The Early Childhood and Parenting (ECAP) Collaborative is home to more than a dozen projects that focus on educating and raising young children. ECAP hosts research, technical assistance, and service projects.
Project Information

ECAP Projects

  • Clearinghouse on Early Education and Parenting
    Web Site: http://ceep.crc.uiuc.edu/The Clearinghouse on Early Education and Parenting (CEEP) is the successor to the federally funded ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education (ERIC/EECE). CEEP employs many former ERIC/EECE staff members on the projects listed below. These legacy projects include Early Childhood Research & Practice (ECRP), the Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map (IECAM) Project, the Illinois Early Learning (IEL) Project, the Illinois Early Intervention Clearinghouse, and the IllinoisParents Project. The CEEP Web site also includes an archive of ERIC/EECE Digests and publications.
  • Early Childhood Research & Practice
    Web Site: http://ecrp.uiuc.edu/Early Childhood Research & Practice (ECRP) is the only peer-reviewed, open-access, fully bilingual electronic journal in the field of early care and education. Since 1999, ECRP has covered topics related to the growth, learning, development, care, and education of children from birth to approximately age 8. ECRP became a fully bilingual journal (English and Spanish) in 2004, with support from the Bernard van Leer Foundation. The Yew Chung Education Foundation provided a Chinese translation of one issue of the journal in 2009. ECRP is funded by reader contributions and by contributions from corporations and foundations interested in improving early childhood practice. ECRP has an international readership and receives more than 1,200,000 user visits annually.
  • Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map
    Web site: http://iecam.crc.uiuc.edu/The Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map (IECAM) Project provides capacity data on early care and education services in Illinois in both table and map format. The services profiled on IECAM are funded by federal agencies (which fund Head Start and Early Head Start), state agencies (which fund Preschool for All and Early Intervention), and private sources (which fund child care centers and family child care homes). IECAM also presents demographic data on the population, poverty level, linguistic isolation, and employment characteristics of families with children ages birth through 5. Data are presented at various geographic levels (e.g., counties, legislative districts). IECAM provides a quick snapshot of where children live and the capacity of services available to them in those locations. IECAM is funded by the Illinois State Board of Education, Early Childhood Division, and the Illinois Department of Human Services, Child Care Bureau.
  • Illinois Early Learning Project
    Web Site: http://illinoisearlylearning.org/For over 10 years, the Illinois Early Learning Project (IEL) has provided evidence-based, reliable information on early care and education for parents, caregivers, and teachers of young children in Illinois. The Web site offers Tip Sheets for caregivers and parents, resources (including video clips) for implementing the Illinois Early Learning Standards, frequently asked questions, a customized question-answering service, a statewide calendar of events for parents and caregivers, an easy-to-use database of links to "the best of the Web" on topics related to early care and education, and transcripts of periodic interviews of “Early Childhood Notables.” IEL is funded by the Illinois State Board of Education, Early Childhood Division.
  • Illinois Early Intervention Clearinghouse
    Web site: http://eiclearinghouse.orgThe Illinois Early Intervention (EI) Clearinghouse is a lending library and information resource for families and professionals involved in the state’s birth-to-3 EI Program. The free lending library consists of books, journals, and DVDs related to early childhood, parenting, and young children with special needs. The library catalog is available online, and materials can be borrowed through any library affiliated with the Illinois Library System or directly from the Clearinghouse. Additional resources are available on the Web site, including listings of publications, podcasts, organizations in Illinois, and resource guides to topics in EI. Librarians and information specialists staff a toll-free phone line Monday through Friday 8am-5pm. Parents and professionals can ask EI-related questions and receive recommendations for materials and resources. The EI Clearinghouse is funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services, Bureau of Early Intervention.
  • IllinoisParents.org
    Web Site: http://www.illinoisparents.orgIllinoisParents.org is a dual-purpose Web site that provides information on parental involvement in the schools and links Illinois families to local services, agencies, supports, and resources. CEEP’s IllinoisParents team manages a customized question-answering service for parents and maintains a searchable database of resource links to statewide services, agencies, supports, and resources that is organized by county. IllinoisParents.org is managed by the Academic Development Institute in Lincoln, Illinois, and funded by the Illinois State Board of Education.
  • Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning
    Web Site: http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL) is a five-year project designed to strengthen the capacity of Head Start and child care programs to improve the social and emotional outcomes of young children. The Center develops training and technical assistance (T/TA) materials that reflect evidence-based practices for promoting children's social and emotional development and preventing challenging behaviors. The Center works with professional organizations and Head Start and child care T/TA providers to ensure the use of the evidence-based practices in local demonstration sites. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a collaborator in this project, which is based at Vanderbilt University. CSEFEL is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Office of Head Start, and the Child Care Bureau.
  • Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services Early Childhood Research Institute
    Web Site: http://clas.uiuc.edu/The Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Early Childhood Research Institute was originally a collaborative effort of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Council for Exceptional Children, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education, and the ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education. The CLAS Institute identified, evaluated, and promoted effective and appropriate early intervention practices and preschool practices that were sensitive and respectful to children and families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The CLAS Institute was funded by the Office of Special Education Programs of the U.S. Department of Education between 1997 and 2002. After federal funding ended, the CLAS Institute received some support from the National Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (NECTAC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Although the project is currently not funded and no new materials are being added, the Early Childhood and Parenting Collaborative at the University of Illinois continues to maintain the Web site.
  • SPARK: Skills Promoted through Arts, Reading, and Knowledge (Directed Research Project)
    Web Site: http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/sped/SPARK/The purpose of SPARK is to address the needs of an increasingly culturally diverse population by providing teachers of young children with (1) a story-based creative arts curriculum, derived from a variety of cultural and ethnic traditions; (2) a developmentally and individually appropriate curriculum process that can be applied in a variety of settings to meet the needs of children with diverse skill levels; (3) a system of inservice training and ongoing support to enhance the implementation of the model; and (4) materials and guidelines to enable families to support their child's classroom experiences. The project is evaluating program outcomes at the child, teacher, and administrative level as well as the range of adaptations made by teaching staff to aspects of the model. This information is being gathered through the use of weekly teacher logs, interviews, observation data, child progress data, and surveys.
  • University Primary School
    Web Site: http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/ups/University Primary School (UPS) is an early childhood gifted education program that serves children ages 3-7. Children must be 3 by July 1 for the preschool classroom and 5 by September 1 to be considered for kindergarten enrollment. The school comprises one preschool classroom (ages 3-4) and one combined K-1 classroom. Each classroom enrolls approximately 25 children, with a head teacher, an assistant teacher, and student interns. The mission of University Primary School is to provide a site for the College of Education to demonstrate, observe, study, and teach best practices in early childhood and gifted education. In this way, UPS is a site for research and teacher education, while at the same time providing a service to the community, especially to families with young children. The philosophy of UPS is that young children are best served by curriculum and teaching practices that strengthen and support their intellectual growth and development, initiate them into basic skills, challenge them to increase their proficiency in academic tasks as well as intellectual processes, and, at the same time, foster the development of their social competence. UPS is affiliated with the Department of Special Education in the College of Education at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. The school is supported by tuition and fees, private donations, and fundraising events.

ECAP Web Partners