Early Head Start for Family Child Care Partnership Week 2012 Building Into the Future

Holly: Good afternoon. My name is Holly and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Early Head Start for Family Child Care National Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press * then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the # key. I'll now turn the conference over to Shannon Rudisill. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Shannon Rudisill: Hi, everybody. Thanks for joining us for this wrap-up to our exciting Early Head Start for Family Child Care week, and I just wanted to say a few words about how I was looking back on this week. So, I've been really happy with all the things that our team has put together to highlight the unique aspects of family child care, especially the flexibility to support all different kinds of families in both their work needs and their parenting roles, and the really warm, nurturing environments that happen in family child care and the special ability of family child care in some communities to match families culturally and really support kids and families in both English – English and their home languages, which I think is a real potential of family child care and one in our agency we're beginning to think more about, including with our Office of Refugee Resettlement.

I was also learning along with you all as I learned more about how the projects that we highlighted this week really were able to raise the visibility of family child care within their communities and within their states, and how the partnerships helped make that happen. And I also thought that – the other thing that came to me was how neighborhood-based these projects were. And we hear a lot lately about place-based strategies and community-based strategies, and I really thought it was a new way of looking at Head Start's long-standing commitment to community development, which is a hallmark of the program going back decades. But this provided a new spin on the way that you could use Head Start and Early Head Start in particular for neighborhood and community development by reaching out to additional folks who are living in and around the communities where the Early Head Start programs were based.

And then, I just have to say: Happy Provider Appreciation Day! I want to offer a big thank you to all of the providers that might be listening, with a special thanks and appreciation for family child care providers because I feel like family child care providers might not be recognized on Provider Appreciation Day because the parents that they serve might not be on listservs and email lists that would let them know that it's Provider Appreciation Day today. But we want to recognize your efforts all day, every day on behalf of the children and families that you serve.

On Wednesday, I was very privileged to take part in a fun event here in DC that really drove home some good messages for Provider Appreciation Day. We awarded a number of programs – I think almost 20 Child Care and Head Start programs from around the country – a Let's Move! Child Care recognition award. You can go on the ACF website and see more about that. We put out a press release, but we had so much going on this week with Early Head Start, I want to be sure everybody saw that. And one of the things that was really great about hearing about how those providers had been working on improving nutrition and physical activity in their programs, was we awarded all kinds of programs. We awarded large Head Start agencies, including one in San Diego that serves 2,000 meals a day, all the way to a family child care provider – couple family child care providers, actually, who talked about the way that they were growing gardens in their yards and taking their kids on field trips. One provider was actually taking her kid on field trips – kids on field trips to fast food restaurants and showing them how to order more healthy meals within a fast food restaurant so that when they went there with their parents they would know what to order.

And so, you know, that was a great experience for me because having that variety of sizes of providers all in one place at one time really underscored something that we talk about a lot, which is that we all are sharing the same mission. And it was a real concrete example of the way that, from the biggest Head Start agency down to a small family child care home, we're really sharing the same mission and each could build on their own unique strengths in terms of how to accomplish that mission. So, we want to say thanks to all of you for doing that work together. And then, I want to thank not only our lead here, Dawn Ramsburg, but I want to thank the fantastic team at the Office of Child Care, Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, and Angie Godfrey, who really have championed this effort that we're really proud of. So, now I'm going to turn it over to Yvette.

Yvette Sanchez Fuentes: Hello, everyone. Good afternoon. It's a real pleasure to be here with you. And first off, I just – I want to thank Shannon for her commitment and for taking this journey with us. And I also want to send out thanks to Dawn Ramsburg in the Office of Child Care and to Angie Godfrey here in the Office of Head Start for really moving all of these activities forward and moving the initiative forward, and really supporting our vision and our mission to promote family child care. For those of you who may know me, you might know that I started my career in a local Migrant Head Start program, where I had the opportunity to implement a family child care model. And so, for me, I have a real commitment and passion for family child care as it works with Head Start, because I've seen the community and the workforce development that comes from it; but most importantly, raising the quality and the care of all of the children participating in both Early Head Start and Child Care in local communities.

