IdahoSTARS has offered grants focused on a variety of child care program practice areas. In the past, grant announcements and application deadlines have been in February and March of each year.
2010 Enhancement Grants
The 2010 Enhancement Grants assisted child care facilities to continually improve the quality of services they offer the children and families in their programs. Awards focused on three program practices: Outdoor Learning Environments, Accreditation, and Feeding & Nutrition for Young Children. Interested participants were allowed to apply for only one of the available grants.
Outdoor Learning Environments are more than ‘just a playground’. It is unfortunate that children can't design their outdoor play environments. Research on children's preferences shows that if children had the design skills to do so, their creations would be completely different from the areas called playgrounds that most adults design for them. Outdoor spaces designed by children would not only be fully naturalized with plants, trees, flowers, water, dirt, sand, mud, animals and insects, but also would be rich with a wide variety of play opportunities of every imaginable type. If children could design their outdoor play spaces, they would be rich developmentally appropriate learning environments where children would want to stay all day. That was the goal of this Enhancement Grant – create a truly Outdoor Learning Environment for children.
The Accreditation Grant helped with meeting accreditation standards for programs in the process of NAFCC or NAEYC accreditation process. Accredited early childhood programs have been assessed by nationally recognized credentialing organizations and have proven their level of quality in many ways.
Feeding & Nutrition is more than ‘just snacks and a lunch’. Early experiences with food and eating have implications for the development of eating disorders and future health issues. Feeding young children in group settings needs to be purposefully considered. The goal of this grant was for child care providers to gain information and to intentionally address the challenges of feeding young children in their specific setting for positive outcomes.
2009 Program Improvement Grants for Idaho Child Care Facilities
The 2009 grants focused on five program practices under consideration for (what was then) the future IdahoSTARS Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). Information from this grant cycle helped IdahoSTARS decide how, or if, these program practices fit into the QRIS.