As another Parent Aware Full-Rating Cohort is wrapping up, the Quality Improvement team at the Child Care Aware of Minnesota Coordinating Office is preparing a post-Cohort survey to send to programs that participated in the July 2019 Cohort. This is the fifth consecutive survey we have offered. All programs that participated in either Building Quality (where Coaches support programs in their use of early childhood best practices) or the Full-Rating Cohort (where programs submit their documentation of their use of best practices to receive a Parent Aware Rating) receive an opportunity to complete the survey. There are questions in the survey about the support a program receives from Coaches, Professional Development Advisors, and Recruiters. There are also questions about the processes involved in every step, from the application to earning a Rating.

We do these surveys of every Cohort so that we can continuously improve the experience that programs have with Parent Aware. Although generally we receive very positive feedback about the Parent Aware process, we review every comment and have made important changes to our work based on these comments. The survey also allows us to follow up individually with people who express specific concerns and would like to speak to us directly.

We are very grateful to everyone who took the time in the past to share their ideas for improving Parent Aware, and we look forward to another set of survey responses that will shape our work going forward.