ZERO TO THREE
August 4, 2011

Sherrie Rudick: Thank you. Thanks. Welcome. Or welcome back, welcome back. Here we are again, a month after our last update webinar. And we’ll use the same format for this third of four update webinars that we’re doing today, so welcome and introduction. A little overview of where we’ve been since the guests gathered last, where we’re going.

And then we’re delighted today to have five teams to join us to share what they’ve been doing, and how they’ve been working on our project. And then questions and answers.

And so I would like to say that our whole team is here. (Betsy Closter) and (Kim Stice) are in the room with me, as is (Kate). And joining us on the call are also (Renee Joiner) and Angela Fisher. And I will now turn it over to Dawn Ramsburg, one of our two federal project officers. Dawn works with State Office of Child Care. Dawn?

Dawn Ramsburg: Good afternoon everyone. I’m going to keep you on – keep this short and keep you on mute because I am not in an enclosed space. And so there’s going to be lots of trains and conversations going by. So I’m going to – I’m going to try and be a little short and quick here.

But I just wanted to welcome everyone this afternoon. And you know, (Angie) and I look forward to these calls very much, because it lets us get a little bit of the hands on as far as what’s going on. I know (Betsy) and her team are in pretty close communication with all of you. And for (Angie) and I, this is a treat to get to sit and listen to where you all are at in the projects.

And I will say, I got to go on a field trip last night to one of the participating programs and see one of the activities that they were doing. And I was so grateful for that opportunity, and just so proud of all the work that’s going on. So welcome to all of you. And I’m going to sit back and listen now. So, thanks.

Sherrie Rudick: Okay. So where have we been ((inaudible)) in the last month? First, we have been to Las Vegas, or at least some of us have. I was delighted to be able to represent the project and to present on our project at the National Association for Family Child Care Conference a couple of weeks ago. And I was joined there by three CCPCs – (Lynn Troianelli), who works with the Hopes CAP Program in New Jersey; Diane Medina, CCPC for the Colorado team; and David Wroblewski, who works with the (Leech Lake) ((inaudible)).

We had a lovely presentation, and not only were our three panelists there, but there were several other programs who were attending the conference who were able to join us. And not only that, but we even had one community partner from Chicanos Por La Causa, who joined us ((inaudible)). It was nice to have so many people who were knowledgeable about our project and so many others who were interested in our project.

We wanted to let you know that there are new materials on Ning and ((inaudible)) we continue to encourage you to join our conversations and join your own conversation on Ning. So update webinar number two has joined update webinar number one on Ning. We’ve got some updates in the articles and resources at – and there are new things in your discussion groups, the CCPC discussion. So don’t forget to check in with Ning.

Tip Sheet Number Two for Administrators – Creating System for Seamless Service Delivery has gone out. And you will shortly be getting the provider version of that tip sheet as well. There were two little tiny typos in the Spanish one that I got this morning. And as soon as those are

fixed, the provider version of that tip sheet will be coming your way as well. And finally, the second edition of News and Views, the issue (who’s seen as) behavior, is also coming out and on your way. Okay. And now I’m going to turn this over to Betsi to move us forward.

Betsi Closter: Good afternoon. And like Dawn, I’m always really excited when this time comes around for us to be able to hear about the work that our – our partnership teams are doing across the country. We’re all moving towards the ultimate goals, and that is a really, quite a wonderful piece for me to be able to share today. Just a reminder, the goals are from the framework. And the framework, as you see it on the screen, shows the continuum of the work that we’re doing. And we’re moving toward those four goals that are in yellow. And I’m just going to give you a brief overview of how that looks for some of the partnership teams and how they’re working.

Teams are working towards higher quality care for low-income children in family child care by doing a number of different things. We’re having a lot of professional development opportunities, designed to increase providers’ capacity to implement best practices. We’re also seeing a lot of skill development on working with children, coming from lots of different backgrounds and with lots of different presentations in terms of how they’re entering into the world of child care. Many programs are developing kits for providers, so that they will have ongoing resources. Some of those are related to oral health and emergency preparedness. They’re very specific. Others are a little bit more general.

They’re giving providers community opportunities to use resource lending libraries. This is happening in several of our communities where Early Head Start and Child Care are bringing together materials, books and resources for providers to check out. Either some are using a voucher fee – a voucher format. Others are just opening it up as a library would ((inaudible)) in a community. So that’s very exciting.

Programs are moving toward coordinating comprehensive services for families by providing professional development to Early Head Start and Child Care staff on infant mental health. This has been a big focus for one of our partnership teams, and we’re really – they’re really looking at how to support parents and family child care providers. Also, multiple funding sources are being used to provide technical assistance to family child care providers on ways that they can support the comprehensive services that families need.

Moving towards the goal of increasing capacity for family child care providers, two of our programs have designed and implemented eight-week and longer sessions on Improving English Language Skills, and particularly the language skills of family child care providers, through a practical vocabulary of child care situations. So providers are actually involved in learning about child development and appropriate practices through learning English language.

Well, they’re also offering support to providers working towards CDA and accreditation. And that’s been a big push in many of the communities as that Family Child Care CDA becomes the one that people are focusing on in order to be able to enroll Early Head Start children. Also a lot

– one community is offering a professional development series for providers on Positive Reciprocal Relationships with Families. And all of these capacity-building opportunities are being offered to all of the providers (in each) community as opposed to a limited amount. So whether or not a provider is choosing to enroll Early Head Start children in there care, they are still able to receive the benefits of this professional development that’s happening across all of the, of the communities we’re working with.

