United Way Miami Center for Excellence in Early Education Celebrates 15 Years of Championing Early Childhood Care and Education

Celebrating 15 Years of Milestones and Creating Lasting Change for Children and our Community

MIAMI, FL (March 22, 2022) – United Way Miami’s Center for Excellence in Early Education is celebrating 15 years of working to ensure all children have access to the highest quality early care and education. Since its opening, the Center has improved the skills of 36,077 education professionals, positively impacted 56,422 young children, provided quality enhancement services to 3,005 early education programs and invested in more than $122 million in early childhood programs.

The early years of a child’s life are a critical time for brain development. Adults who receive high-quality early education as children are 53% less likely to have an arrest, 18% more likely to be employed and 24% more likely to own a home. An innovative educational and professional learning initiative dedicated to elevating the quality of early care and education, the Center models evidence-based practices through its Demonstration School, Educare of Miami-Dade, which serves infants, toddlers and preschoolers from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. It also shares those practices with parents, educators and childcare providers through training programs and works with business leaders and lawmakers to raise the standards of early care and education through public policy advocacy in order to support sustainable and lasting change in early education.

“During the first years of life, children develop the skills they need to succeed when they’re adults. Ever since the Center opened in 2007, our team has had one mission: improve the lives of Miami’s children by providing accessible and quality education,” says Gladys Montes, Group Vice President, United Way Center for Excellence in Early Education. “We are thrilled to be celebrating 15 years of ongoing success in helping children in Miami-Dade who come from lower-income backgrounds. We look forward to continuing to work with our partners to ensure that the future generation of Miami is fully equipped to lead happy, healthy and successful lives.”

The Center is a nationally recognized demonstration school and training facility for teachers. In the past 15 years, the Center has accomplished a myriad of milestones – including navigating early education during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the initial COVID-19 lockdown, the Center’s staff kicked into high gear to assemble and deliver more than 2,300 newborn and infant care packages to 580 Early Head Start families as well as distribute food and assist families at the Demonstration School. They also transformed their main stage and training room into preschool classrooms in order to limit classes to 10 children per room. The Center’s inaugural class that graduated in 2008 just finished their first year of college or equivalent.

Following are some of the most notable milestones accomplished throughout the last 5 years.

  • Bellwether case study cites Educare Miami as an exemplar program of the Early Head Start-Child Care Partnership (EHS-CCP). This means the program has five key ingredients:
    • Curriculum, assessment and instruction
    • Meets the needs of all enrolled children
    • Ensures high-quality teaching
    • Family Engagement
    • Data Utilization
  • Launched the Connecting Assessment with Intentional Teaching (CAIT) initiative with educators, administrators and providers at 30 programs throughout low-income neighborhoods providing training on how to use individual students’ assessment results to tailor teaching for maximum impact. The program now serves 66 sites.
  • Successfully advocated for the passage of six early education bills and more than $37 million in early childhood funding increases, in partnership with other entities.
  • Participated in the First WORDS Project research with the University of Miami and Center for Autism and Related Disorders to identify early signs of developmental language disorders, autism spectrum disorders and other communication delays in children from 9 months to 24 months.
  • Completed The Quality Counts Neighborhood Learning Network Program, which provided more than 1,320 practitioners and administrators in 192 priority programs with on-site coaching, practice, training and behavior/mental health support.

For more information about the Center and ways you can contribute, please visit www.unitedwaycfe.org.

March 22, 2022