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Build Ohio was created through collaboration among key leaders in early care and education policy, advocacy, and service delivery. Build provided the impetus for these leaders to begin working together in a more formal way on a regular basis. A ten-year strategic framework served as the core of a planning process, which resulted in established priorities for system building and a targeted workplan. Build Ohio organized its work around an infrastructure framework, which includes professional development, governance, regulation, accountability, public will and support, technical assistance, quality control, and finance.

The lead grantee in Ohio is the Ohio Child Care Resource and Referral Association, a statewide network of child care resource and referral agencies. An Administrative Board is responsible for the day-to-day operation of Build Ohio.

In 2005, Build Ohio will focus on six major priorities:

• Step Up to Quality pilot implementation,
• Professional development system component design,
• Communications plan implementation,
• State/local connection,
• Articulation of system links, and
• Fostering of an open forum

Build is being viewed as the connector and repository for systems work, and it is becoming the forum at which cross-system discussions take place. These activities will become more intentional and deliberate in 2005.