This initiative has really worked to develop resources and tools and success stories that hopefully you will continue to visit, but most importantly, that you'll use to support your partnerships in your local communities and that you'll share with your partners who may not have had the opportunity to participate this week. But, know that it will all be available. I also would like to remind folks about a podcast that is available on the – on the ECLKC website. That is an introductory video that you can share with your community and your community partners as you think of the possibilities of implementing the family child care option in your Early Head Start program. This podcast, titled "The Early Head Start Family Child Care Option: Maybe It's a Good Fit for Your Community," highlights some of the advantages of the partnerships of Early Head Start and family child care, including the benefits for family child care providers, for the Early Head Start programs, for children, for families, and most importantly, for – for our communities. So, please, take a look at that, share that far and wide, and know that we are here to support you as you move forward in this very important option. And again, thank you all for joining us throughout the week. We really appreciate your time and we look forward to hearing about your partnerships as you move forward with the Early Head Start family child care option. And with that, I will turn it over to Dawn.

Dawn Ramsburg: Thanks, Yvette. And so, one of the goals for this week has been, as we've released things, to make sure that if you all had questions, that we would take today as an opportunity to respond to those. And so, we've received a couple of questions; and so I'm going to direct the first one to you, Yvette. And actually, you – you were just starting to touch on this, so I'm going to ask you to touch on this a little bit more. But, people are asking: Just what are the benefits of partnerships between Early Head Start and family – family child care providers, and are we just asking them to do more work? You know? So, can you talk a little bit – especially with your experiences, as well as some of the lessons learned – about what benefits there are for doing these partnerships?

Yvette: Sure. Thanks, Dawn. So, one of the goals of the project is to support the most vulnerable children and families in local communities through coordinating and leveraging of services through Early Head Start. You know, leveraging resources from both Child Care and Head Start really provides an opportunity to serve the youngest children in a community. We know that, yes, it does – it does take – take some work. But through planning and implementing services together, we believe and we know and we've seen, as hopefully you'll see when you visit our website, that there are great benefits for families, for agencies, for – as I mentioned, for family child care providers and for Early Head Start programs.

In many of the communities in the partnership project, Child Care agencies and Early Head Start programs worked together to ensure training opportunities for providers throughout the community. They developed budgets that looked at shared contributions to ensure that resources were accessible and available to all programs. And that's what we're really talking about here: increasing access and availability for all. And then, finally, family child care providers, of course, were able to provide quality services. Because, often, as – as I think most of you know, our family child care providers tend to be isolated, so they had the – the – they were able to access the services of Early Head Start, of coming together – coming together as a community, coming together as providers – to raise the quality and to raise their professional development opportunities, as well. Back to you, Dawn.

Dawn: Great. Thank you. And so, the – the second – we got another question I'm going to direct to Shannon here. So, you know, we all think these – we – well, we think we know these partnerships are great things, but how can people sustain them? Because they do take time, they do take work, they're built on relationships, people change, you know, and so what – how can we work on sustaining these partnerships in communities?

Shannon: Thanks, Dawn. So, one of the things that was always a question of ours from the start was about the sustainability, because, as I think by now – you've been watching all week, you know that this was something that the Office of Head Start, in its great wisdom, saw fit to fund with Recovery Act money, and so we always knew that it was going to be time-limited. One of the expectations that was built in to the project when, in fact, we took applications from communities, was that the communities would plan for the future, that they would continue to work as – as partners. There was some sustainability planning work done both by the national team at Zero to Three and at the – at the partnership team levels in the communities.

They looked at the partnerships themselves at the local and sometimes at the state level as a sustainability mechanism because they were trying to put in place structures within the agencies to support family child care providers and Head Start programs to find each other and connect with each other and start to work together. So, we really feel like that's – that the structures we put in place in these communities were part of the sustainability strategy. I also think it's worth noting – and I hope I'm right on this. I'll ask Dawn and Angie to elaborate if they have more that they want to say. But, a lot of the projects that ended up being selected were projects that already had a pretty significant start, either in pulling family child care providers together in a network or in specifically working between Head Start and family child care. So, just some of the main ones that were highlighted over the course of the week – you look at Fairfax County, Virginia or San Luis Obispo in California, or All Our Kin in Connecticut – not all of them were doing exactly what we did in this project, but most of them already had formed some infrastructure around family child care.

And so, I think that – you know, that's something that was – was sort of underlying for me, is this idea that there – there is an infrastructure in place there; and I think that those will help for sustainability. I also think it points to the idea that this work can happen even without Recovery Act money, because these folks were already doing some of this work. And what we tried to do for the project was augment it, highlight it, glean some replicable lessons for ourselves, help them think of expansion. And so, that means that really – you know, a lot of those folks had been able to do this, or at least get started on it, before we came along. And I think that that speaks to both the ability for others to take it up even if we don't have, you know, new start-up money now, and the ability of the projects that were funded to keep going.

