Transforming Early Child Care in Your Community Bootcamp - Fall 2026

Location

Virtual Event

Date

September 14, 2026 at 12:00 PM - November 9, 2026 at 2:00 PM

About

Description: 

The Transforming Early Child Care in Your Community Boot Camp will take early child care stakeholders through the Community Change process. The Community Change process involves 5 phases: Assessment, Planning, Acting, Evaluating and Sustaining. We will explore each of these phases in terms of early child care. This highly interactive series consists of 8 virtual sessions, peer to peer learning and a final project. The final project will be built along the way. Participants should expect to spend 2 hours in each session and 1 hour between sessions each week. Participants must commit to attend at least 7 out of 8 of the classes and the completion of a final project. Individuals will earn a certificate of completion. 

Mondays, September 14- November 9 12:00pm-2:00pm 

  • September 14- Introduction to Early Child Care Data
  • September 21- Understanding Your Community's Early Child Care Story
  • September 28- Creating Your Community's Report Card
  • October 5- Leveraging Community Assets to Lead Early Child Care Change 
  • October 12- Introduction to Collective Impact for Early Child Care
  • October 19- Introduction to Ripple Effects Mapping
  • October 26- Becoming An Early Child Care Advocate in the US
  • November 2- NO CLASS / WORK ON FINAL PROJECT
  • November 9- Class Final Project Showcase

Audience: 

This class is open to anyone in the North Central Region (IA, IL, IN, KS, MN, MI, MO, OH, ND, NE, SD, WI), but is highly recommended for Business Leaders, Economic Developers, Extension Professionals, Child Care Directors, Child Care Educators, Child Care Community Advocates, Civic Leaders and Employers. Multi-stakeholder classes create richer conversations. Multi-sector conversations are where the magic happens.

Clock Hours: 

Missouri Residents- MOPD Clock Hours Can Be Earned For Each Session

Fee: No Charge

This project is made possible through a fellowship grant from the North Cenral Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD). 

Sessions

Sept. 14, 2026

  • 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM CDT Introduction to Early Child Care Data

    Learn about the various early chlid care data sources that exist. These sources will help communities quantify the early child care challenges that exist in their region. Data can also help spark conversations with other stakeholders in the community and measure impact of projects over time.

    Location: Virtual

Sept. 21, 2026

  • 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM CDT Understanding Your Community's Early Child Care Story

    Child care is an issue in many communities across the United States. However, communities are also unique. With this uniqueness comes unique challenges. Learn how to use data, conversations and observations to better understand your community’s child care landscape.

    Location: Virtual

Sept. 28, 2026

  • 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM CDT Creating Your Community's Child Care Visual

    Data can be used to tell a community’s early child care story. Learn about different data sources and how they can be combined to create a one-page report for your community. This report card can be used to have conversations with elected officials, business owners and other stakeholders in the community.

    Location: Virtual

Oct. 5, 2026

  • 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM CDT Leveraging Community Assets to Lead Early Child Care Change

    Both individuals and communities are filled with assets or strengths. Uncover both your individual assets and your community’s assets in this session. Begin to think about how those assets can be leveraged to create change in early child care.

    Location: Virtual

Oct. 12, 2026

  • 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM CDT Introduction to Collective Impact for Early Child Care

    Learn about the basics of collective impact, a collaborative framework to help communities solve complex issues. Collective impact is a framework that can bring together different stakeholders around a community issue such as child care. This is one of many community strategies that can be used to impact the early child care situation in communities.

    Location: Virtual

Oct. 19, 2026

  • 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM CDT Introduction to Collective Impact Evaluation and Ripple Effects Mapping

    Collective impact evaluation is different from program evaluation. It focuses on continuous learning throughout the process on multiple strategies that are being implemented towards the same goal. One example of collective impact evaluation is Ripple Effects Mapping. Ripple Effects Mapping is a process to collect project or program impacts from multi-sector stakeholders and perspectives. Different people are exposed to different successes or impacts a project has on the greater community. This method would allow communities to better understand the impact their early child care projects have. This is one of many community strategies that can be used to impact the early child care situation in communities.

    Location: Virtual

Oct. 26, 2026

  • 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM CDT Becoming An Early Child Care Advocate in the US

    An important part of transforming the early child care landscape is advocacy. Learn about the basics of advocacy, how to write an impactful story and how to engage with federal elected officials who have the power to pass family friendly policies that can improve the early child care landscape.

    Location: Virtual

Nov. 9, 2026

  • 12:00 PM - 02:00 PM CST Class Final Project Showcase

    Weekly challenges are assigned each week to help participants put their learning into action. These challenges build off of one another. By the end of the ssessions, participants will have completed a project in their commuity. Each participant will present what they have done in their community to improve early child care to their peers.

    Location: Virtual