive-level experience in early childhood programming.

ConclusionThe effectiveness of quality care and education pro-grams in keeping children safe from abuse and neglectmakes these programs a priority for any child welfaresystem. The Illinois Department of Children and FamilyServices is enacting a plan to place all wards ages 3 to5 in quality early care and education, keep them stableand ease their transitions in these placements, and cre-ate best practices for wards ages 0 to 3. The IDCFSapproach of framing these activities as educationalentitlement, planning for change, and working from thebottom up and the top down provides a precedentfrom which child welfare systems nationwide can learn.

Illinois School Readiness Initiative: Key Strategies for Young Children in the Child Welfare System p. 4

For more information, contact:Illinois Department of Children and Family Services

100 W. Randolph StreetChicago, IL 60606

312/814-4111