You know – and I also think this is an area – because I know we're going to be opening it up – opening up the call now. I think that from the perspective of the Administration for Children and Families, both Office of Head Start and Office of Child Care, we want your advice on what kinds of things we could be doing over the next month to sort of keep this idea alive and – and help you build it.

Dawn: Thanks, Shannon. And – and I – I would – I would add... So, Shannon mentioned three of the success stories that we highlighted this week were people who had been working with family child care more long term, but actually two of them were brand new to working with it. And so, I do think there are some real lessons learned to look at what those teams did because it was – family child care was new to them, you know, as Early Head Start grantees. So, they – they really were trying to figure out, you know, what they needed to understand as well as what the community needed to understand. So, that – that's the – the team from Denver, Colorado as well as our – the – our tribal grantee, Leech Lake. Those – they were brand new, and they've actually changed their Early Head Start grants because of working in this project.

Angie Godfrey: This is Angie. And that's right, Dawn. One of the things that I felt was so useful in the project was the framework that allowed programs to kind of join wherever they were and then have tools and resources and ideas that could help them, because it did run the gamut. There were some communities that were so far along in this work, they taught us many things. And then, others left the first meeting thinking, "I don't know that this will ever happen in my community. I'm interested." And at the same time, there were also communities that were excited because they were agencies that had worked in the same community for years and never sat at a table together. So, it – it – this was exciting on so many levels that I think the ability of programs to come in wherever they were and then move forward with each other was really one of the great things about the program. So, now, Shannon mentioned that we were going to questions, so are there any folks out there with questions for us?

Holly: Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, please press * then 1 on your telephone keypad. Again, that's *1 for questions. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a question, press *1. And currently, we have no questions over the phone lines.

Angie: Okay, thank you. We do have a few questions that came in. We wanted to give folks out on the field a chance to ask questions, but there are a couple of more questions that we want – that we could – we could ask folks. And, either Shannon or Yvette or Dawn – Dawn, maybe – would you like to answer the next one? The question is: If a family child care provider partners with Early Head Start, how are providers paid? Are they employees or contractors?

Dawn: Sure, I can – I can talk about that. Actually – and this – this was one of my learning – things that I learned through the course of the project, because I think that's one of the real things that people struggle with when they're trying to figure out these partnerships, is... You know, Shannon talked at the beginning about the unique aspects of family child care and what – and part of that is, you know, they are their own business and they kind of are – have a lot of flexibility and things. And I think sometimes they get nervous thinking about these partnerships and kind of what that might – that – they might lose from what they value in doing that. And so, it was – it was really enlightening for me to see that – what a lot of Early Head Start programs were doing with contracting with the providers.

So rather than hiring them on as employees, as – under the grantee, they would actually contract them. And this would – the contract would then include the provisions for implementing the Head Start Program Performance Standards as well as any of the state or local licensing requirements or any other requirements that they had to meet, as well as the requirements for delivering comprehensive services. So, that contract would build in the language about meeting the requirements, but then would allow the family child care providers to maintain some of the flexibility and the – and the independence that they're used to having.

And so, we do have lots of examples that we gathered through the project in terms of contracts that people developed, and so that – that's another resource that we can share with people. And the National Association of Family Child Care also has many resources available in terms of some of the training on, like, the business and legal aspect of being a provider. So I think that, you know, there are resources out there. And like I said, this was something that I learned, is that there are multiple ways of approaching this partnership relationship and – and you can still allow people to retain the things that they need to retain from either the Early Head Start perspective or from what the family child care providers want, but you can build a relationship that – that is a win-win for both.

Angie: Thank you, Dawn. That's so true. And maybe, Yvette, can you talk more about how family providers are monitored – family child care providers are monitored if they participate in this program option?

Yvette: Mm hmm. So when an Early Head Start program chooses to implement the family child care model, they are required to hire a child development specialist; and the role of the child development specialist is to both coach and monitor the provider for compliance. The specialists are required to visit providers at least every two weeks, with some of the visits being unannounced. And we know from research that regular support and technical assistance from specially trained coordinators who consult with providers in their homes, through meetings, and via phone calls, can absolutely improve the quality of the licensed family child care provider. Thanks.

Angie: Thanks, Yvette. And there're a couple of more – should we check again to see if there are any calls coming in?

Holly: Sure thing. Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd like to ask a questions, press * then 1 on your telephone keypad. Again, that's *1 for questions. And currently, still no questions. We do have a question that has come through from the line of Suzanne Williamson.

