Programs

Community Systems Statewide Supports (CS3)

Community-led change to improve Illinois’ early childhood system

What is Community Systems Development?

It is challenging to make impactful and long-lasting change alone. Addressing the barriers that prevent families from accessing early childhood services requires a strong and effective coalition of families, organizations, agencies, schools, and community leaders. A high-quality, accessible early childhood system becomes achievable when agencies, organizations, and communities come together to develop a shared mission, strategy, and action plan.

When we work together to identify the issues, the root causes, and the solutions, we are better equipped to create impactful and meaningful change in the early childhood system. This collaborative process is called community systems development.

The early childhood system in Illinois is complex. Community systems development relies on building strong, trusting relationships with community stakeholders to understand issues in the community and to engage people directly impacted.

Community Statewide Systems Support

A statewide training and technical assistance system, building the capacity of community collaborations to improve early childhood education systems.

Community Systems of Statewide Supports (CS3) aims to ensure that local communities are working to help children birth through five to receive the support they need.

The CS3 project has four goals:

  1. Provide free foundational support (training, access to planning, and collaboration tools) to early childhood professionals focused on improving local early childhood systems.
    2. Provide targeted support to communities focused on increasing the number of children ages birth-to-5 enrolled in high-quality early learning services.
    3. Collaborate and coordinate with statewide early childhood training providers to align training opportunities across systems.
    4. Implement a data and evaluation process to support continued system improvement at the community and state level.

Partner Plan Act

The Partner Plan Act website is a central place for early childhood care and education professionals to learn more about how to use a community systems development approach to strengthen and improve early childhood services and systems in your community.

Visit the Partner Plan Act website

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