Overview
In 2023, the state of Vermont was awarded a three-year federal Preschool Development Grant (PDG). Vermont’s proposal under PDG was titled the Vermont Integration Project: Building Integration in Vermont’s Birth to Five Early Childhood Systems (VIP B-5). The goal of the VIP B-5 is to strengthen Vermont’s early childhood system and improve outcomes for Vermont’s young children, specifically by focusing on the following long-term outcomes:
- Ensure all children have a healthy start.
- Families and communities play a leading role in children’s well-being.
- Children and families have access to high-quality opportunities that meet their needs.
- The early childhood system will be integrated, well-resourced, and data-informed.
To help Vermont achieve these long-term outcomes, the VIP B-5 project funds 19 grant activities, with shared responsibility across four state agencies (Child Development Division, Agency of Education, Vermont Department of Health, and Department of Mental Health) and Building Bright Futures (BBF). Some examples of the system-wide activities that are embedded in the work of the grant are:
- Conducting a comprehensive statewide needs assessment
- Updating Vermont’s Early Childhood Action Plan (VECAP)
- Increasing opportunities for parent and family engagement and leadership
- Supporting the early childhood workforce
- Supporting program quality improvement
- Providing additional funding to the early childhood system through sub-grant awards
- Strengthening the use of data for monitoring, evaluation, and continuous quality improvement purposes
Monitoring & Evaluation Efforts
As a lead partner organization, BBF has created and implemented a strategic vision for monitoring and evaluating the efforts across all of the VIP B-5 activities. That strategic vision includes providing evaluation and technical support to all of the implementation teams responsible for one or more activities, convening state agency leaders and early childhood partners regularly to discuss and align efforts, and aligning the work of the grant with other data and evaluation initiatives such as monitoring the implementation and impact of Act 76, and the VECAP Data and Evaluation Committee’s efforts to create the early childhood Data Development Agenda.
Due to the variety of activities being implemented under the VIP B-5, the monitoring and evaluation plan includes the use of a mixed-methods framework (utilizing both quantitative and qualitative indicators), attending to both process and outcome measures, and examining data trends using a continuous quality improvement lens.
Furthermore, the successful implementation of activities and attention to systems-level change requires coordination among the VIP B-5 partner agencies. Therefore, in addition to measuring improvement in identified outcomes of activities, the monitoring and evaluation plan also attends to what extent we have improved and strengthened long-term collaboration and aligned system improvement efforts between state agency partners and other early childhood organizations.
Learn More About PDG