Strong partnerships are beginning to exist in communities to support coordinated service delivery. And we’re seeing that in communities who are beginning to use multiple funding sources to support Child Care and Early Head Start in that ((inaudible)) support. Also in – we’re seeing documents being created that are really looking at the barriers and how to get around them or break them down to seamless service and seamless systems of care. So we have quite a few

very interesting pieces as we’re looking at how programs are moving along a continuum of the framework to get to those four ultimate goals.

Sherrie Rudick: ((Inaudible)). So you’re updated, and now we’re ready for more updates from you. And so we’re really happy that five teams have agreed to be with us today and to share with all of us the work that they’ve been doing since the beginning of the project. And ((inaudible)) we have the team of Bremerton, Washington; Dickinson, North Dakota; Greater Haverhill, Massachusetts; Newport, Vermont; and finally, Phoenix and Yuma, Arizona are with us today. And so I’m going to turn it over now to (Renee Joiner) to introduce the team from Bremerton, Washington.

(Renee Joiner): Good afternoon. And I’m (Renee Joiner). And I’m the proud cohort leader for the Washington Program. And today we have with us (Chris Cuneo), who is the (CCPC) person; Peggy Brown, Assistant Head Start Director; and Family Child Care Partner (Mary Alexander). Welcome, ladies. Well, (Chris)?

Female: ((Inaudible)).

(Renee Joiner): Are you there, (Chris)?

Female: We’re here.

(Renee Joiner): Okay. So would you like to tell us your demographics and then tell us you story?

Peggy Brown: This is Peggy and I’m going to give you our demographics. And we’re an educational service district that has Early Head Start, Head Start, and an ECAP which is our state-funded program. And at this time we do have a program called Child Care Connections that we started in 1998, where we work with family child care providers, but only in our Head Start, not our Early

Head Start. And then I’m going to introduce (Mary Alexander) who is our Child Care Partner. And she’s going to do the rest of our presentation today. So I’m going to turn it over to (Mary).

(Mary Alexander): Okay. So ((inaudible))? Okay, our vision is to integrate Early Head Start in the family child care (homes) by creating partnerships with existing programs through training and technical assistance opportunities. And the way that we’re going to do that, is our first indicator is to get the community stakeholders to become aware of the child care resources, including family child care, and gain the knowledge. And we established a working committee to plan and implement all these projects and activities, including Early Head Start, Child Care Resource and Referral, and our State QR – Quality Rating Improvement Systems staff.

We have community, (the partners) meeting. And that involved 25 community stakeholders and family child care providers, including Head Start Collaboration Office, Olympic Educational Services District, (Assistant) Superintendent, Bremerton City Mayor, Department of Social and Health Services Working Connections, (EHS) Community Services Division, Early Head Start Health District, home visitors, Head Start Family Child Care Coordinators, Division of Early Learning Southwest Services Area Manager, and the Needy Families Child Care Home Provider. And at that meeting, we presented the – a project overview to them. We presented on how family child care supports the Washington State Early Learning Plan.

We represented kids from the Head Start Collaboration Office, described what is being done to support family child care and the state vision – state’s vision. We gave the local Head – Early Head Start perspective to family child care as discussed at an Early Head Start staff training. We discussed the positives and the barriers of becoming an Early Head Start provider. And the feedback – we’re going to use – the feedback will be used to determine the next step in this sustainability plan.

And indicator two was that training and technical assistance will be provided to Family Child Care providers to support ((inaudible)) high-quality services delivery to infants and toddlers and their families. And we have 11 new providers not already involved with our quality rating improvement system received RIE training. We have a creative curriculum for Family Child Care provider training. It’s scheduled for August 13th. And we have 28 registered for that. And each – each of those participants will receive a Family Child Care Manual and enhancement materials. We have

– Managing Challenging Behaviors training is scheduled for September 13th. And we are contracting with a mentor to transition the learned information into practical applications for any providers attending these trainings upon request. And a Resource (Fair) will be held on September 8th – 28th at – or around then – as accumulate -- ((inaudible)) to the training. And I think that’s all we’ve got right now.

(Renee Joiner): Well, that’s plenty for us. Are there any questions for Peggy or for (Mary) as it relates to the Bremerton Program? And this is a case, ladies where – and gentlemen – where we are looking to build the community’s capacity to work with providers and support them in our effort to increase not only the numbers, but the capacity for them to provide them. Are there any questions for my team from Washington? Okay. Having none, I want to thank all of my Washington teams for…

Female: Oh, there’s a question.

(Renee Joiner): Yes, question?

Female: I’m from Vermont. We’re doing something similar. So you’re going ahead of us, for the creative curriculums.

(Renee Joiner): Yes.

Female: So we’re going to want to be in touch with you all about how it went because ours is about a plan for two days a month later.

Female: Okay.

Female: So whatever we can build in for your lessons learned we will take.

(Renee Joiner): Thank you.

Female: All right.

(Renee Joiner): Okay. Being nothing further, I want to thank my Washington team for their input today. And I want to tell you that you’re doing a great job, and keep, keep working at it. Next, we have Dickinson, North Dakota and my CCPC here is Shonda Wild. And she’ll be accompanied by Dr. Sharon Hansen, who’s the Head Start, Early Head Start Director, and Amber Schwab, who is the Child Care on our – a partner in this process. Shonda, are you there?

Shonda Wild: Yes, thank you.

(Renee Joiner): All righty.

Shonda Wild: And I’m going to hand it over to Sharon. She’s going to start us off.

Sharon Hansen: Good afternoon. This is Sharon Hansen. And we have a Community Action Partnership Agency. And we are new both to Early Head Start as well as to the Child Care Partnership. Our partner we chose for child care was our North Dakota Child Care Resource Referral Agency, because we have partnered with them previously and found them a very strong

partner in our area. We are a very rural program. We have – seven of our eight counties are considered frontier counties.

