What are the Benefits to using the Registry?

The Registry is designed to collect information about people working in the field in order to do the following:

• Bring recognition and professionalism to all those who work in early childhood
• Assist individuals and program directors in professional development planning
• Inform policymakers and state planners about the early childhood and school-age/after-school workforce to track progress in meeting state workforce goals.

Who benefits from the Registry and how?

Individuals: Individuals who register have their training and qualifications verified by Charts-A-Course and can print out their profiles as documentation for employers and educational institutions.

Benefits:

• Placement on career ladder and official Registry certificate
• Charts-A-Course scholarship and $TART education bonus programs are open only to Registry participants
• Charts-A-Course advisors give individualized counseling and training to help individuals map out an education plan for advancement on the career ladder.

Program Administrators: publicly funded centers are required to have staff enroll in the Registry so that data on staff can easily be reported to their funding agencies. This will reduce duplicative reporting and create efficiencies. All program administrators will have other benefits.

Benefits:

• Streamline the reporting process and unify the requirements of workforce qualifications for the various state agencies
• Real time reports on the training and qualifications of program staff
• On-going and historical reports on the status of scholarships that program staff have requested from Charts-A-Course
• Tools and web links for professional development planning for program staff
• Process (in development) for head teacher verification to the Department of Public Health for compliance with center and group home licensing
• Tool (in development) to assess a program's readiness for the accreditation process through the National Association for the Education of Young Children
• Process (in development) which will allow the Registry to validate credentials and send the education and training information to NAEYC for program accreditation.

Consultants: Early childhood consultants who provide training and technical assistance to programs and providers will be able to register, have their qualifications verified and post information on the website to be viewed by programs seeking qualified consultants.

Benefits:

• Process that will allow programs to identify qualified consultants for interdisciplinary training and technical assistance
• Capacity for the Department of Public Health to track consultants to early childhood programs for compliance with center and group home licensing.

Policymakers, Planners and Researchers: The Registry contributes data and information about staff and programs in early care and education in Connecticut.

Benefits:

• Real time data on the career ladder levels and qualifications of staff who work in publicly funded preschool programs to identify needs, track progress and assess how programs are meeting quality standards
• Data on the status of NAEYC accreditation of all publicly preschool programs
• Accurate and comprehensive data that will inform on the accountability of the public funding spent annually on early care and education programs in Connecticut
• New workforce data for state and community planners to identify needs and track progress.