Suzanne Williamson: Hi. This is really more a comment than a question. I just want to thank Shannon and – and Yvette and everybody there for this amazing week of recognition for providers everywhere, and especially for the Early Head Start family child care. It's just been an amazing thing to watch unfold and to see what you've done in connection with Appreciation Day. I just want to thank all of you. That's it.

Shannon: Thanks, Suzanne. Yvette: Thank you.

Angie: Thank you. Any...

Holly: Not at this time. There are no more questions.

Angie: Okay. Should we do a – maybe we'll do two more before we end the – we'll do two more and then, if there are no more questions from the field, we can end the call. And, I... Shannon, did you want to do – I'm just randomly asking this. Do Early Head Start – or maybe this is – well, it's about Early Head Start, but Shannon, I'll ask you. Do Early Head Start family child care providers work service – provide services evenings and weekends? And who decides if hours – if the families need... I'm sorry, I'm – I'm messing this up. But I was thinking, I should probably answer this. [Laughter] But – but Shannon, you can answer the last. I realized I – I would know this one and you would know the next one.

So, the question is: Do Early Head Start family child care providers provide services evenings and weekends, and who decides the hours if the families need non-traditional hours? And again, one of the great benefits of family child care is it's flexibilities in hours. Providers often work in evenings and on weekends. If you saw the – the CAPSLO video the first day, you saw that some providers open their doors at four in the morning for folks who are – for families who are going into the fields to work. So, we know that family child care can be very beneficial to working parents with non-traditional hours. And in Early Head Start, when you're recruiting families, it's important to know that – what their needs are so that you can place them with providers.

In many programs, because they know – they know that their families need non-traditional hours, will include that in their contracts. And once the providers have agreed to a variety of times, programs, as they begin to enroll families and understand what their needs are and their preferences for family child care, then they can help begin them to providers – to match them with providers in the community so that the needs of the families are met with the – with the service hours that a family child care can provide. This is – it's a pretty standard practice in most Early Head Start programs that contract with family child care providers or use that option, because the goal is to meet the needs of families. And many families, particularly those with very young children, prefer that option. And so, that's one of the reasons why it has become a family child care option that's so popular in Early Head Start.

So, now I'm going to ask the last question that we have here to Shannon, and that's: Family child care providers have their own set of regulations to follow and they don't do everything the way centers do, so how are they able to provide Early Head Start?

Shannon: Thanks, Angie. So, that's right. And – and we know that when you look at something like, for example, state regulation, it does vary widely. And so, I think that's one of the reasons why there – that this an interesting route to go, because we have regulations in the Head Start Program Performance Standards that define the family child care program option, which could really ensure that all the comprehensive services that you expect in Early Head Start will be there. And there're also lot of resources that Office of Head Start has provided on the ECLKC. A lot of these have been linked in throughout the week – through this Early Head Start for Family Child Care Week; and there are also other resources on the website, especially that new podcast that Yvette mentioned at the beginning of the call.

And the other thing to realize is that states and communities have been spending a lot of money improving family child care quality. In fact, you know, out of the CCDF, states spend a billion dollars a year on quality initiatives. Sometimes you might be able to link up with an existing initiative; so, for example, looking to providers that are accessing resources through their Quality Rating Improvement Systems or through accreditation/facilitation projects that might be assisting providers in meeting the National Association for Family Child Care accreditation.

But one of the things that I really learned in listening this week was the way that, not only did this project help family child care providers tap into Early Head Start resources, it also strengthened their position and understanding to tap into the kinds of professional development and training and licensing type of resources that are being provided by states and communities. So, I think that that's, you know, a real benefit so that providers can understand, "Okay, yes, we're asking you to meet higher standards and higher levels of training. But at the same time, getting together in partnerships can make that easier to do by bringing access and awareness about all kinds of training and professional development that exist out there."

Angie: Thank you, Shannon. Are – are there any phone calls coming in from the field?

Holly: We do have two questions that have come into queue. The first on the line is Patsy Bruce. Patsy Bruce: Hi. Hi, can you hear me?

Angie: Yes.

Patsy: So, my question is – I am from Denver, Colorado, and we are – have our partnership with the family child care providers. And so, I am wondering what other programs have done to support – with comprehensive services to support the family child care providers with comprehensive services.

