Thrive by 5: Miami-Dade’s Equity Driven CQI Model

Miami was among the first communities in the nation to implement an early learning quality improvement system that started as an effort to prepare children for kindergarten, focused on developing basic skills in literacy, math and science, as well as social and emotional health and behavior. The Children’s Trust, using intensive review of data and multiple evaluations found that programs needed financial assistance to afford the high cost of quality care. Low school-readiness payments, under enrollment due to an oversaturated child care market, and limited high quality options acted as major barriers in increasing the quality of care. Miami’s new early learning quality improvement system, Thrive by Five, aims to overcome these barriers and level the playing field in low-income neighborhoods by providing strategic financial investments to incentivize programs to improve and sustain their delivery of high-quality early learning services.

Join us to learn how The Children’s Trust analyzed QRIS data to target supports to address inequities in service delivery. Hear about how they refined their quality improvement system to respond to community child care needs that included families up to 300 FPL. Join us to hear Dr. Knopf share statewide data that illustrates that this quality improvement system corrected the market failure that led to unique resiliency in the pandemic, unlike any other area of the state. Engage with us in creative problem solving and solution mapping.

Presenters

• Trish Barnett, The Children’s Trust
• Herman Knopf, Ph.D., University of Florida’s Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies
• Rachel Spector and Jennifer Ulysse, The Children’s Trust

Moderator

Jennifer Park, Ph.D., consultant to the BUILD Initiative