DEL boosts child care licensing performance, earns applause from Governor

The Department of Early Learning (DEL) child care licensing team got kudos and applause this morning during the Government Management Accountability and Performance (GMAP) forum on vulnerable children.

GMAP is Governor Chris Gregoire’s tool to hold government accountable for performance. DEL is involved in two GMAP areas: vulnerable children (for our child care licensing) and education (for our Early Childhood Education and Assistance Program, or ECEAP).

We are proud of the incredible effort our team has made to improve timely monitoring visits, licensing complaint inspections and inspections involving allegations of abuse or neglect. These GMAP measures are tied to child health and safety in licensed child care. We had work to do to make sure we were focusing on and meeting these measures.

Our entire agency, especially our licensing team, worked together over the past months to:

• Increase our performance on timely monitoring visits of licensed facilities by 33 percent
• Exceed our target for closing complaints that do not involve allegations of child abuse or neglect.
• Decrease the average time it takes to close licensing complaints involving allegations of child abuse or neglect.

You can watch the forum shortly on http://www.tvw.org/ by going to “Media Archives.” More information on DEL’s GMAP measures can be found at http://www.accountability.wa.gov/. Learn more about DEL’s child care licensing work and why it matters by reading You Have a Choice! A Guide to Finding Quality Child Care.

We are proud of this hard work to make sure licensed child care facilities are safe, healthy, nurturing places for children in Washington!