Ready Regions® brings unprecedented levels of coordination, accountability, and family engagement to early education programs in every community in the Commonwealth.
As a Ready Region lead organizations, we are part of a statewide network focused on:
Strengthening Quality
We will ensure all components are in place to coordinate quality measurement and guide improvement in publicly funded classrooms as part of 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 the Unified Virginia Quality Birth to Five System (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.
VQB5 Quality Profiles (with information about early childhood program performance on quality measures and other topics of interest to families, policy makers, and the public) is available at EarlyChildhoodQuality.doe.virginia.gov
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.
Building Relationships
We will engage with leaders across the region to facilitate buy-in for shared accountability and benefit.
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 ECCE providers keep enrollment numbers high, communicate when they have spots available, and be able to cover the true costs of quality services.
- Help parents easily learn where there are available spots for their children, what they qualify for, and information such as cost, hours, and location.
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.
To learn more about our Family Engagement Council and how to get involved, contact: families@uwrv.org
Our footprint
Ready Region West oversees early education programs in communities that extend past United Way of Virginia’s Blue Ridge primary footprint.
United Way of Virginia’s
Blue Ridge service area:
- Botetourt
- Craig
- Franklin
- Roanoke City
- Roanoke County
- Salem
- Vinton
Ready Region West
service area:
- Alleghany County
- Bath County
- Buena Vista
- Covington
- Henry
- Highland
- Lexington
- Martinsville
- Patrick
- Rockbridge
A unique approach to early childhood systems-building in Virginia
Learn more about Ready Regions and ho0w the program is designed to bring unprecedented levels of coordination, accountability, and family engagement to early education in every community in the Commonwealth in the podcast below!
A Unique Approach to Early Childhood Systems-Building in Virginia – Early Childhood Policy Matters
Transcript is available and can be found here.