Early Care and Education Projects, an outreach unit of the College of Education and Health Professions, has been awarded a three-year, $170,000 grant from Home Grown, a national organization that supports home-based child care.

Home Grown's three-year investment will help ECEP's Family Child Care Network expand and improve child care services provided by in-home caregivers across Arkansas.

The Family Child Care Network plans to use the funding to help license more child care providers, improve their business practices, support children's social and emotional health and offer tools to help track and support early childhood development.

"Family child care providers are essential in their communities," said Jackie Couture, Early Care and Education Project's FCCN manager. "They are the economic backbone that allows parents to work, and this investment from Home Grown will help us build quality across Arkansas.

"Our network is focused on equipping providers with the resources and support they need to thrive professionally, emotionally and financially," she added.

One of the Family Child Care Network's main initiatives is to provide one-on-one help for family child care providers. Throughout 2023, the network helped nearly 170 providers screen over 1,200 children using Brigance, a tool that helps identify children in need of extra support. The Family Child Care Network's work led to over 50 referrals for early intervention before kindergarten.

In 2024, the network reached full staffing across all five regions of Arkansas. The team includes five regional coaches and a manager, allowing the network to offer localized personal support to child care providers across the state.

Home Grown also provided nearly $25,000 in additional funds for family child care homes across the state that were affected by severe weather in March and April as part of the organization's Home-Based Child Care Emergency Fund for Severe Weather and National Disaster Response.

Kathy Pillow-Price, director of the Early Care and Education Projects, said the new funding from Home Grown will go a long way towards helping families and caregivers across the state.

"Through our work with Home Grown and state partners, we are not only responding to today's challenges—we are carrying out our mission to educate, connect and equip early childhood professionals," Pillow-Price said.

Early Care and Education Projects has provided early childhood professionals with high-quality professional development and comprehensive, up-to-date training since 1992. Its primary funding comes from the Office of Early Childhood, housed in the Arkansas Department of Education Division of Elementary and Secondary Education.

For more information about the Family Child Care Network and the Early Care and Education Projects, visit their website.