Strategic Approach

CICK implements the following strategies to support its mission and goals:

Moore Community House, Early Childhood Center
East Biloxi, MS
(photo: Nicole LaCour Young)

Advocate for Quality

Through research, advocacy and sharing of best practices, CICK seeks to elevate the importance of the physical environment to good outcomes for young children. Research has shown that a well-designed early childhood facility can result in more frequent teacher-child interactions and productive child-initiated play, higher staff morale and lower staff turnover – all key indicators of program quality.

Build Local Capacity to Develop and Improve Facilities

Recognizing that most early childhood directors lack the time, staff or expertise to undertake a building project on their own, CICK delivers individual technical assistance, customized training programs and early planning funds to support all aspects of facility development – including assessing project feasibility, selecting suitable sites, preparing budgets, assembling a team of professional experts, and incorporating quality design features. CICK also educates community developers about the unique features of the early childhood industry, and how to identify and partner with high quality program operators.

Create a Specialized Funding Infrastructure

CICK designs and helps to implement federal, state and private funder initiatives tailored to the specialized needs of the early childhood sector and its limited ability to pursue traditional financing strategies. In particular, CICK promotes the importance of developing sources of deep capital subsidy from the public sector to support affordable facilities development. The best example of CICK’s approach on the state level can be seen in Connecticut, where $80 million was generated to support the development of 27 new early childhood centers in the state’s poorest cities.

In collaboration with LISC’s Public Policy Department in Washington, DC, CICK also advocates for increased federal investment in early childhood facilities. Successful efforts have included amending the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and Section 108 of the Community Development Block Grant program to allow for the financing of child care centers. CICK also worked with Rural LISC to convene a funding collaborative with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Federal Housing Finance Board/Federal Home Loan Bank System to finance Head Start facilities in rural communities in six states. To mobilize a constituency for federal policy initiatives, CICK plays a leadership role in the 22-member National Children’s Facilities Network, a coalition of nonprofit community development lenders.

Document and Promote Best Practices

CICK communicates with policymakers, practitioners, advocates, funders and others about the importance of quality early childhood centers; the benefits of locating them in the heart of under-served neighborhoods; and innovative strategies for facilities development and financing:

• CICK’s comprehensive series of how-to resource guides and tools on all aspects of designing, developing, financing and greening quality early childhood space provides a critical source of information to early childhood and community development practitioners.
• Best practices and policy papers educate the field about the connection between a well-designed physical environment and improved outcomes for children, and innovative approaches to facility financing.
• Highly-rated professional development workshops on topics such as designing outdoor playgrounds and greening early childhood centers are designed especially for early childhood educators and architects, and serve as another vehicle for CICK to disseminate knowledge about facilities design and development.