Site Content

March 30, 2018 BOD / Meeting Minutes 

June 28, 2018 BOD / Meeting Minutes 

Sept 30, 2018 BOD / Meeting Minutes

Dec 31, 2018 BOD / Meeting Minutes

March 28, 2019 BOD / Meeting Minutes

June 5, 2019 BOD / Meeting Minutes

Oct 7, 2019 BOD  / Meeting Minutes

Dec 29, 2019 BOD / Meeting Minutes 

March 01,2020 BOD / Meeting Minutes

The 2019 Colorado legislative session began in early-January.  Several Councils have already signed on to support legislative bills aimed at helping young children, families, and communities thrive. Check back throughout the legislative session to learn more about bills supported by VFS Prep and Councils.

HB 19-1052: Empower Local Communities to Collaborate for the Delivery of Early Childhood Services

• Background: Colorado is proud to be a local control state, allowing communities to collaborate to provide a variety of services and programs. Title 32 enables the creation of special districts to fund and deliver services for a whole host of purposes including, but not limited to, parks and recreation, health, forest improvement and fire protection. There are more than 2,000 special districts in Colorado today.
• What HB 1052 Does: This legislation allows for the creation of special districts for the purpose of delivering early childhood development services.

Read more about SB-063 and stay connected to updates on this legislation HERE.

SB 19-063: Infant and Family Child Care Strategic Action Plan Bill

• Background: This bipartisan bill would model K-12 advocacy that required a Teacher Shortage Strategic Action Plan to be created and undertake a similar approach for both licensed infant child care and licensed family child care.
• What SB 063 Does: The goal of the bill is to tackle a diversity of issues that have impacted licensed family child care homes, including International Building Codes and adequate public investments to better understand trends on the availability of infant and toddler care.

Read more about SB-063 and stay connected to updates on this legislation HERE.

HB 19-1005: Early Childhood Educator Tax Credit Bill

• Background: This bipartisan bill builds on the work of the Early Childhood and School Readiness Legislative Commission and was one of the recommended strategies out of the Teacher Shortage Report from Colorado Department of Higher Education (CDHE).
• What HB-1005 Does: The legislation would model similar successful tax credits in other states to improve compensation for early childhood educators without passing the cost on to parents in the form of higher tuition.

Read more about HB-1005 and stay connected to updates on this legislation HERE.

• 2007- Nathaniel and Jacqueline Cradle visioned, that every child should have access to quality care; thereby, creating a 501 (c) 3 to support and design a new era of accountability within early education. 
• 2009- Venture for Success Prep because the 1st early education site in NE-Denver to offer public health insurance applications (i.e., Medicaid and CHP+) to help families access providers with little or no cost. This initiative supported more than 35 families during this event. 
• 2015- Venture for Success Prep's very own Jacqueline Cradle was appointed to the Governors (Governor Hickenlooper) Licensing Advisor Committee on Licensing of Child Care Facilities.
• 2018- Founders of the Venture for Success Prep created the "Pathways to Credentials Initiative," designed to support adults entering the field of early education.  Helping our staff enter college could not be more easy, as our strategy deliberately creates class/work balance that strengthens the understanding of early development.  
• 2018- Nathaniel Cradle joined the Colorado Sector Partnership Initiative to help identify gaps between policy and legislation, compensation, talent recruiting, retention and public perception.
• 2018- Jacqueline Cradle gained the credentials to offer a permanent solution for NE Denver's issue of "lack of resources."  As a trainer, in Expanding Quality in Infant Toddler Care (EQIT) her primary goal is to increase the quality and availability of responsive care for infant and toddlers throughout (not just NE Denver), but the state of Colorado.
• 2019- Venture for Success Prep. formed a partnership with the Daniels Fund to create Northeast Denver's 1st adult resource center for Early Education.  Due to the the inconvenient distance for many of our practitioners, our solution to bring resources has been a wild success! The goal is to bring more teachers to the field and increase quality standards across the board.  Expanding Quality in Infant Toddler (EQIT) courses start in 2020!