NW Regional Key

The NW Regional Key, responsible for this quality improvement system for 18 counties in NW Pennsylvania, partners with Early Connections to fulfill the Community Engagement and Regional Planning responsibilities of the Regional Key.

The goal of regional planning is to assist each community in determining the most effective and efficient method for engaging the members of that community to design a plan for a coordinated effort to help all children succeed, and then execute that plan. Early Connections works with each of the 18 counties and 13 Community Engagement Committees assisting them in better coordinating their local efforts to improve their local early care and education systems.

In our community Early Connections is an integral part of not only offering quality early care and education programs, it is working to provide instruction to sites so that they provide the best for the children in their programs.

Early Connections is contracted through the Northwest Key to deliver Keystone STARS Technical Assistance throughout the eighteen counties that comprise the northwest region of the state. In order to ensure that early education facilities are providing the kinds of quality programming that benefits children, Pennsylvania has developed the Keystone STARS program which is a quality improvement initiative designed to recognize and reward child care facilities that exceed state health and safety licensing requirements. Facilities are awarded a STAR One, Two, Three, or Four quality rating based on their achievement of quality performance standards in the areas of staff education, learning environment, administration, and health and safety. The STAR rating reflects standards of quality that are research based and linked to improved outcomes for children as related to social and emotional development, learning skills, and school readiness. Currently the Northwest region has 467 early care and education sites enrolled in their program with the goal for the current year to increase that number by 100.