Frequently Asked Questions
What is a community child care and early education needs assessment?
As it is used here, a child care and early education needs assessment is a process that uses quantitative data to inform a discussion answering the following questions:
- How many children in our community need child care and early education services?
- How many children can be served by the programs that currently exist in our community?
- What issues and barriers are preventing families from accessing available programs?
- What issues and barriers are preventing programs from expanding, if needed, to meet growing community needs?
- What strategies should we pursue to address these issues and barriers?
The needs assessment process may be led by one or more agencies that come together for a series of meetings. This process is similar to a strategic planning process.
What are the benefits of completing a child care and early education needs assessment?
- Readiness for the future. Illinois and the country are moving toward a system that ensures that every child has the opportunity to participate in the early childhood programs that prepare them for success in kindergarten and beyond. This change requires a high level of collaboration among community providers who deliver and support early education programs. BBCA helps communities identify and address gaps in their child care and early education system, including gaps in the needs for services and additional connections among services.
- Better grant proposals. Increasingly, state, federal, and private funding bodies are recognizing the value of community needs assessments. Communities that complete community child care and early education needs assessments are able to present funding proposals that are stronger than those presented by agencies and communities that have not systematically evaluated their existing service supply and needs.
- More community support for early childhood programs. A comprehensive and quantitative account of child care and early education needs, together with a clearly articulated plan for addressing these needs, provides a powerful tool to help gain the support of local leaders for existing programs and any planned growth.
- More strategic plans for program growth. Understanding the community demand for and supply of child care and early education services helps individual agencies to make strategic decisions regarding their plans for program growth and to identify additional community resources.
Who should consider using BBCA?
BBCA is used by community groups, municipal governments, school districts, individual child care and early education providers, and others who have an interest in their community’s child care and early education system.
Some of the situations that lead agencies and communities to complete BBCA process:
- One or more agencies are considering applying for a grant to add or expand their early childhood programs.
- The demographics of the community are changing, resulting in an increase or decrease in the need for child care and early education programs, or a change in the types of services needed (such as subsidized vs. private-pay child care, or bilingual programs).
- Individual child care and early education providers are experiencing changes in the demand for their service (increase or decrease) or they are experiencing waiting lists.
- An individual agency or a coalition of agencies is planning to or is in the process of completing a strategic or other plan that will inform their priorities and activities.
- An agency is considering purchasing, leasing, or building a new facility to house additional early childhood programs.
What information does BBCA provide?
- Detailed instructions on how to access data for assessing the total number of children in your community who need child care and early education services and the total number of children who can be served by local programs.
- Reports summarizing the need for child care and early education services in your community.
- Agendas and resources for planning community meetings.
- Recommendations and strategies for addressing common barriers to meeting community child care and early education needs.
- Resources for implementing prioritized strategies.
What child care and early education services will BBCA help my community evaluate?
- Full-day child care available to families of all incomes.
- Full-day child care available to families qualifying for Illinois’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP).
- Head Start and Early Head Start.
- Preschool for All and Pre-Kindergarten At-Risk.
Individual users create an account. Once an account is created, BBCA guides users as they and their community work through each phase of their needs assessment project. The registered user is instructed on how to collect and enter data that the system uses to generate an analysis of the community’s child care and early education needs. Once the analysis is complete, the user is able to print a report and post it to the BBCA Community Forum. At this point, the user is able to plan community meetings using the results of the data analysis as a starting point. The BBCA provides the user with suggested discussion topics and agendas for three different meeting topics:
Meeting #1: Data and Key Issues
Meeting #2: Priorities and Strategies
Meeting #3: Action Planning
BBCA suggests a set of strategies for many of the issues and barriers commonly experienced in Illinois communities. BBCA also provides the registered user with access to information on supporting the implementation of the community’s prioritized strategies.
The registered user is able to use the BBCA Community Forum to post meeting results and other documents, and to facilitate communication and involvement among community members.
BBCA was created by IFF with funding from the Grand Victoria Foundation. IFF’s Building Blocks program has completed community child care and early education needs assessments for communities throughout Illinois. BBCA represents the cumulative knowledge IFF gained through this work and replicates the process developed. Sample community needs assessment reports prepared by Building Blocks are available on the publications page of IFF's web site.
IFF is a nonprofit that provides loans, real estate consulting, and research to the nonprofit community. For more information about iff, visit iff.org.
Where can I get funding to complete BBCA?
There is no fee for using this system and BBCA can be completed for little or no cost. However, some groups may wish to hire a consultant to assist with the projects, publish reports, and offset the cost of staff time. Funding may be available from local foundations or businesses interested in improving their community infrastructure. Some agencies, such as Head Start, may be required to complete a community needs assessment as part of their funding requirements and may be willing to share costs.
Can I use BBCA for a community outside of Illinois?
No, BBCA is designed for use by Illinois users and cannot be used for other states at this time.
What is the Community Forum and how do I use it?
The Community Forum is a web page that you can use to share information about your project with community members and the general public. Visitors will be able to download and view the needs assessment report you create through BBCA, meeting dates and times, and any other project documents uploaded by the project administer. Visitors will also be able to enter comments, suggest the forum to others, and contact you by email (your email address and personal information will not be made public). BBCA automatically creates a Community Forum when you publish your project and sends you an email with the forum URL. You can also get to the Community Forum through your project home page at any time.
Can I use BBCA to assess more than one community?
Yes, you may use BBCA to complete multiple assessments.
Some users may want to complete a needs assessment report for more than one community as part of one project. For example, your focal community is Aurora, but you also want to look at all of Kane County as part of your needs assessment project. To do this, complete your Aurora needs assessment report first (complete all BBCA steps through “Publish Project.” Once you have published your project, go back to the Select an Illinois Community page, select the name of the project you just created, and then select Kane County. Complete all of the steps through Review Needs Assessment results.
Some users may want to complete more than one project. For example, you are leading community discussions in two different communities, each with its own task force. To do this, complete all BBCA steps through Publish Project for one of your projects first. At any point after that, set up a second (or third, etc) project by going to the Select an Illinois Community and selecting “New Project” in the drop down menu that says “You are conducting a needs assessment for the following project.” Then complete all of the project steps. BBCA will create a new Community Forum for your project and you will be able to enter separate meeting information for your new project. At any time, you can view all of your projects by clicking on “View Current Projects” in the upper right hand corner of the screen.