Through the California Child Care Initiative Project (CCIP), the Network has been building and improving the supply and quality of licensed child care for more than 16 years. CCIP, a unique public-private partnership, has supported local resource and referral agencies across the state to work with governments, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and community leaders to recruit, train, and retain licensed family child care providers. Funding through CCIP enables local R&Rs to improve their training capacity and to enhance professional development activities.
[The Informal Care Training Project (ICTP), also known as Growing, Learning, Caring (GLC), was operational from 2005-2010 and built on the success of CCIP to expand outreach, training, and support to license-exempt, home-based child care providers (sometimes referred to as "family, friends, and neighbors"). See Publications to download GLC documents.]
CCIP is funded through a combination of monies from the California Department of Education (CDE), Child Development Division (CDD), and local fundraising and private matching funds. Currently, CCIP operates in 71 locations across the state.
Since 1995, CCIP has recruited thousands of new family child care providers, and many more have attended trainings. As a result of CCIP, more than 4,500 new licensed family child care slots were made available statewide in 2009-10. CCIP training has been offered in English and Spanish, ensuring an ongoing growth in the supply of trained, culturally-sensitive, and language proficient licensed family child care.
CCIP has gradually expanded its training concepts to include topics such as environmentally-healthy child care and social, emotional competence in children birth through age five, special training modules related to caring for babies and toddlers, and character education.
The CCIP model has been replicated, in full or in part, in Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon, and Washington.
