Mississippi LIFT
The PDG B-5 Grant is based at the Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS) Division of Early Childhood Care and Development and includes the following partners: Mississippi Department of Education (MDE), the Mississippi Early Childhood Inclusion Center (MECIC), The Children’s Foundation of Mississippi, and Mississippi State University Social Science Research Center (SSRC).
Mississippi LIFT invests in families, communities, and childcare providers with sound educational resources for our youngest Mississippians. By offering training, employment incentives, and support for early childcare teachers, Mississippi LIFT sustains families with free at-home learning and childcare services by providing safe, evidence-based educational and lifestyle resources from birth to age five.
Early investment can transform the lives of children living in underserved populations, poverty, rural areas, and with disabilities. Mississippi’s future depends on sustained funding of these early childhood education and development programs. Our fate is in the hands of the next generation.
Mississippi LIFT Grant-Funded Activities Benefit All Children and Families in Mississippi!
LIFT helps children find their wings by:
- Helping families connect to early intervention services.
- Unifying the state’s early childhood education professional development system.
- Cultivating careers and professional development for early childhood education professionals
- Advancing information to underserved populations.
- Securing accountability and quality.
- Providing a voice to parents and families.
The grant will allow for the creation of a new Quality Support System with input from parents and providers focused on strengthening family and provider input to ensure Mississippi’s early care and education system is more responsive to all children and families’ needs.
It will also fund a new grant opportunity to address childcare deserts and low-income communities’ opportunity for local public-private strategies to increase compensation and create new pathways for recruitment into the early childhood care workforce.
The PDG B-5 Grant is based on the strategic plan developed by the Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS) Division of Early Childhood Care and Development and other partners, including the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE), the Mississippi Early Childhood Inclusion Center (MECIC), The Children’s Foundation of Mississippi, and Mississippi State University Social Science Research Center (SSRC).