What does Smart Start do? An updated catalog shows best practices across the network

Since 2019, Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) has partnered with Nemours Children’s Health to create geographic information system (GIS) technology story maps to visualize and better understand child care program participation in the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). Story maps combine both maps and text to help users interpret what they see. They can help us visualize current challenges and opportunities in a state’s early care and education systems. 
This blog recaps our work to develop the story maps and explores how states, including Pennsylvania and Vermont, are using these tools to make data-informed, strategic decisions to promote CACFP and increase provider participation.

Five months after federal stabilization grants expired, deeper cracks are beginning to show in the early care and education sector. Without the historic level of…

Since ChatGPT was released in November 2022 and exploded into public discourse, the emergence of generative AI tools has been met with both excitement and…

A Procare Solutions survey showed that 44% of early childhood education programs not using child care management software rely on paper and pencil to run…