MISSION STATEMENT
To support the needs of Collier County’s children, families, and early learning professionals by providing high quality education, resources and child care services.
OUR VISION
To have affordable, quality child care services for children, families, and early learning professionals in Collier County.
Collier Child Care Resources, Inc., is a private, non-profit child care agency that has been serving children, families, and early learning professionals in Southwest Florida for over forty years. We have had offices in Collier County since 1991 and expanded our offices to include Immokalee in 2001. We are guided by a volunteer Board of Directors from Collier County that meets monthly to discuss budgets, agency activities, future plans, fund raising, professional development and organizational policies.
Immokalee Initiative
Collier Child Care Training & Resource Center - HISTORY
Immokalee has the highest concentration of child poverty in Collier County. Approximately 9,000 children reside in Immokalee. Three thousand of them are under five years old. The Immokalee Collaborative Proposal, commissioned by the Naples Children & Education Foundation (NCEF) and researched and written by the University of Florida, addresses specific gaps in service in early learning in Immokalee. They have determined that of the 3,000 children under five, 1,500 are in need of early education services.
In order to meet this need, a system is in place which includes the building of new classrooms, the development of a Family Child Care Home network, the availability of scholarships to assist families in paying for child care and the creation of a comprehensive Professional Development system to address and support the needs of the early education providers. This system will require additional teachers to staff the new classrooms being built and the education and training to prepare them to meet the needs of Immokalee’s children.
Collier Child Care Resources, Inc. is working strategically and proactively in collaborating with the early education providers and support agencies, specifically Redlands Christian Migrant Association (RCMA), Guadalupe Center For Family Education, Immokalee Child Care Center, Immokalee Non-Profit Housing (INPH) and the Collier County Public School System’s ELLM leadership. The Immokalee early learning programs expressed the need for support with employee recruitment and retention, career advancement, local education and training, financial supports and a centralized professional development agency to administer such supports. With the help of NCEF and the Immokalee Community, Collier Child Care Resources, Inc. opened the Collier Childcare Training & Resource Center on April 1, 2008 and has had many successes thus far in providing the support that will help lead to positive outcomes for Immokalee’s children.
Our main goal is to centralize the early learning delivery system in Immokalee targeting teacher recruitment, retention, professional development, career advancement and community involvement and awareness.