Applications are now available for YoungStar!
Celebrate Children Foundation, Supporting Families Together Association (SFTA), and Wisconsin Early Childhood Association (WECA) have been chosen to manage YoungStar across the state. We are ready to begin the work of supporting early education programs as they demonstrate the quality of care they offer to Wisconsin’s youngest children.
YoungStar applications are now available. Staff from WECA and Resource and Referral Agencies are ready to work with programs and statewide trainings are being planned. Apply now and don’t miss out on the following opportunities:
• Programs can choose to receive FREE, individualized technical assistance as a participant in YoungStar. Don’t wait in line for this assistance!
• Programs that receive 3 stars or higher could receive increases in Shares payments as early as July, 2011. Don’t miss out on this chance to increase your revenue!
• Programs that participate in YoungStar can request and receive FREE technical consultation and may be eligible for micro-grants for quality improvements!
• Programs that participate in YoungStar, are in regulatory compliance, and are currently accredited through approved accrediting bodies will automatically receive 4 or 5 stars!
• Parents will be able to view program ratings online on December 13th- make sure your program is visible for parents searching for care!
Application for Group Program (Part 1/ Part 2)
Application for Family Child Care Program (Part 1/ Part 2)
After you have completed your application, please submit both forms to your YoungStar regional office (find it here).
To receive the most accurate assessment, make sure:
• The Registry has all the information it needs: All family child care providers, group child care program directors, and group child care lead teachers should have current individual Registry profiles. Click here to visit The Registry for more information.
• Group child care directors have a CURRENT program profile on The Registry: Center directors can update their program profile here.
WECA 
What if you don’t have subsidy children can you still get rated? Is there a waiting list? How soon after the application is turned is, will someone be out to the house? Are they going to be making appointments to come out or are they just showing up?
Thanks for all these great questions Jessica! You can volunteer to be rated if you do not currently serve children from families receiving Wisconsin Shares. You just have to complete a participation request and a Wisconsin Shares participation contract saying that your program is willing to care for children in the future for which Shares reimbursements would be made. As of now, there is not a waiting list. After applying, if you choose to have an assessment of your program (you can choose to not have an assessment and be automatically rated at a 2-star if your program is in regulatory compliance), a technical consultant or assessor will visit your program in around 4 weeks. Assessors will NOT make appointments to complete formal assessments using the ECERS/ITERS/FCCERS and PAS/BAS tools. This ONLY applies to programs that are in regulatory compliance, are not accredited, meet the staff qualifications benchmarks for a 4 or 5 star program, and choose to receive a formal assessment. ALL technical assistance visits and other assessments will be scheduled by appointment. Hope this is helpful!
Thanks…I just responded via email with additional questions.
To support programs through YoungStar, we have set up regional offices across the state. These offices are great contacts to get all your questions answered. Click here to view a map of YoungStar regions. Click on the region your program is in to find out how to contact your regional office!
When are they going to start coming out to centers? I was told from our family resource center that they will be making appointments. I just need to get some correct answers.
After applying, if you choose to have an assessment of your program (you can choose to not have an assessment and be automatically rated at a 2-star if your program is in regulatory compliance), a technical consultant or assessor will visit your program in around 4 weeks.
Rating observers and technical consultants will schedule appointments to visit centers in most cases. The only time that appointments will not be scheduled and WILL BE unannounced is when/if a rating observer is doing a formal assessment on a program using the ECERS/ITERS/FCCERS and PAS/BAS tools.
Another question…our FRC that is doing the FCCERS are making appointments to do the formal assessment. I have already done my final assessment, which they made an appointment to observe my center for 4 hrs using the FCCERS.
Also do we know yet who, is going to be doing the BAS book for family child care providers.
Do we even have someone trained to do the rating on this program.
Thanks Jessica
The FCCERS assessment you just received was part of a pilot project, so formal assessment may have been scheduled. Formal assessments (FCCERS/ECERS/ITERS and PAS/BAS) used for the YoungStar project will be done unannounced for programs wishing to receive 4 or 5 stars.
All formal rating observers for YoungStar will soon be going through training together to ensure that the ECERS/FCCERS/ITERS tools are used/scored in the same way across the state. These formal rating observers will also be trained on administering the PAS/BAS tool in a consistent way. All YoungStar rating observers will be trained to perform valid and reliable assessment before they begin their work.