Announcement of an Exempt Purchase

The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California Berkeley will conduct an evaluation of the Illinois Early Childhood Apprenticeship Program, IECAP, pilot to assess impact on quality of work environment in participating programs. The evaluation will include a mixed methods approach using the Supportive Environmental Quality Underlying Adult Learning survey of educators in the IECAP center-based care settings, and interviews with apprentices and mentors from both center- and home-based sites. This will provide an illustration of the work environments supporting the apprentices and serve to support a better understanding of directors and educators perceptions of their work environments in programs supporting apprenticeships throughout Illinois.

This purchase is exempt from the usual selection processes of the Procurement Code because the procurement expenditure is for events or activities for which the use of specific potential contractors is mandated or identified by the sponsor of the event or activity, provided that the sponsor is providing a majority of the funding for the event or activity. (30 ILCS 500 / 1-13(b)(3)) UIC has received a grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services to implement and evaluate the Illinois Early Childhood Apprenticeship Program. The grant specifics that UIC will contract with the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California Berkeley to evaluate the program. Specifically the grant requires use of the SEQUAL survey. This survey is a proprietary tool developed by CSCCE and not available through any other vendor. This procurement is necessary to fulfill the terms of the grant agreement with the Illinois Department of Human Services.