Angie: Okay, thank you. I – I'll start. I know that was one of the things that came up in our – in our project was if you're – if you become – if you're a family child provider and you become – contract with an Early Head Start, how is it that you can then begin to provide comprehensive services? And, it's done in a variety of ways. Some programs... Any – any family child care provider that contracts with Early Head Start is eligible for all the support services for the families they serve. For example, if you have two Early Head Start children and you have three that are child care children, those – you would receive training and you would receive information and resources on health issues, on – and engaging families and opportunities with families. You would receive support through your child development specialist that Yvette talked about for implementing curriculum by individualizing for each child.

And in that case, it would be each Early Head Start child; and the same with screenings. The screenings would be available for the Early Head Start children in your care. One of the things that we've learned anecdotally from this project and from years of programs implementing Early Head Start is that some of the comprehensive services are very easily provided across all the children a family child care provides.

Others, such as screening and ongoing assessment, while they may be particular requirements of Early Head Start, have a positive effect on the provider's ability to serve other children. So the goal is, when the provider and the Early Head Start programs are working together, that they're able to identify the comprehensive services that are offered through Early Head Start and how they can be provided in the home.

And I think I'll stop there and see if anyone else wants to add to that. No? Okay. Does that answer your question?

Patsy: It does. It does. And I guess – maybe, like, extending it a little bit farther, because I know that, like, we were talking about sustainability and things like that... I guess, to work with child care providers – how is it to get the family child care providers themselves and – more equipped in providing those comprehensive services themselves? And just having the Early Head Start worker just overseeing some of those services, but mostly having some of those services come from the providers themselves, is that...?

Angie: And again... Yes, that would be included in a professional development plan so that as you're assessing the needs of the children in your care and working with the Early Head Start program, that a professional – you could – there would be a professional development plan that would include training opportunities around specific areas that the family child care provider would identify for themselves. So, thank you for those questions. And was there another – another caller?

Holly: Yes. Your next question does come from the line of Susan Rohrvo. Angie: Okay. Hi.

Susan Rohrvo: Hi, everybody, and good afternoon. It really has been good to hear this call. I – I wasn't able to hear the others, but I've looking at the resources. And I just wanted to follow up on something, Yvette, I think you were mentioning. Could you speak a little bit more to the relationship of monitoring from Head Start and how it's improving quality, but how it's also – maybe, could help – be helpful in coordinating and linking with licensing in the state as – or certification efforts that are taking place through the Child Care Office? Or maybe that's for you, Shannon. It's just something I think maybe – I wanted to raise.

Yvette: Sure. It could be for – for... This is Yvette. I think that the question could – could probably be expanded into several areas. One thing, just to clarify, is that in Head Start, grantees – that would be the Early Head Start program here – are required to have an onsite monitoring review every three years.

And for those programs that have family child care as an option, a monitoring team would determine how many homes they would visit to see the level of quality in terms of the classroom environment; also to see if the children have been receiving the – receiving the health screenings and dental screenings, and other screenings that are required through Head Start; and then also to ensure that the family child care provider is getting the support that he or she needs from the Early Head Start program.

To participate with Early Head Start, the family child care provider does have to be licensed. But I can tell you that, from my experience at the local level, one thing that the program did do was that if there was an interest by an individual in wanting to partner with the early childhood program, the program did have built into it those systems and supports to help that individual get licensed, and then continuing to support them in their professional development so that they could get their home ready and up to the level of the Early Head Start Performance Standards. So, I'll stop there and I'll see if Shannon wants to add anything.

Shannon: I think you've pretty much covered it. I mean, I think one of the things that, you know, sometimes we get a little bit tangled up in is – is TA versus monitoring. I mean, I think one of the really strong aspects of this model is the amount of TA that goes on. And, you know, licensing is a really important component of quality, and a prerequisite for being in something like this. But the truth is, licensing resources are stretched thin in states, and so they're not always in family child care homes as often to provide that support. So, I think the one thing that this does is lend more onsite support to family child care providers.

Angie: Thank you, Shannon. Thank you for the question. Are there any other callers? Holly: Yes, ma'am. Your next question comes from the line of Leanna Hale.

Leanna Hale: Hello, this is Leanna, and I have a question. I know that the focus of this is on Early Head Start and Child Care, so I was wondering what your thoughts are about the preschool-age and Head Start being more involved in family child care partnerships.

Yvette: Hi, this is Yvette. That's a great question. Our Head Start programs do – can also select family child care as an option. And I think for the purposes of this initiative, we really focused on Early Head Start because what we have found anecdotally is that families who have babies prefer to have their babies in a family child care home. And so, it just seemed like the right place to start. But I do appreciate your question because it will push us to think about how we can continue to promote family child care within the Head Start model as it relates to preschool kids.

