Increase access, equity and quality through improvements to the early childhood education
regulatory environment
Indiana’s Office of Early Childhood and Out-of-School Learning seeks to strengthen access to and the quality of early learning opportunities for children and families in the state through improvements to the early care and education regulatory environment. In this effort, OECOSL and its partners at the Indiana Department of Education and Early Learning Advisory Committee are working to 1) identify and address barriers within the current regulatory structure, 2) understand how the regulatory structure and other related child care compliance structures support or hinder provider sustainability and growth across auspices and 3) assess how the interpretation of licensing rules impact providers, considering the impact of bias and inequity.
The goal of this work is to create a refreshed regulatory structure that streamlines compliance structures and reduces undue burden for providers, while still maintaining a high level of health and safety.
Engage Policy and Equity Group to Inform Regulatory and Quality Structure Improvements
Indiana’s Early Learning Advisory Committee recently engaged Policy Equity Group, an organization that supports practice, policy and research for the early childhood field, to help the state research and plan for regulatory and quality structure improvements. In this work, Indiana hopes to create an integrated approach to how regulatory requirements for early care and education providers serve as the entry point into the state’s updated quality rating and improvement system.
Engage Providers to Help Inform Regulatory Change
To help inform regulatory improvements, OECOSL solicited input from a diverse and representative group of early childhood education providers. Following an open application period, the state selected and convened 16 providers, representing the diversity of Indiana's birth-to-5 mixed delivery system, to review the current regulatory structure and help make recommendations for changes that support providers and families. Workgroup members were compensated for their time and met over the course of 10 months to review regulatory requirements and related provider-facing information and resources. As part of the review, the workgroup also looked at how regulatory requirements aligned to other child care compliance structures, such as CCDF, On My Way Pre-K, Head Start, CACFP and others, to identify opportunities to consolidate and make rules easier for providers to navigate.
The group’s efforts culminated in a set of formal recommendations for the State of Indiana to consider in making regulatory updates.
Review State Actions to Improve ECE Regulatory Environments 
Alongside engaging early care and education providers, OECOSL recently conducted a comprehensive review of actions taken by other states to strengthen and streamline the early childhood education regulatory environment. In this, OECOSL focused its review on efforts undertaken to address similar priorities to those outlined by Indiana-based early care and education providers. These included making regulatory information more accessible and easier to understand, modernization efforts/technology improvements, workforce and staffing requirements, state and local-level coordination and more. From these findings, Indiana is taking the opportunity to learn from others, while also seeking to innovate in its own ways.
Questions
Direct questions to the OECOSL inbox at OECOSLproviderinquiry@fssa.IN.gov.