Connecticut OEC — Quality Assurance & Technical Assistance System
ECA worked with the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood (OEC) to strengthen the statewide system of professional learning, coaching, and technical assistance.
The work aimed to establish a common definition of high-quality technical assistance, determine how to measure quality, and create structures OEC and its providers could use for continuous improvement. The scope combined needs assessment, development of quality-assurance criteria, strengthening statewide coaching structures, and field testing the new quality-assurance process.
Our work included:
- Assessing Connecticut’s existing coaching and technical assistance system, examining different initiatives, coaching models, characteristics and supports for coaches, and state-level approaches to tracking and monitoring quality.
- Conducting a comprehensive needs and gap analysis using interviews, surveys, document reviews, and observations to identify strengths, gaps, redundancies, professional-learning needs, and opportunities for better integration across the system.
- Developing an integrated Quality Assurance system consisting of three interconnected components: a Quality Assurance Framework, monitoring tools, and a Quality Assurance Rubric. Together, these defined what high-quality technical assistance looks like and provided ways to assess its design and delivery.
- Establishing research- and practice-based indicators of quality around four areas: principles of active and adult learning; collaborative and relationship-based approaches; research- and evidence-informed content; and feedback loops. The framework addressed both how technical assistance is designed and how it is delivered.
- Connecting quality standards directly to measurement, aligning indicators with participant and provider surveys, interviews, document review, and observation so the state could gather multiple forms of evidence about the quality of technical assistance.
- Embedding continuous quality improvement into the system by connecting the QA Framework, monitoring tools, and rubric through a Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle: define and deliver quality, study implementation, and use findings to improve the system.