Research supports the social and financial benefits of ensuring quality early education for young children, particularly those most at-risk. San Francisco will provide an overview of the city/county’s Quality Circle – a system strategy taken to connect families and children to quality child care experiences. The presentation highlighted over a decade of quality assessment and quality improvement efforts, as well as more recent efforts, including the development of a Family Child Care Quality Network to enroll infants and toddlers from homeless families and child welfare cases. The workshop will emphasize: 1) components of the Quality Circle, 2) the community partner process for developing the system, 3) exigent issues related to CalWORKs vouchered child care, and 4) provide Q&A and opportunities for participants to consider aspects of the system that should be considered locally and in California’s early education system.

Systems Approaches to Accessing Quality Early Care for High Risk Populations

• Michele Rutherford, Deputy Director, San Francisco Office of Early Care & Education
• Alyson Lee-Suzuki, Chief Program Officer, Wu Yee Children’s Services