So we have begun our Early Head Start Program by providing home-based services throughout our eight-county area. And we have looked to the family child care option as being a wonderful option for families that live in remote, sparse areas where we’ll never be able to have a center, but families still need to have options for child care. We are building a new center for our Early Head Start Program and looking to, perhaps in June we’ll be able to provide some center-based services in our largest urban area in our county, in our eight counties.

Our vision that we chose when we went into this was that the partnerships that we create with new and existing child care providers would ensure high-quality care for all of our low-income children living in Southwest North Dakota. Because I’m not sure what other areas are like, but we have an extreme shortage of licensed child care in our rural areas. And now, Shonda Wild, who’s our Child Care Partnership Coordinator is going to talk a little bit about some of the earlier activities that we took on. And then Amber Schwab and I will close out with some of the things that we’re doing now and where we’re headed.

Shonda Wild: So the first indicator on our slide is Community Partners and ((inaudible)) child care providers become knowledgeable about the Early Head Start in Family Child Care. We hosted a community partners informational luncheon, first of all. And at this luncheon, we had the State Early Childhood Administrator and the Head Start Collaborator welcome everyone to the event and express their support of the Early Head Start Family Child Care Project. And then we felt that the event was very successful. We were able to inform the partners of our vision, and we were able to also receive some suggestions from them on how to recruit Early Head Start Family Child Care providers.

One of their suggestions was to create a brochure and to have that brochure talk a little bit about the project or about becoming an Early Head Start Family Child Care provider. And we are currently working on that. And Sharon will talk about that in a little bit. We also partnered with the licensors within this region in an event for existing child care providers. We had about 150 people attend the event and listen to the importance of supporting development during the early years, as well as they also listened to why – why there is (once a year) Early Head Start Family Child Care option and what ((inaudible)) and how they can become an Early Head Start Family Child Care provider.

We provided a wonderful resource (bag) for each provider that attended this event. It included activity resource book, and (shakers) and ((inaudible)) and (blacks) and books ((inaudible)) (using) large (crayons). We also had on each table a postcard that they could complete and leave at the event and let us – I mean, this will inform us if they are interested in becoming an Early Head Start Family Child Care provider. So we felt that the event really was ((inaudible)) to learn about how to work with other partners. It was a little bit ((inaudible)), but yet it was overall very good. And we learned that we can have a stronger – and we can continue to build that relationship with the licensors. And now Amber’s (taking on).

Amber Schwab: Good afternoon. Another indicator that we worked on was to educate the community, including the Family Child Care providers, the community leaders, licensors and (R&R) agencies on why Early Head Start is a positive thing to have in our community. And by doing this, we were working jointly with different agencies to promote different professional development trainings.

One was working with the local (RICC) members to have them invite the Family Child Care providers and Early Head Start staff to any provider development trainings that they would sponsor in the area – in the Dickinson area.

Another option or another activity that we worked on was to have the Early Head Start invite the Family Child Care providers and actually some of the other community members to a training

hosted by – presented by Dr. (Terry Rose). We received a lot of feedback, positive feedback from that event. We had – in the morning, we had the Early Head Start providers, some (CCR and our) staff as well as Early Intervention staff (as in that). And also in the – and then that evening we had 20 child care providers attend a night training for them to attend.

Sharon Hansen: This is Sharon Hansen. And I’ll be closing. Shonda alluded earlier to the brochure that we developed that has been completed and one of the things that we’re doing with our brochure – it’s going to be left with (our county) licensors. It’s going to be left with our child care resource and referral as they go out and recruit new providers, as well as with our regional supervisor of child care to really, you know, encourage existing providers to consider Early Head Start as a partner, as well as to increase people that are even thinking about getting into child care to partner, by helping them understand the kinds of resources that Early Head Start can help them. Together with Early Head Start and Child Care Resources, we really can guide them into providing high-quality care.

One of the events that we’re really excited about is an event that we have on August 11th. Again, now these were the postcards that were turned in from providers who were interested in – in becoming partners, as well as, we decided not just to limit it to them, because (we) thought, well, maybe hearing about it three times is the charm. So we did go out and invite the other child care providers in the area again. And this time we’re going to get very specific. I have sample contract partnership agreements drawn up that we’ll be reviewing so they can really have an opportunity to discuss the specifics of what’s in it for us, and how can this partnership benefit all of the children that we’re serving in our southwest part of the state. That concludes our presentation, unless there’s any questions for us.

(Renee Joiner): Okay. Sharon, thank you, and Amber and them – Shonda. Are there any questions for my North Dakota team? Okay, being none, ladies, I want to thank you for your work and your dedication and your spirit to the effort. And although you don’t have a yet, I see it in your future.

So that’s my crystal ball story for you. Next I think we’re going to have Angela Fisher who’s the cohort leader for the Massachusetts Program. Angela, are you there?

Angela Fisher: Yes, I am, Renee. Thank you.

(Renee Joiner): All righty.

Angela Fisher: Good afternoon, everyone. I, like Renee, am very proud to introduce the Massachusetts team. I’ll start out with the CCPC, (Judith Previer), and the Community Action, Inc. Director, Deborah Linett – good to have you – their EHS partner, (Sharon Smith); and their Child Care partner, (Robin Brooks). So (Judith), please, take it away.

(Judith Previer): Thank you, Angela. I’m sitting here at the table with the Massachusetts team. And ((inaudible)) the Head Start Director is going to start us off.

Deborah Linett: Hello, everybody. I’m very excited to be with you all this afternoon. This is, as a reference point, we are a Community Action Agency. And we have a Head Start Program with 214 children. And we also have a Family Child Care system with approximately 200 children and 50 licensed Family Child Care providers. We are a newly-funded Early Head Start Program. We received funding in January 2010 for 72 infants and toddlers and 12 pregnant moms. And our original design included offering three options to – to our parents: center-based, home-based and family child care. And maybe we can take a look at our vision.

