Specifications include, but are not limited to: Rhode Island will support one comprehensive PDTA Hub to serve the ECE workforce, inclusive of licensed childcare providers, teachers, teacher assistants, education coordinators, administrators and owners, licensed family childcare providers, aspiring early care and education providers and early childhood special educators in licensed ECE programs. These ECE professionals work across a wide array of settings including, but not limited to Head Start, private and public childcare, center and home-based settings, school districts, and RI Pre-K programs. This scope of work will focus on DHS-licensed childcare facilities, including licensed family childcare providers, while still supporting a continuous pathway for high-quality early childhood programs to seek CECE approval and RI PreK approval. The PDTA Hub will work collaboratively with the state and its PDTA vendors to expand the variety of professional development and technical assistance opportunities available to RI’s early education workforce. In doing so, the PDTA Hub will serve as an umbrella for state sponsored and approved PDTA and as a central resource for all ECE professionals. The PDTA Hub will be an integral partner in raising the quality of early care and education in Rhode Island, as well as empowering and professionalizing the early care and learning workforce. The selected vendor will be a flexible partner willing to respond to the immediate, emerging or shifting needs and priorities of the State and/or ECE workforce. Always a critical part of the State and Hub partnership, this flexibility and ability to pivot or adapt will be especially important as we continue to respond to workforce needs related to the COVID pandemic, as we work toward stabilization and as we move to recovery and rebuilding. The successful bidder will: • Evaluate existing PDTA to assess gaps in services and content. • Measure the efficacy of PDTA programming through ongoing evaluation and improve PDTA based on evaluation outcomes. • Ensure PDTA is culturally responsive and reflective, high-quality, evidence and researchbased and aligned with RI’s Child Care Licensing Regulations, QRIS program standards, Rhode Island Early Learning Development Standards (RIELDS), CECE standards and the ECE Workforce Knowledge and Competency Frameworks. • Support educators in developing and using IPDPs aligned to the WKC Framework to set professional goals, track educator progress through the WKCs, and assess program quality improvements. • Provide individualized, high-quality, practice-based coaching and technical assistance to early learning teachers, teacher assistants, education coordinators and administrators. • Subcontract as needed with content experts to provide specified content. • In coordination with ESF and existing digital literacy offerings, provide ongoing and proactive digital literacy trainings to DHS licensed and prospective licensed childcare providers. Training will equip providers with the digital literacy skills necessary to access state systems and to effectively utilize the CCAP portal to maintain compliance with their CCAP Provider Agreement and to receive timely, accurate CCAP payments, and to guide and empower families in effective portal use.
