Massachusetts Preschool Development Birth through Five (PDG-B-5) - Massachusetts has made early education and child care a central priority, with the Executive Office of Education (EOE) and the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC) leading statewide policy, investment, and system alignment. The PDG B-5 Systems-Building Grant will focus on two key outcome strategies: maximizing family choice in accessing affordable early education and care and developing a more cohesive system to support program operational efficiency and sustainability. First, the Commonwealth will work toward its Key Strategic Action goals of families accessing information about early education and care programs and community resources, so they can find and enroll in the care they need and providing families who need assistance paying for child care with centralized access to the information they need to learn about and easily apply for support. The grant will support substantial progress in two core areas: 1) augmenting a new family portal that integrates and makes more accessible information about available programs and 2) building more effective help desk support to improve family access to their care of choice. Second, the Commonwealth will work toward its Key Strategic Action goals of program directors and administrators having access to trainings and resources that empower them to succeed as small businesses with predictable funding opportunities that help support priority investment areas, analyzing how current funding streams work together to support program operations, and building better system integration and updated technology systems that improve the user experience. The grant will also support critical work in three areas: 1) building business operations training and technical assistance support systems, 2) streamlining program administrative processes, and 3) developing state level strategies to support effective braiding of early education funds in service of sustainable program operations.
