Illinois Action for Children

In addition to our core programs and services, IAFC administers two Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) programs for Cook County—The Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) and serves as the county’s designated Child Care Resource and Referral Agency (CCRR). Through these programs, we provide access to quality, affordable thousands of low-income working parents (and parents in school).

Neighborhood Partnerships
Illinois Action for Children's Neighborhood Partnerships deepen and expand families' relationships with child care providers, local service providers, faith-based connections, businesses, and communities.

Faith-Based Program
Our Faith-Based Program connects parents and child care providers to early learning and school-age programs and services by partnering with churches to educate parishioners and communities on the importance of quality care and education.

Hospitals Program
We connect with hospitals, health care centers, and family planning agencies to educate them about early care and education and the family services that we offer.

Community Network Resource Collaborative
Community Network Resource Collaborative is a collection of agencies and organizations that serve families throughout Cook County and surrounding areas. The overall goal of the collaborative is to connect families to early childhood resources and supports and to minimize barriers that they face in connecting with an early learning program. The collaborative meets quarterly and provides the opportunity for community partners to connect with one another and to learn about and advocate for policy issues impacting families and other timely matters. For more information or to join this collaborative, contact Felicia McBride, Project Development Manager, at [email protected]

Public Policy & Advocacy educates early learning providers and the general public about legislative and administrative policies that support children, families and the field of early care and education; help providers implement best practices based on policy; shape and support policy and systems change for young children, families and providers; build and lead coalitions to advance advocacy and policy change with a a racial equity lens; conduct research to inform effective program delivery.

Community Systems Development (CSD) leads and supports community collaborations to build and continuously improve local systems of early childhood services. Currently, we are designing and delivering comprehensive capacity building supports for early childhood community-wide collaborations throughout Illinois that are focused on enrollment of high-need children ages 0-5 into high-quality early learning programs.
The CSD team is currently working on two major initiatives:
1. Community Systems Statewide Supports (CS3) is a 5-year partnership with the Illinois State Board of of Education that began in 2018. The CSD team builds the capacity of local collaborations across the state to effectively support the early childhood sector.

2. Community Parenting Saturation Program is a 3-year initiative conceived by a group of local foundation interested in improving the outcomes of children in under-resourced communities. IAFC leads project in three communities-North Lawndale, Chicago, Rockford, IL and Aurora, IL. The pilot project is designed to test the theory that providing parents/caregivers living in under-resourced communities with every support and intervention and a meaningful voice in the process will lead to more children entering kindergarten READY to learn, grow and thrive.

Together, these vital programs and services drive us toward our vision of a future in which all children and families have the resources they need to reach their greatest potential.

Illinois Action for Children (IAFC) recognizes the critically important role of early learning programs in building a firm foundation that allows children to reach their academic and social potential. Creating high-quality and highly effective learning environments requires skilled and committed leaders and teachers to foster positive outcomes for children.

Effective teachers engage in reflective practice; continuous child assessment; and utilize curricula that support whole-child development. Strong program leadership is also required to ensure positive outcomes for children and increase the capacity of classroom teachers.

Illinois Action for Children’s Consultation Services engages early childhood program leaders to provide support to teachers through coaching, mentoring, professional development, training, and technical assistance. Illinois Action for Children’s integrated suite of consultation services covers the topics of:

INFANT TODDLER SPECIALISTS
QUALITY SPECIALISTS
MENTAL HEALTH CONSULTANTS
SERVICES FOR SCHOOLS

Illinois Action for Children’s Consultation Services are available at no cost to you through our partnership with the Illinois Department of Human Services. Click on each title above to learn more about each program. You are welcome to engage in a single service or you can combine all three – we are committed to a consultative engagement that meets your specific needs.

Location of Consultation Services Team – IAFCs Community Partners
IAFCs Consultation Services team is comprised of dozens of skilled and experienced professionals who are committed to your success. Currently, consultants are regionally-based throughout Cook County, making it easy for consultant(s) to make regular visits to your program.

In addition to providing support for ongoing provider training and professional development, each of Illinois Action for Children’s Community Partners headquarters offices services as a “home-base” for our consultants while they are in the field. There is at least one (1) of each consultant type (Quality, Infant-Toddler, Early Childhood Mental Health) assigned to each Community Partner-based region.

These are the areas served by each of IAFCs Community Partners:

Illinois Action for Children - North (formerly Children's Home + Aid)
Illinois Action for Children
Carole Robertson Center for Learning (CRCL)
Centers for New Horizons (CNH)
Good Shephard Center (GSC)

To combat food insecurity in home-based childcare in Cook County’s most disenfranchised neighborhoods, IAFC began running the Healthy Food Program (HFP) in 2006. The HFP, which operates under the auspices of the USDA funded Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). All providers enrolled in CACFP also receive child care reimbursement from the Cook County Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP).

Over the years, the HFP team has augmented the program to include specialized trainings and support to home-based, license exempt providers called Family, Friend and Neighbor (FFN) Care. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, more families are turning to FFN providers as an alternative to center-based child care. Utilizing FFN child care, parents/caregivers know their children are with someone they know and trust to care for their children safely.

Each year, the Healthy Food Program serves nearly 3 million healthy meals and snacks to more than 6,000 impoverished children from birth to age 12.

Health and Safety Resources
The Health and Safety Resources Department utilizes a strengths-based approach to build meaningful relationships with providers as individuals, while leveraging our holistic understanding of what is needed for high-quality child care that is inclusive of supports for the home environment as well as supports for the provider themselves.

Since 2017, our team of Health and Safety Coaches (formerly known as License-exempt Monitors or LEMs) have served more than 1,000 License-Exempt FFN care providers as a personal contact, providing 1:1 support in a range of child care aspects.