One other piece that I'll share with you is that, in the program where I started, we did serve preschoolers in family child care. So, it was all – it was a birth-to-five model where you could have children either in a center-based or – or a family child care. So, it is possible, and I do appreciate you putting that forward to us so that we can now think about how we promote that option for our Head Start programs.

Leanna: Thank you. Yvette: Thank you.

Dawn: So, Holly, this is Dawn, and I think we have time to maybe take one more, if there's one more question.

Holly: At this time, there are no further questions.

Dawn. All right, then I think we'll go ahead and wrap it up. So, I don't know... Shannon, do you want to start wrapping – or start off the wrapping up? [Laughter]

Shannon: Sure. I'm happy to. So, I guess in – you know, in conclusion, a couple of things that I – I really – I'm taking away from this week. First, just to say a little bit about – back to what our core idea here was, and I – it really came up a little bit when – I think it came up in the All Our Kin example that Dawn interviewed Jessica about earlier this week, which was... She pointed out something that we know is – is true but that we're working on, which is that, you know, these funding streams and these program models between Head Start and Child Care were a little bit born in different ways. And, you know, she – Jessica contracted that – in Child Care, sometimes the funding and policies are more focused on the families' work needs; and Head Start, sometimes the structure and funding is more focused on the child development and family support need.

And, you know, we recognize that. But part of the reason that the Office of Head Start and the Office of Child Care are working so hard together is because, while we're struggling with our origins and our history and our funding around that, we all hold all the same goals for the families, which is that the kids get the support that they need for the development, that the parents get support in their parenting role, and also that the families be able to really work and support their families. Right? So, both programs want all those things for all the families. And so, that's really what brought us together to – to work on this. And, you know, I want to acknowledge that that's part of why we want to forge partnerships, because there are some inherent challenges. And one of the greatest things about the project was the way that people were able to kind of analyze those and work through them.

The other idea that I thought about a lot at the beginning and I hope is just kernel of an idea that we can continue to think about as we move forward as an early childhood field, is we've traditionally thought of Child Care as wrap-around to Head Start. And one of the things that I kept saying at the beginning of this, that I think proved to be true, is there's another way to think about it, which is that you could use the idea that I know was held dear in the Head Start community of Head Start as a concept and a – and a model that, you know, could get out – get outside the walls of the Head Start center. And so, we could really take the comprehensiveness and the health support and the family supports and wrap them around the Child Care – the Child Care placement – the Child Care day. And that was some – sort of a concept that we were really trying to do, like a proof of concepts on that idea. And I think that the teams really inspired us to show that there's something to that and that's a strand that, as a whole field, we continue to think about. We can put it together two different ways. You could wrap Child Care around Head Start; you can also bring some of the wonderful benefits of Head Start to Child Care settings already in the community.

And I just – before I turn it back over to Yvette, I wanted to let you know that part of our commitment – and really, this is the commitment of both offices – but I really want to acknowledge our partners at Office of Head Start. If – to keep this idea going and to try to build on it as best we can, we have a few things coming up that I wanted to be sure you knew about, which would be opportunities to continue talking about this. In June, at our ACF – Administration for Children and Families National Tribal Meeting here in DC, June 6-8, Leech Lake is going to be there presenting on what they were able to do. Then at the Birth to Three Institute the next week, June 11-14, we're going to have three different sessions with five different teams presenting. So, I hope you can take advantage of that. And then in July, in Atlanta from the 26th to the 28th, the National Association for Family Child Care Conference, we're having a discussion with affiliates, we're having a "town hall."

We really want to keep this idea going, but if there's something that's really – you know, we've learned is the leadership here has really been tremendously at the community level and – and at the state level to some degree. At Office of Child Care, we're hoping to drive more state-level leadership too. So, we hope that you'll partner with us on it, and that you'll come to these and that you'll think about how you could help us build on this idea and replicate it in your communities. Yvette? Angie?

Yvette: So, with that I think, on behalf of the Office of Head Start, we just would like to thank everyone for your time today and your participation throughout the week. And we hope that you will be able to take some best practices, resources, and tools back to your communities to share with your community partners, and really move forward in this effort of promoting and providing quality services for all children and families, especially those in our family child care communities. So, thank you, everyone, and have a great weekend.

Holly: Thank you for participating in today's call. You may now disconnect.

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