As a child care provider, you strive to maintain a safe, healthy, and enriching setting for children.
Explore ways to expand or enrich your current indoor/outdoor learning environments, create new opportunities for fitness/nutrition, social emotional support spaces, and more.
Foundation
It’s always helpful to periodically review your licensing regulations. Review these regulations to ensure you meet basic requirements for the physical environment.
Center/Group Homes Regulations
Reflect
Self-reflection checklists can help guide you in creating goals related to enhancing your environment. Check out the checklist, Environmental.
Take action
Women’s Business Development Council: WBDC offers a variety of grants to eligible programs through its Child Care Business Opportunity Fund. Opportunities include funding to start or expand your business and Emergency Facilities Grants.
This grant is designed to boost the availability of child care in the state with specific goals related to building infant toddler and preschool capacity as well as enhancing the quality of early learning environments.
Dive deeper
Check out some more resources to help you enhance your environment.
- Do you have a plan in place for emergencies? Use OEC’s Emergency Planning and Response Resources webpage to protect children and staff and to help your community recover afterwards.
- Do children in your program need better access to food? Child and Adult Care Food Program is a federal program that can help get healthy snacks and meals for children in your program.
Sample SMART Goals
Here are some sample SMART Goals that you can use to build your Elevate Program Plan for the Focus Area of Enhance Your Environment.
Family Child Care Homes
- By ____________, I will create and begin using 4 new learning areas within my program space that will offer children play experiences designed to develop their knowledge and skills in areas such as science/nature, literacy, math, and social emotional learning.
Center and Group Homes
- By _______________, we will incorporate at least five new natural materials (e.g., wooden toys, plants, or natural fabrics) into each classroom to align with the center’s mission of creating a nature-focused learning environment, with full implementation of these materials into daily learning experiences by _________________.
Our Service Navigators are experienced guides who can talk about your program’s needs and find ways to meet them. Connect with a Service Navigator.