Our Mission

Early CHOICES Mission Statement

The Early CHOICES inclusion initiative promotes increasing high quality inclusive early care and education for each and every child birth to age 5. Our goal is to increase the number of children with disabilities receiving specialized services in regular early care and education settings.

Early CHOICES will accomplish this through:

• Providing technical assistance and facilitating professional learning for teams that support children and families
• Engaging and empowering families to access resources and information
• Collaborating with other Illinois early care and education entities

Early CHOICES is operated through a grant awarded by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) in partnership with the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Development (OECD) to School Association for Special Education in DuPage County (SASED); 100% of annual funding for the project is from federal sources. Early CHOICES is the inclusion initiative focusing on inclusive early care and education birth to age 5.  We provide technical assistance and facilitate professional learning for the early childhood community in Illinois. Early CHOICES assists the ISBE and OECD in meeting their local needs by providing services throughout Illinois. Early CHOICES partners with the other technical assistance projects and early care and education entities.

To work with Early CHOICES we have created a collaborative agreement to define roles and responsibilities for programs and Early CHOICES. We also create goals and develop an action plan with each site under the framework of implementation science.

Funding Provided by the Illinois State Board of Education

Early CHOICES SY 2021 End of Year Report, April 2022

Carisa Hurley – Early Childhood Division

Kristy Doan – 619 Coordinator & Project Liaison