The QCC County Program Profile provides county data from the Common Data File (CDF) and the Annual Progress Report (APR). For counties that are a part of a consortium, the QCC County Program Profile provides a combined view of the CDF and APR. Both qualitative and quantitative data are presented to provide a local view of early learning and care climate.

Alameda County’s QRIS, Quality Counts, seeks to be a single point of entry for early care and education programs seeking support to improve quality. Quality Counts aspires to integrate a variety of quality improvement programs and funding streams into a seamless quality support system for the full range of licensed early childhood education programs, family child care, centers receiving state subsidy, school districts, Early Head Start and Head Start, and private programs. Quality Counts also provides quality support to family, friend, and neighbor caregivers through play and learn play group at each of the three Resource & Referral agencies. As of 2023, 274 licensed early childhood education programs and 153 family, friend, and neighbor caregivers participated in Quality Counts. More than 90 percent of our state preschools, Early Head Start programs, and Head Start programs are participating.

Participating sites may utilize a robust menu of quality improvement supports driven by individualized Quality Improvement Plans. These supports range from site-based coaching to playgroups, developmental screening support; curriculum implementation; professional development such as CA Teaching Pyramid; CLASS; equity, and anti-bias in ECE; and multilingual learners.

Participating programs receive quality improvement incentives support implementation of Quality Improvement Plans. Teachers who complete 21 hours of professional development or meet higher education milestones receive stipends, and those programs with high-quality ratings receive quality rewards meant to sustain high-quality practices. In addition, rated programs receive marketing materials and comprehensive rating reports are available to consumers at www.alamedakids.org.

• CSPP Block Grant
• First 5 California IMPACT
• Inclusive Early Education Expansion Program
• Local First 5
• Quality Counts California Quality Improvement Grant
• Quality Counts California Workforce Pathways Grant

• 4Cs of Alameda County
• Alameda County Office of Education
• Alameda County Early Care and Education Program
• BANANAS, Inc.
• California School Age Consortium
• Hively
• First 5 Alameda County

We utilize child care voucher data and other neighborhood statistics to help identify providers who serve a high proportion of high-need children and who are ready to take on the activities required by the QRIS. We have not had sufficient funding to do a great deal of outreach, so we have focused on including programs that are required to be part of QRIS and sites that are underrepresented in Quality Counts, such as Family Child Care. We provide a comprehensive orientation to the program or site and assign them a coach to support the process. Participating programs and providers sign an MOU and provide liability insurance.

Coaches are housed at First 5 Alameda and the three local resource and referral agencies. Coaching is tailored to each program through both specialty coaches, who provide coaching in specific topics such as developmental screening practices, and general coaches, who focus on supporting the Quality Improvement Plan. We train and supervise all coaches similarly throughout the agencies and hold monthly meetings to support additional training, integration, and problem solving. We run a county-wide Professional Development Workgroup that includes representatives from all training agencies. Together they identify training needs based on Quality Improvement Plans and results from an annual PD survey to develop a yearly training calendar that is responsive to topics of interest, geographical variety, and language needs across our diverse county. We are committed to offering a variety of learning opportunities, including traditional workshops, learning communities, as well as play groups for family, friend, and neighbor caregivers and peer support groups for family child care providers and training-of-trainer experiences that increase our internal capacity and reach. We also partner with local libraries to enhance storytime events with take home activitiy kits.

Our consortium believes strongly in providing incentives and stipends to both sites and educators, as participation in QRIS can be extremely time consuming and requires considerable investment from teachers and administrators alike. We offer tiered stipends to educators, including family child care providers and family, friend and neighbor caregivers, who complete various professional development hours or achieve higher education milestones through the QCC Workforce Pathways Grant and local funds. Grants for sites that achieve Tiers 4 or 5 comprise the bulk of California State Preschool Program (CSPP) funding, some funds remain available to developing sites (Tiers 1 – 3) to support quality improvement efforts. Quality Improvement grants are also available for non-CSPP sites participating in coaching to support them in reaching their QIP goals.

[It’s] wonderful to know that someone has your back; I feel like QC is my partner, gives me the tools to be a good provider and to support the quality of my program – I have the heart and the love, QC gave me the tools, materials, resources; Coaching supports with how to enhance the environment; support from QC staff is so responsive, I think of times I’ve called and if they don’t have an answer, they find the answer and call back.