Female: ((Inaudible))

Deborah Linett: ((Inaudible)). Oh, there we go. So what we wanted to do – we really wanted to offer families the opportunities to either enroll in center-based or family child care. And so we wanted to expand those opportunities in our service area. Many of our Family Child Care providers are

already – already have CDAs, and they already have very high qualifications, and are doing quality work before we even got funded. So we were really excited about this opportunity, this pilot project, because we ran into some difficulties during the first six months of our – of our grant.

So, our providers are already qualified educators that meet the Head Start qualifications for providing care. And so we’ve designed an Early Head Start Family Child Care Manual that took many, many hours to coordinate. And this manual is comprehensive, but it is still a work in progress. And so we are very excited because we have selected three providers from a group of about 20 eligible providers… I think I’m starting to go over my time.

But what I’m very excited about that I don’t think will come out in this presentation is that the Policy Council is very active in this, in this project. And so they are going out on visits and doing observations and coming back and learning all about Family Child Care. And they are also our ambassadors in the community regarding this – this pilot and Family Child Care. So that was a little extra bonus to the project that we really hadn’t counted on. But it is very exciting working with the Policy Council on this. So I am going to stop talking, and I’m going to introduce (Sharon Smith) who is the Early Head Start Manager.

(Sharon Smith): Thank you, Deborah. I’m going to address indicator one, which is Community Action, Early Head Start and family day care staff, understand the Head Start performance standards and Mass. Child – Massachusetts Child Care regulations as they relate to the Early Head Start and Family Child Care option. As soon as we got back from the initial training in January, we started meeting weekly. And, as Deborah said, the outcome of the meetings between the Family Child Care leader staff and the Early Head Start leader staff was the developing of this massive manual that we’ve (begun).

In mid-February, we had a very successful luncheon meeting with the – all of the Early Head Start staff and the Family Child Care staff. There were a lot of questions that came out of that meeting,

a lot of clarifications. And we felt that everybody left a lot more comfortable with the Early Head Start (and Parent) Child Care option than they, than they had been previously. We then did two parent informational meetings, and we also invited interested community groups to those meetings. They were not as well attended as we would have liked. But we felt that they were very informational for the people who did attend the meetings.

As Deborah previously stated, we just this past week went out along with a Policy Council member to visit several providers. And (Robin), who’s a Family Child Care Director, has already gone over the contract – Early Head Start Family Child Care contract – with the providers. And we – the providers that we choose from the visits we did, we will be doing an informational informal interview with them, and we’re hopefully closely approaching having our first child enrolled in the program. We’ve been doing – it’s in the summer, we have – we haven’t had a lot of chance to meet with community groups. But Deborah has met with CPC and Healthy Families. We have met with Early Intervention and will be doing more of these community meetings in the future. And I’m going to pass off now to (Robin), the Family Child Care Director.

(Robin Brooks): Hello, everyone. I’m happy to be here. I’m very excited to be part of this project. And you know, the fortunate thing for us is that we do work under the same agency, and we work very closely, and we respect each other’s work. And we come from different directions, but our vision and our goals are the same. And as Deborah said, I have 50 Family Child Care providers or educators.

The State of Massachusetts has changed their title. They are now educators. And we subcontract with them, and we provide technical assistance, training; we have about 230 children enrolled in our program who are in the ((inaudible)) Parent Program, a voucher child care program, income-eligible, and through the Department of Children and Families for Child Abuse and Neglect. So my staff is very wide-ranged. And we also have a transportation program that transports children in the Family Day Care Program.

Out of the 50 Family Child Care providers, I would say 75 percent of my educators have their CDA or higher education. The State of Massachusetts is very dedicated to increasing the quality of care in center-based and in Family Child Care and offers scholarships and tuition and extra trainings. And so our providers have been very fortunate over the years to have that extended education. We have, as everybody has said, we’ve worked very hard and very closely and many hours spent working with Head Start, Early Head Start and the Family Child Care staff to ensure that our policies and procedures are in alignment. Because, you know, you have subcontractors and not employees. So we have to very careful about how we handle those situations.

So we have done, I feel, like a very great – a good job. And we are soon to have that rolling out. We also hired a child development specialist who is kind of our liaison between the Early Head Start Program and Family Child Care. She is a home visitor for Family Child Care for 30 hours, and will be working 10 additional hours for the Early Head Start Family Child Care Project.

Some of the activities that we have done is that the staff and educators will be participating in some ongoing professional development opportunities that are not currently covered in our area, which is the core competency workshops. We have those scheduled. The first one starts at the end of this month. And they’re going to be four three-hour sessions. So we’re very excited about that, pending approval.

And then sustainability for the fall will be the Creative Curriculum for Family Child Care, introducing the Creative Curriculum Goal. Also another training is the – the (supple) training, and then Strengthening Families. So that’s what we have in the near future – and I’m sure that this is going to be a work in progress, and we will continue to move forward and increase the quality of child care in our community. That’s it. Thank you.

Deborah Linett: And that concludes the Massachusetts presentation.

Angela Fisher: Thank you so much, (Judith), Deborah, Sharon and (Robin). You guys have done just amazing work. I have read the 300 plus manual, and truly we really appreciate all of your hard work. And we look forward to your core competency workshops. I just look forward to receiving all the documentation, because I’m excited about what you guys are doing in Massachusetts. Are there any questions for the Massachusetts team?

(Robin Brooks): I just want to say, on behalf of the Family Child Care Program, that we’ve been very lucky to have such a supportive Head Start and Early Head Start staff, and also to have (Judy) part of our team because without her, I’m not sure if we would have been able to get through some of these stepping stones.

