What We Do
Since 2005, VECF has served as Virginia’s public-private partner in building strategic and sustained focus on the healthy development and school readiness of our youngest children. VECF is the non-partisan steward of Virginia’s promise for early childhood success, working in tandem with diverse stakeholders to ensure equitable opportunities for all families with young children to thrive.
Our Areas of Work
How does our work show up in the world?
An Example of Systems Building:
Ready Regions is a statewide network to provide strategic leadership and bring public and private partners together to ensure every child and family has access to quality child care services. Each of the nine Ready Regions serve as the entry point for early childhood care and education (ECCE) providers to participate in Virginia’s quality measurement and improvement system, Virginia Quality Birth to Five; implement regional Mixed Delivery efforts; coordinate enrollment across publicly funded ECCE programs; and engage families in designing a system that works for them. Ready Regions is driving a strong, public-private choice-based system that enables communities to develop innovative solutions to their unique challenges and priorities.
An Example of Partnerships & Innovation:
VECF launched the Early Educator Fast Track initiative to stabilize and strengthen the childcare workforce. This pilot program recruits and trains new assistant teachers in each Ready Region at a competitive wage and provides teacher training and ongoing professional development to strengthen the early education workforce. Through partnerships with early childhood care and education providers and Ready Regions, Fast Track is piloting strategies to ensure families have greater access to the services they need.
An Example of Policy & Advocacy:
The Virginia Business Roundtable for Early Education (VBREE) is bringing the focus and heft of the business and economic development sectors in each Ready Region statewide to advance state investment in a strong early childhood and education system as essential to workforce and economic success. VBREE is committed to educating the public, engaging diverse stakeholders, and driving innovation for the role that accessible child care serves in Virginia’s workforce development and economy, including as a differentiator for Virginia in economic development, site selection, and workforce talent attraction and retention.
VECF Strategic Plan
It is incumbent upon VECF to advocate assertively to disrupt inequitable systems and rebuild equitable and durable systems for the good of the communities.
