Parents in Illinois who have long navigated a fragmented system to find daycare, preschool and other early childhood services can now look under one roof for the assistance they need.
That’s due to the new Illinois Department of Early Childhood, which officially launched Wednesday with the aim of untangling the work that was previously done by three state agencies.
The new agency is responsible for a range of state programs, including those that offer home visiting and early intervention services for babies and toddlers with development delays. It will also license and provide quality ratings for early learning programs. Part of the shift involved transitioning over $1 billion in funds to a new unified grant system.
Teresa Ramos, the secretary of the new agency, said families who are currently participating in these programs shouldn’t expect any changes to their services. But parents looking for care can now visit a new unified website.
“There’s one place to go, a place to ask questions, a place to get answers and to be connected directly to services,” Ramos said.
Gov. JB Pritzker called for the new agency in 2023 and signed a law creating the department in 2024. Illinois is the latest state to establish a standalone department for early care and education, joining a dozen other states that already have them.
State officials hope it will solve the challenges that families faced as they assessed their early learning options. With services spread across different agencies, some parents had to fill out duplicate forms. And it was difficult for families to get an overall picture of where quality programs existed because multiple entities were responsible for monitoring that.
Ramos will be in charge of 550 staffers and shepherd a $4.4 billion budget approved by the state legislature for early childhood education and care. That includes 340 staff transferring from the state’s Department of Children and Family Services, the Department of Human Services and the State Board of Education.
Ramos said one priority for the new agency is upgrading its data and technology capabilities. That will help tackle a broader issue: Quality day care and preschool programs are not equally distributed across the state, according to a report issued earlier this year by The Civic Federation, a taxpayer watchdog group.
“We have been working to build our data infrastructure so we can understand where children and families are receiving programs and where they’re not so that we can make better informed decisions about where to put increased investments over time,” Ramos said.
During the next phase of the transition, the agency will work to move away from paper-and-pencil records. Small groups of parents, providers, educators and staff will test electronic systems before they are rolled out statewide. Ramos said the agency hopes to launch some of those upgrades within the next year.
The agency plans to hold regular transition meetings to collect feedback and track its progress. And it established a new family engagement team to help parents navigate the system.
“It is a new era for early childhood services in Illinois,” Ramos said.