Angela Fisher: Thank you, (Robin). Well, thank you to each and every one of you. If there are no other questions for the Massachusetts team at this time, I’m going to introduce the Northeast Kingdom, the Vermont team. And again, if you have additional questions that arise, you can always ask them at the end of the webinar. So the Vermont team consists of – the Northeast Kingdom team consists of the CCPC, which is Helen Keith.

We have Linda Michniewicz who is the Director of the Child and Family Development program for both Early Head Start and Head Start on the call. And we also have (Diane Mueller) who is the – represents our Early Head Start partner. And she’s a Family Child Care Partnership Manager, if I’m correct. And (Maria Sullivan) I understand is not on the call with us. But she is their Child Care partner and represent – her title is the Child Care Resource Development Specialist. So at this time, I would like to turn it over to Helen.

Helen Keith: Thank you, Angela. We’re very happy to be here. We’re all in the same room with the exception of (Marie) who’s on a well-deserved vacation. And she is a very strong partner and has really helped to make this work beautifully, and has been very excited about it. So I’m kind of

filling in for her. But right now what I’d like to do is start it off with Linda Michniewicz talking about the local area and the project and the vision.

Linda Michniewicz: Hi, good afternoon. Greetings from the Northeast Kingdom. We are Northeast Kingdom Community Action, Head Start and Early Head Start. Our grantee is – our agency serves 99 Early Head Start children. Ninety-one of the children are in home-based services; eight are in center-based services; and 27 of those 99 children were – are expansion project. Twenty-seven Early Head Start slots were added to our program. We also have 184 Head Start children. And of the 184 children, 24 are currently enrolled in Family Child Care Partnership Option. And so that’s what made this project really interesting to us, thinking about this option for our Early Head Start children.

And so our vision – our vision, as you can see, is to continue to work with our local and ((inaudible)) partners to increase the connections between us – Family Child Care and Early Head Start and other networks of comprehensive services – to build Family Child Care capacity, their efforts to offer high-quality, comprehensive services to low-income families, infants and toddlers in need of child care.

So now Helen is going to take over and talk about our first indicator, number one.

Helen Keith: And I’m speaking for (Marie) who actually is with Kingdom Child Care, which is under – is part of an agency called Umbrella, which is a women’s support, primarily women’s support agency that does all kinds of programming to prevent and intervene with domestic violence and to support families. And part of that supporting of families is to offer the community child care support agency services which are inclusive of Child Care Resource and Referral in Vermont.

So indicator one – family child care providers participate in surveys of their program and professional needs. And the main – the main activities that have been going on, is that we are

headed for a fairly large event that we’re doing recruitment for, and spending a lot of time with local groups and providers and using the resource and referral list as well as the Head Start expertise and Early Head Start expertise, to make this training event – the professional development event in September, which is two days using the Teaching Strategies Creative Curriculum for Family Child Care as our major event for 50 Family Child Care providers in this area who would become part of a readiness pool, becoming ready to be a partner with Early Head Start. So a lot has occurred. We can go to the next slide – the planning of the professional development efforts. We want to make sure that that two-day event is actually grounded in reality for the family childcare providers here. So we have been working with teaching strategies. And among ourselves, to make sure that we're (scaffolding) things that are meaningful to the providers and that relate to things that they are already doing.

So we are taking for example, we are looking at foundations, such as the Program for Infant Toddler Caregivers. We have spent a lot of time up here and throughout the state with (speckles) and using that approach. So we have (TICC), we have Creative Curriculum for Family Childcare and (Speckle). And we have the stars program which is our QRIS.

We're trying to build the (scaffolding) so that we can ground that particular training, Creative Curriculum for Family Childcare in what's been going on here. And how, regardless of whatever name is called. How these best practices are going to work here, and what kind of follow-up there can be to make sure that the implementation is good.

And the other aspect of it is to just not use so many acronyms on this, but to leave in the creative curriculum information into actually what's already going on.

So we're also in Vermont, there is this symbiotic connection to everything that goes on at the state and at the local regions. And so we have created a State ((inaudible)) Group, which is also whatever is occurring as we plan these events, it's very informative to the state, and then they are

informative back. Because these issues that we are discovering around the you know the need for coaching and follow-up, and not having enough resources to pull that off, that's a statewide issue. We have that in other aspects of big event type trainings that are going on.

You know banner trainings like gold and you know we just really have identified some issues that are key to the state and other regions. So we have developed a communication with – back and forth what the states ((inaudible)) people on the issues of professional development.

So we're very happy. We're well into our professional development planning of our event. And then the other aspect of that is that we're helping to increase the capacity of this readiness pool by offering (CDA) training for those who need it to about 10 providers, in addition to what they would be getting in this professional development.

So now on comes (Diane) who is the Manager for the Head Start Family Childcare Program.

(Diane): Good afternoon. We currently have 10 family childcare providers enrolled in the option right now. And we're working on indicator two. And that is for Early Head Start and the childcare referral agency to have a clearly defined partnership, which supports the provision of quality comprehensive services to infants and toddlers.

We’re really hoping by doing this agreement, it’s really going to cut down on a lot of the duplication that we're seeing in the trainings and what's happening in our local state and that works with the family childcare providers.

We're going to hopefully be doing some advertisements together incorporating that on posters. And we're going to be working on a calendar of training events so everyone can see ahead of time what's going to happen for trainings. And we also – we'd really like to start incorporating the

professional development plans that we're doing with our providers to see what their training needs are that we're developing this calendar.

So I really see this as a step in the right direction. So everyone is on the same page as far as training events. Thank you.

(Linda): This is (Linda) again. And I am going to just review the last indicator, indicator three. Which is – refers to as (Helen) had mentioned the (mini) group. And this is a state-level (mini) group. This is one of the – for me, one of the pieces of this project that I haven't really been involved, in. It's really been exciting.

And our indicator is that the state level stakeholders are aware of their roles and responsibilities to support successful ((inaudible)) of Early Head Start in family childcare.

So some of the activities that have occurred, we convened (at the) state level (mini) group several months ago. They have been very active and very, very supportive of our project, I would say.

They have been approximately two meetings a month, I would say and regular communications through lots of e-mail. We have sponsored some outreach education activities, particularly to the Vermont Childcare Provider Association. The Vermont Head Start Director's Association and our state agency for – so that includes the ((inaudible)) administrative ((inaudible)) Head Start State Collaboration Office interim director. Our workforce development in Children's Integrated Services directors and of course our licensing and our (QRIS) (STARS) is what we call that in Vermont, which is our Step Ahead Recognition System.

Another exciting activity that – well it's under activity, but it's another exciting thing that happened through this, is that we – our project is now in the (CCDF) state plan. As well as in the Head Start State Collaboration Office state plan.

And through all these connections at the state level, we have recently found out about a private foundation who shares similar interests or goals, I guess I would say as this project. And you know so aligned it's amazing. And so we have just – I mean this is in the last week or so that we have just started to make those connections. And I guess our team just sees the possibilities for some sustainability; particularly around what many people have mentioned today, around the mentorship, and that ongoing support for the providers.

And I think – I think – did I miss anything? Oh, we have a September meeting on sustainability and the projects successes and our next steps on issues such as alignment. And I believe that's it.

Angela: Thank you so much, (Linda). Are there any questions for the Vermont team? No questions at this time. I'd like to thank (Helen), (Linda), and (Diane). And give our thanks to (Marie) as well. You know you guys' work again is just incredibly exciting. And every time you know we get pieces of documentation, you would be amazed how excited we all are. We can't even express it through e-mail. So thank you so much for the hard work and all of your great plans for sustainability.

So like I said, I am a very proud cohort leader for the Massachusetts and Vermont teams. So thank you for joining us this afternoon.

And at this time, I would like to turn it over to (Kim Stice), the next cohort leader who is going to introduce the Phoenix team. (Kim)?

(Kim Stice): Thank you, (Angela). I am very proud to introduce this next team. They are a very hardworking, very organized group that has accomplished so much over these past few months. And I can't wait for them to tell you just a bit about the amount of work that they have accomplished.

First, joining us today is (Lorenaa Larios-Magana), the (CCPT) for the team. And not with her, but actually calling in from the – A family Childhood Forum in California, bless her heart, they stepped out of this forum to be sure to be a part of this call today, are the Early Head Start partner, pardon me. The Migrant Early Head Start Partner, (Arturo Magana). And the Childcare Partner (Rosalia Ramirez). And joining them today is another person who I think is just about a virtual member of the team who has supported them along the way. We're so pleased to have a guest with us today with his team, (Sandy Garrison) from the Department of Economic Security in the Childcare Administration.

(Lorena), please taka minute to tell us about your team, and introduce us.

(Lorena Larios-Magana): Hello, hi, this is (Lorena Larios-Magana). I was on mute, so it took a little while to unmute.

I am not sure, maybe (Arturo) and (Rosalia) can talk a little bit about the introduction.

(Arturo Magana): Sure.

(Lorena Larios-Magana): Okay.

(Arturo Magana): This is (Arturo Magana). We are down in ((inaudible)) California. Actually, (Kim), we did take some time off for this lunchtime here. So hopefully you guys will feel very guilty about it. ((Inaudible)) is ((inaudible)) Community Development Corporation. One o the programs that we have is a much – the Head Start Program.

Principally the Migrant ((inaudible)) Head Start Program as a full grantee in southern Arizona.

We have 840 (slots) under the migrant ((inaudible)). We have 110 slots of Early Head Start. And

partners Child and Family Resources is based in Tucson, Arizona. And ((inaudible)) they have a multiple programs, which ((inaudible)) community and ((inaudible)) city (R&R) program.

Both of our organizations are urban and rural, meaning that even though we're based in urban cities, Tucson and ((inaudible)) a lot of our activities happen to be the rural. The project that we are ((inaudible)) administration project is being run out of ((inaudible)) in the ((inaudible)).

Neighboring California and Mexico.

Male: ((inaudible)).

(Arturo Magana): I am ready to move on to the next slide. Let's see. The ((inaudible)) like I said before, we are doing the (family shelter) demonstration project in ((inaudible)) County. Our vision is that ((inaudible)) County is a community of people, organizations and ((inaudible)) supportive of a culture that for most ((inaudible)) children and with through informal and formal collaboration with the school, ((inaudible)) and then ((inaudible)) organizations, and (Learning Childcare Professionals that lead to a higher level of educational achievement for all children.

(Rosalia Ramirez): And good afternoon, everybody. I am (Rosalia Ramirez) and I am the partner for – from Child & Family Resources. And we're very excited to have been given the opportunity to partner with ((inaudible)) to implement this project in our community. Our first indicator is that ((inaudible)) Early Head Start has a collaborative relationship and well-articulated documented partnership with (FCC) providers in their service area.

And some of the activities that we have been working on to kind of get this started. When we first came back from our training in January, one of our missions to accomplish first, and we're very pleased that (Sandy Garrison) was able to join us, was to court our local family or childcare administration. And (Sandy) is a program director there in (Yuma) County.

Actually, she covers a big part of the state. But covers there (Uman) County. And so in establishing an (FCC) team, if you will. We thought it was absolutely critical that she join us in that venture. And she within five minutes of discussion was absolutely on board with that. And part of her team is the monitors that kind of come in and work with the providers. The certified providers in (Yuma) County.

And so she is a part of our team there. And so the first part of it was a planning. A planning – provider meetings to kind of feel out the current certified providers and see what the interest was. Informing them of this option. And seeing if – what kind of buy-in we would get from the current – we'll call then (DES) providers. There is a provider – they're certified through the Department of Economic Security.

And so we hosted our first (FCC) provider meeting. There is a lot of meetings that were held leading us to that in terms of planning, and how we were going to get the providers to come. Didn't know what to expect. Overwhelming response. And so there was a total of 78 providers that were in attendance. And of course a lot of them multiple and said well we had well over 100 total people that were in attendance.

And a part of that – so we did – we had interest forms that were developed as part of that to kind of see what kind of interest we would have. And so we also collected educational information from them, how many of them had (CDAs), were working on (CDAs) have their associate degrees. And in between that we also had debrief meetings with our (FCC) team to identify and select a cohort of family childcare providers of those and worked on developing and modifying our trend lines.

And so of that, we're hoping to have a selected group of 26 childcare providers that will be a cohort. We also worked on developing professional development modules, which will include Head Start performance standards, some of the other training topics included in that are the

environment. Just all the different types of trainings that we felt were critical in terms of beginning the process of the caring for children and the family childcare option.

We have an ad hock committee which includes – we have the early childhood – the department head from our local community college who is involved in that with helping us develop some of the training opportunities that we thought are needed for some of these training things. And then from that we hope that we will identify and select a core group of six (FCC) providers that will serve as mentors to the – the providers that will actually be implementing the option.

(Arturo Magana): As you can see, that has been the highlight of our process this year. And so as ((inaudible)) mentioned, ((inaudible)) has been instrumental in not only informing the community providers, but also allowing us to have a ((inaudible)) from the providers themselves.

The picture there, as you can see is a picture of the (78) providers in attendance and us up front. Our next indicator is the indicator number two where ((inaudible)) developed a clearly defined documented plan for the relationship between Early Head Start and family childcare providers.

Part of that has been the development and recruitment and selection policy that we have done through the various planning and groups that we have had as a result of our (FCC) provider meetings.

Something that we don't mention here, but we also had a stakeholder meeting that was attended by Mr. ((inaudible)) who is the director for ((inaudible)). The other activity was to create job descriptions, procedures, and (forms) specific to the family childcare option. That we are – well we actually rolled it out back in June.

And right now we're in the middle of writing our ((inaudible)). One of the things that happened as a result of the family childcare demonstration project was that we had been a ((inaudible)) looking at the family childcare option last summer. I attended a family childcare program for ((inaudible))

City and then another one in ((inaudible)). And that was around the time that we were first introduced to the family childcare option.

Our director, (Andrea Martinez) started looking at more and with interest when we learned about the family childcare demonstration process because in reality, that allowed us to give us some of the resources and the planning and the timeline to develop our own model of the family childcare demonstration project. And I am very happy to inform everybody that on January 1 we submitted our continuation application for the Migrant ((inaudible)) Head Start.

And we included the family childcare option in our grant. We are starting for this pilot ((inaudible)) program, ((inaudible)). And we are in the middle of developing ((inaudible)) job description. And hopefully we will have our first staff working for the family childcare option on September 1.

Female: ((inaudible)).

Female: And I don't know, ((inaudible)) if you would like to add any additional activities. As was mentioned earlier, there has been a lot of work that has gone on over the last several months. So ((inaudible)) has just been instrumental in keeping us on task and organized. So ((inaudible)) is there anything that we might have missed that has been happening over the last few months?

Female: Well I just think it's important to mention how the ad hoc committee and the stakeholder committee are working along with the project. So from the ad hock, I mean from the stakeholder committee, we recruited a subgroup for our ad hock committee to do kind of a different type of work with us. So let me just kind of give you the difference between the two committees. The stakeholder – we're calling it the Stakeholder Advisory Committee. We have developed rules and responsibilities for that committee.

And part of their work is to help us develop the selection criteria. Or recruitment policy for providers. So they're going to be helping us with that work. They're also going to be helping us in developing the contrast for providers, and developing roles and responsibilities for the mentors.

Lastly, with that group, what we intend to do is, that is hopefully in the – I believe in the September or October meeting we're going to discuss sustainability with the group and how we can continue this work during the implementation space.

So that is going to happen in the next four months. With that particular group. The ad hock committee is a subgroup of that group. And they're job mainly is to go over the content area plans, the procedures, and the forms.

The ((inaudible)) staff, the content area coordinators are currently working on those three things. And after – and we have deadlines for each of those. The deadlines for the content area plan is coming up soon. The ad hock committee will review the content area plans August 9. And then the procedures are reviewed the following month, and then the forms – the month after that.

So each committee has two different things that are going on. It's a lot of work. And we're just really, really pleased with the group of people that we have because a lot of them are some programs that are directly working with (FCC) providers already.

We have the ((inaudible)) program who is working with some of the group there. We have other programs that are working with the Arizona Self Study project who are doing work with the providers.

So these – most of the group that we have are already doing some type of service for them. And we're all trying to kind of get together and make sure that we have a system that is flowing not

only with this option, but within the community since there is going to be multiple visitors coming into the family childcare provider's home.

So at the end of this project, we want to make sure that we have that kind of flowing well within the community and that everybody understands what the option is, and what is required from Head Start as far as the Head Start Performance Standards.

So they're also learning that process. And so when providers have questions, whoever is in their home assisting them with whatever area of work they are doing, they are familiar with the option and the Head Start Performance Standards.

So that is part of the work that is being done with this group. Like I said, they are very excited, and they are often e-mailing me about you know questions and eager to participate. So if you guys want to add anything. (Sandy), would you like to add something to that?

(Sandy Garrison): Actually, I just really want to add that this has been a great opportunity for the Family Childcare Providers here in (Yuma) County. They are a great bunch of workers. They enjoy children. And they're looking forward to this new adventure. So this has just been a natural step in the progression of early childhood education for all the children here.

(Arturo Magana): Thank you, (Sandy).

(Sandy Garrison): Yes.

(Kim): Thank you to all of you for contributing today and giving us a glimpse into the hard work that you have done. Before I hand it back over to (Sherrie), does anyone have any questions for the ((inaudible)) team?

If not, then I will thank you once again for sharing, and all of the hard work that you have done. And I am so pleased to be your cohort leader and be a part of this tremendous change that you are creating for your community.

And now I will hand things back over to (Sherrie).

(Sherrie): Thank you, (Kim). And so I get to say thank you to all five teams that have joined us, and then shared with us today. And you know I know I say this every time. But you know I get a lot of the paperwork on my desk here. Work plans come my way, and the revised budgets.

And so I really love these webinars because hearing from you is so much more exciting, and so much more rewarding than just reading the pieces of paper. I can hear the enthusiasm and the commitment in your voices. And it doesn't show up quite as well on the piece of paper, so thanks to all of you.

And just to end the day, just two things to look forward to. Our last update Webinar, the last – the fourth of four, will take place on September 20 from 3:00 to 4:30. And again, we'll look at where we have been and where we're going. But at that point, the been will have been larger than the where we're going, since we'll be just a month out from the end of our project at that point.

But we'll have again, the teams that have not yet had a chance to share. And we'll have a lot to share at that update webinar.

And finally, the last time that we'll all gather together, hopefully, all of us at the Zero to Three NTI, or National Training Institute in Washington on December 8. That will be our ((inaudible)) event and our project showcase. And you might be interested by the way of knowing, that the (impetus) for doing that final event came at a meeting that we attended with (Shannon Rudisill), the Director of the Office of Childcare, and (event functions Wednesday), Director of the Office of Head Start.

So they had the idea that we should have a final event to pull everything together and celebrate and update. And then actually the rest of the story is that we were in the taxicab on the way back to the Office of Head Start after that meeting.

And (Lynette Fraga), who at that point supervised programs in Zero to Three, said let's attach that to the Zero to Three's really important event, the National Training Institute. So we moved ahead with that. And in the next week, you'll get thank you's, those of you by the way who have RSVP’d, we have got 48 people I think who are coming. Some of you and of course your team members.

And we'll be sending out information next week that will tell you how to register and make your prime reservations and all of that kind of stuff.

All right.

(Helen): (Sherrie)?

(Sherrie): Yes?

(Helen): About that showcase?

(Sherrie): Yes.

(Helen): About that showcase, this is (Helen) from Vermont.

(Sherrie): Yes, (Helen).

(Helen): Did the team members get invited yet?

(Sherrie): They all – everybody got invited, yes. All the team members and the (CCPCs). And I don't have the list in front of me, (Helen), as to has RSVP’d. But we're hoping that your team members did.

(Helen): Well, we have a couple that have said that they are not sure they did. So if it's possible, you could just e-mail me again, and I can roll it over to them, or you can do it directly.

(Sherrie): ((Inaudible)) okay.

(Helen): Thank you, so much.

(Sherrie): You're welcome. Thanks for letting us know. Any more questions for anyone?

Female: We have one …

Female: Hello?

(Sherrie): Yes.

(Lorena Larios-Magana): This is (Lorena) in Arizona. I have posed the question on the question little thing. But I heard that the manual was about 300 pages long. But I wasn't sure if that was something they could share? I didn't know it was 300 pages. For the – what's the – Massachusetts team, I think? (Greater Haverhill’s) ((Inaudible))?

Female: Yes.

Female: Yes.

Female: We're here. Yes we didn't – it is a huge manual. But we are interested in sharing that for anyone who is interested. If you want it, get in touch with us by e-mail. Where it's so large, we have a PDF file, I could send that out. I am not sure if there are other options. You know we're open to suggestions.

Female: You can post it on (Ning).

Female: Even though – that's what I was thinking. Is it too large for (Ning)? Or can we post it?

Female: It shouldn't be. You can start a discussion, or you can – if you have troubles, you can just contact me or ((inaudible)) and I can help talk you through it.

Female: Okay. We can do that.

Female: It shouldn’t be too large. We got video files on there that are huge ((inaudible)). But I think the website supports it.

Female: Okay. And will there be a way to write a little introduction to that because we do want everyone to know that even though it is massive and very comprehensive that it is on a tool that will be added to and as we use it we’re going to find – yes we’ll update it and we’re going to find that there are other things we know we’re going to want to add. So, we just want everyone to know that if they see something that they think could have been more complete that we probably thought the same thing in putting in like today.

Female: Sure. We can – feel free to email me and we can either – we can start a discussion and post it there or we can post it on ((inaudible)) article sections where there are other resources or we can do both. So, just let me know.

(Angela): And (Judith), this is (Angela). You might also want to include that your hard copy the manual is divided into various sections. So, when people view your PDF they may not see that.

(Judith): Correct.

(Angela): Exactly. You might just want to put that in your notes.

(Judith): Okay.

Female: How soon you’ll think you’ll have it on there?

Female: I would say it would probably – I can do it today. If the process is smooth, I can do it even later on today or tomorrow morning. If there’s any difficulty getting it actually posted on that website then it could take a little bit longer. But the actual file, I have available so it shouldn’t be too much of a job.

Female: Great. Thank you.

Female: Okay. A few minutes left for final questions. Any other have come in?

Female: Someone asked if they can repeat the manual via email. ((Inaudible)).

Female: Okay. Thank you everybody. It was lovely to be with you this afternoon and we’ll see all of you back again on September 20th we hope. Bye-bye.

Female: Bye.

 

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