Illinois Action for Children’s Health and Safety Coaches:
Build and maintain relationships with License-exempt providers who care for children participating in the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP)
Support these providers in ways that help ensure the children in their care have a safe, healthy and happy environment
Visit homes where child care is provided to deliver resources that encourage health and safety, such as early learning tools, community resources, and much more!
Facilitate provider trainings, cohorts, and peer-to-peer learning
Provide technical assistance (e.g. computer labs) to set providers up for success in the program
Share additional resources and materials to enhance the delivery of high-quality early childhood experiences to all the children in their care.
Our approach is based on meeting providers where they are. That means in their home, at the library, at the park, or whatever we can possibly make work. That also means that we work to build trust, open doors to opportunities, offer encouragement, and guide providers to help them see clearer paths, overcome challenges, and take advantage of opportunities.

Illinois Action for Children is a leading expert on engaging families and support organizations, schools, and community collaborations to also deepen their own family and community engagement practices.

We support your staff and teachers to learn these skills through our Partnerships for Positive Outcomes (PPO) program. We provide training and consultation supports in deepening the practice of engaging families and communities as well as providing consultation services and trainings in topics related to early childhood mental health:

Family and Community Engagement Training and Supports

Engaging families authentically
Strategies for reducing chronic absenteeism
Building community partnerships and a system of referrals for families
Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation and Training Supports

Individual child observations
Trauma and its impact on children
Reflective practice coaching for teachers
Understanding brain science and early learning

Since 2012, Illinois Action for Children has been working with families, schools, and community organizations in North Lawndale to partner with families and to implement community systems development strategies that improve family access to early care and education programs. The North Lawndale Community Connections program includes several initiatives specifically for families living in the North Lawndale community.

North Lawndale READS program
In 2015, we joined the Steans Family Foundation’s North Lawndale READS initiative to increase the increase grade level literacy for children in preschool through third grade. In this project, IAFC is responsible for addressing issues of chronic absenteeism in preschool to third grade by partnering with four elementary schools to provide authentic family engagement supports.

Over the years, we have adapted and refined our approach to addressing chronic absenteeism and fostering attendance in schools. Our program approach includes three pillars: 1) Authentic family engagement through intensive family supports and services, 2) Fostering community partnerships to provide families with holistic and comprehensive supports that address their basic needs, and 3) Building the capacity of the school leaders and staff themselves to foster a positive culture of attendance and family engagement.

The results of our approach have been tremendously successful with proven and significant impact on families and children’s learning. Some of our key successes include:

In the 2017-2018 school year, students served by IAFC saw an average gain of +6 percent attendance (approximately 11 extra days of school).
63 percent of students reached by IAFC met growth benchmarks on MAP Reading assessments
For second graders, this growth corresponded to 1.4 years of growth
For third graders, this growth corresponded to 1 year of growth
Playful Learning Landscapes
Illinois Action for Children, in partnership with Metropolitan Family Services and its collaborative partners, has been working with families to identify every day public spaces that can be transformed into places of learning for young children. Through the North Lawndale Early Learning Collaboration, family leaders and community partners, have worked collaboratively to give voice to innovative ideas such as transforming sidewalks outside of Legacy Apartments, the Farm on Ogden, and at the Central Park pink line into literacy and early math spaces. In June 2021, another educational installation will be placed in the community on Douglas Boulevard. This set of installations will allow children to explore colorful concepts that will help them build mathematical skills.

North Lawndale Early Learning Collaboration
Formerly known as the North Lawndale Innovation Zone

In 2012, Illinois won a Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant to strengthen early childhood systems and kindergarten readiness for Illinois children. Within that initiative, IAFC led the Innovation Zones project. We engaged 11 communities to develop and test strategies to increase the enrollment of children with critical needs in high-quality early learning and development programs. North Lawndale—a neighborhood where 72 percent of the children age five and under were living in poverty—was among them.

Partnering with a diverse coalition of community organizations and parents, we set out to build a comprehensive community infrastructure to ensure that all children born in the community are on track to succeed by third grade. In North Lawndale, we focused our efforts on creating a robust enrollment pipeline that would effectively connect families to the formal programs available to them and on enrolling more high-need children in high-quality early learning programs.

Ongoing Success
The North Lawndale team’s work during the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Grant continues to provide the community with benefits of the work the team completed, including:

A strong community collaboration, the North Lawndale Early Learning Collaboration, that has developed a more systematic way of sharing information and referring families.
A pipeline of partners that are referring families to early learning programs
A feedback loop between the Chicago Mayor’s Office (Early Learning Department), (Chicago Department of Family and Support Services (DFSS), Chicago Public Schools and the North Lawndale community collaboration.

As part of the Preschool Development Grant Birth Through Five (PDG B5) and in partnership with the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Development, Illinois Action for Children (IAFC) has been tasked with the Community-Based Planning for Expansion (CBP) project designed to increase support for community systems and to community-level applicants for state funding. Recognizing that there are a number of barriers to applying for state funding as well as that increased state funding is being dedicated to early childhood, this is a critical time for community-level expansion planning. CBP provides underserved communities with systems knowledge, demographic data, and planning capacity to take advantage of projected increases in state Early Childhood Block Grant (ECBG) and child care funding.

Communities will receive:
Funding towards supporting the community-based planning process
Capacity-building trainings provided to community leaders on topics such as funding streams, layered funding, priority populations, program models, facilities, and more
Facilitated planning support that result in community plans for service expansion
Increased systems knowledge, demographic data, and planning capacity
The goal of the three-year project is to support 15 communities with large slot gaps to compete successfully for early childhood care and education funding and expand services.

For more information on the CBP Project, please contact Brittain Ayres at [email protected]