MA Department of Early Education and Care
On July 1, 2005, after nearly a year of preparation, the state's Office of Child Care Services and the Early Learning Services Division of the Department of Education merged to form the Department of Early Education and Care (EEC), which now oversees all pre-K education and care in the state - a realm that comprises some 12,000 providers and over 270,000 children. In its effort to improve early education, the new department has consolidated child-care subsidies, as well as licensing procedures, referrals, and other logistics, and also serves as a clearinghouse of information for parents.
The department has an annual budget of about $485 million, but, as EEC Commissioner Ann Reale told the Boston Globe last year, "There will never be enough money to do all the things we would love to do for kids and families." She added, "That makes it all the more important for us to figure out how to make the money we have stretch as far as it can."
The EEC has dedicated a portion of its budget to, as the department puts it, "a myriad of grants" for child-care providers, head start programs, and a series of local early education councils that the EEC oversees. In the past year, for instance, the EEC has awarded 25 grants of up to $120,000 for home-based parenting and early literacy programs, and, more recently, $25,000 grants to facilitate the training and mentoring of early education staff in techniques for helping children with behavioral problems. In all, the department has six currently active grant programs, which should continue in the coming year.