Intensive support to child care centers, Head Start and preschool classrooms to improve quality

Quality Counts is a community-based child care quality improvement strategy, designed to build and sustain high quality in early care and education programs.

Eligible children receive tuition-free enrollment at quality child care centers

Providing local families with access to high-quality early care and education.

Nationally, Early Head Start programs serve over 160,000 children and pregnant women annually.

Certified and registered training hours for the early childhood workforce

First Steps 4K offers free, full-day four-year-old kindergarten to qualifying children in South Carolina. We partner with more than 250 licensed child care centers and private schools across the state, making it easy for families to find a high-quality program that meets their needs.