About the Webinar

The combination of financial pressures, new information regarding best practices, and a strong commitment to partnering has created a unique opportunity for collaborative creative solutions in the field of early childhood and intervention.

The Kansas Early Learning Collaborative (KELC) is an innovative collaboration among six major Kansas early learning organizations. KELC received an Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG) from the Kansas Children's Cabinet and Trust Fund (KCCTF). Each KELC partner organization provides evidence-based services to young children and families.

The organizations:
• Kansas Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (KACCRRA)
• Kansas Association for Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health (KAIMH)
• Kansas Children's Service League Healthy Families (KCSL)
• Kansas Division of Early Childhood (KDEC)
• Kansas Head Start Association (KHSA)
• Kansas Parents as Teachers Association (KPATA).

The purpose of the collaboration is to:
• Expand, enhance and integrate early learning and family support services to pregnant women, children ages 0-3 and their families providing the strong foundation children need to be successful in school and in life.
• Provide assistance in collaborative service delivery to KELC county providers.

The purpose of the Webinar is to discuss how the partnership developed, how the partners settled on shared outcomes for the project, how collaboration is linked to funding (including the use of partnership assessment tools), and how the project uses a web-based data collection system.

The Webinar will also provide a demonstration of the data system and the project's outcomes. Time will be allowed for questions.

Speaker

Christopher L. Smith, Ph.D. is the Director of the Maryland Center for Developmental Disabilities at Kennedy Krieger Institute, as well as Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Smith has served as the evaluation consultant on the project since its beginning, and has been an evaluation consultant in the early childhood field in Kansas (prior to moving to Baltimore) for nearly a decade.  

Discussants

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About the Webinar Series

This is the second in a series of a webinars on critical issues in early childhood intervention (birth to 5 years) sponsored by the Association of University Centers on Disabilities' Early Intervention/Early Childhood Special Interest Group (EIEC SIG). The EIEC SIG at AUCD provides information to AUCD Network members on critical issues related to early childhood. For more information please visit the EIEC SIG Website.