Grant Aims to Boost Skills And Improve School Readiness

Fairfax Futures has received a grant from the Washington Area Women’s Foundation Early Care and Education Collaborative to develop a model program to increase the knowledge and competencies of family child care professionals and enhance the school readiness skills of the three- and four-year-old children in their care.

The program will be implemented with Fairfax County Office for Children and will be modeled after the Virginia Preschool Initiative mixed-delivery approach, serving young children from families with low to moderate incomes who are not enrolled in Head Start.

Through this project, participating family child care providers will receive professional development and mentoring in the implementation of the Creative Curriculum for Family Child Care. The children in their care will be assessed using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire to identify potential developmental delays; receive vision and hearing screenings and be referred for dental screening and other services as needed; and be evaluated to measure their progress in developing pre-literacy skills over the course of the project.