Our Initiatives
Strengthening Quality
We will ensure all components are in place to coordinate quality measurement and guide improvement in publicly funded classrooms as part of the Unified Virginia Quality Birth to Five System (VQB5).
Virginia’s early childhood system must ensure that all children have quality teaching and learning experiences that meet their unique needs. To do this, Virginia has developed VQB5 which recognizes the impact of every classroom, provides feedback to every educator, and supports all publicly funded birth-to-five programs to improve. VQB5 is a measurement and improvement system that focuses on the quality of all publicly-funded birth-five classrooms and supports families to choose quality programming across different program types.
Ready Regions coordinate participation in VQB5 for early childhood care and education (ECCE) programs in the region.
The Virginia Department of Education administers VQB5 as established by the Virginia Board of Education. To learn more, visit the VDOE website.
the age of five
residing in
Ready Region
Blue Ridge.44,161*
Increasing Access
We will build and strengthen better processes to help parents learn about and access ECCE programs in their community, while helping ECCE providers connect with families.
Ready Regions is working to “coordinate enrollment” across publicly funded ECCE programs in the region, such as Child Care Centers and Family Child Care Homes (including those participating in VECF’s Mixed Delivery program), Head Start, Virginia Preschool Initiative, and others to:
- Help parents easily learn where there are available spots for their children, what they qualify for, and information such as cost, hours, and location.
- Help ECCE providers keep enrollment numbers high, communicate when they have spots available, and be able to cover the true costs of quality services.
households in
Ready Region
Blue Ridge.15,878*
Engaging Families
We will establish and strengthen strategies and structures to ensure family engagement.
Families must be engaged in designing an early childhood system that works for them. To do this, Ready Regions will connect with families and communities to better understand and provide the ECCE programs that meet families’ needs.
Building Relationships
We will engage with leaders across the region to facilitate buy-in for shared accountability and benefit. Ready Region Blue Ridge is committed to partnering with other organizations and stakeholders to implement this work.
Our partners include:
