All Our Kin’s technical assistance (TA) team collaborates with organizations across the country engaged in innovative work to grow family child care (FCC) in their local communities. In this edition of the All Our Partners series spotlighting our TA partner groups, we spoke with Beth Steward from Indiana's Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning about the state’s efforts to build 26 staffed FCC networks.
All Our Kin: Beth, could you tell us about your role at Indiana’s Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning, and what the work of the office is overall?
Beth Steward: My title is Child Care Quality Specialist, and I’m a part of the office’s overall quality team. I joined the state in 2021 after being in a classroom for almost 20 years. But I really started my career way back in high school supporting a FCC educator, so that’s where my roots are. My work primarily focuses on managing contracts for Indiana’s Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) network, which consists of five agencies and a coordinating office. The vision of our office is that every Indiana community has a strong network of early care and education and out-of-school time programs that support the child, the family, and local schools.
AOK: How did the state of Indiana connect with All Our Kin at first on network development? How have we collaborated?
Beth: When I first joined the state, I was asked to look into staffed FCC networks, which led me to All Our Kin’s Network Development cohort. At that point, we’d been working for at least two years to get networks off the ground. We partnered with several other agencies in the state that had data to share around educators, so we were at a point where we just needed to put all those pieces together. After participating in AOK’s cohort, [TA staff members] Jennifer Drake and Alison Wunder Stahl came out for our network launch event. Then Jennifer and I also presented on our framework and the statewide networks at the Indiana Association for the Education of Young Children conference, which was a great opportunity to gather input from educators that was incorporated into how the networks were running. And now we’re participating in AOK’s Nurturing Networks program. All of that was pretty exciting!
What is a staffed FCC network?
Staffed FCC networks are organizations that offer home-based child care providers a menu of quality improvement services and supports including technical assistance, training, and/or peer support delivered by a paid staff member." (Bromer & Porter, 2017)
AOK: What difference do you think it makes to partner with All Our Kin on building a statewide FCC network in Indiana?
Beth: Working with All Our Kin has made a huge difference. Connecting with other states through the cohort experience has given us an opportunity to broaden our vision and share successes. We came into the Network Development cohort with a lot of data and research, but we didn’t have a framework. Jennifer and I always talked about Indiana’s structure as a type of wheel. We had all the spokes, but we didn’t have anything holding everything together. Now the staffed FCC networks really put that axle in the middle so that the spokes can connect. Then we were able to build a thoughtful framework to really support our FCC educators. We now have 26 networks across the state through our five CCR&Rs, with some of them being region-based and some being county-specific.
AOK: What role do FCC educators play in Indiana’s networks?
Beth: It looks different in each network. We have some networks that are more established, where educators have really embraced the mentoring aspect and take on leadership roles there. They are part of meetings, they help bring in new educators to the field, and work alongside our staff and the CCR&Rs pretty closely. In some of our more recent networks, educators are newer and engage in peer support. That’s the beauty of it – each community can take the framework that we’ve created and make the networks their own. They have a true space to grow and evolve.
AOK: What’s the vision of your team? How do you hope your work will impact educators and families in Indiana?
Beth: FCC in Indiana is huge. It's a very large part of our mixed delivery system, with over 2,000 programs. Yet, we also know that there's been a decline in FCC availability in the state. It’s our goal that staffed FCC networks help educators build confidence in themselves as professionals as well as business owners. Down the road, that's going to lead to communities becoming more aware of family childcare. And overall it will increase the quality of care in our state.
AOK: Do you have an anecdote or success story to share about network development and our partnership?
Beth: When we finally had the framework ready that we had developed in the cohort, we put it into graphic form. It came to life in this beautiful image that was really concrete, which we could share with educators and say, “This is what we want to do with you. We want to support you and more importantly, we want to do this with you.” To see the joy of others in a virtual space when we shared the graphic was indescribable. It was a pinnacle moment, I think.
The development of Indiana’s Staffed Family Child Care Network Framework was supported by funding from the Child Care Development Block Grant awarded to the Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning, a division of the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.
We want to thank Beth Steward and her team at Indiana’s Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning for their partnership and participation in our Network Development TA!