6.1 Supporting the Child Care Workforce

Lead Agencies have broad flexibility to implement policies and practices to support the child care workforce. 6.1.1 Strategies to improve recruitment, retention, compensation, and well-being a. Identify any Lead Agency activities related to strengthening workforce recruitment and retention of child care providers. Check all that apply: i. ☐ X Providing program-level grants to support investments in staff compensation. ii. ☐ X Providing bonuses or stipends paid directly to staff, like sign-on or retention bonuses. iii. ☐ Connecting family child care providers and center-based child care staff to health insurance or supporting premiums in the Marketplace. iv. ☐ Subsidizing family child care provider and center-based child care staff retirement benefits. v. ☐ Providing paid sick, personal, and parental leave for family child care providers and center-based child care staff. vi. ☐ Providing student loan debt relief or loan repayment for family child care providers and center-based child care staff. vii. ☐ X Providing scholarships or tuition support for center-based child care staff and family child care providers. viii. ☐ X Other. Describe: Supporting the early learning and care (ELC) workforce by providing stipends/incentives for professional development, higher education, and permit/permit renewal. b. Describe any Lead Agency ongoing efforts and future plans to assess and improve the compensation of the child care workforce in the State or Territory, including increasing wages, bonuses, and stipends. The lead agency invests in several programs that support the workforce via stipends and financial incentives. The Quality Counts California Workforce Pathways Grant supports local level administrators to provide stipends and financial incentives to the workforce. Examples include providing tuition, fee payments, or stipends for ELC workforce to complete 21 hours of professional development to address their competency gaps or advancement; providing tuition, fee payments, or stipends for ELC workforce to complete ongoing professional development for the Child Development Permit renewal; or Supporting members of the workforce to earn 24 units of Early Childhood Education/Child Development (ECE/CD) + 16 units of General Education. In addition to the WPG, the workforce is eligible to receive stipends through the Child Development Trainings Consortium, which provides stipends for attaining permits. The California Child Care Initiative Project (CCIP) also provides incentives to license exempt providers to support health and safety training and licensure. The State also made historic investments in the workforce via American Rescue Plan Act Provider stipends pursuant to legislation, including AB 110 and AB 179, and through the successor Agreement between the State and Child Care Providers United (CCPU), which improved compensation through payment based on enrollment, Cost of Care Plus Rate payments through the duration of the agreement, (which ends July 1, 2025), and through a road map to move to a Single Rate Structure-based on an alternative methodology that utilizes a cost estimation model to inform rate setting. c. Describe any Lead Agency ongoing efforts and future plans to expand access to benefits, including health insurance, paid sick, personal, and parental leave, and retirement benefits. The State reached a successor collective bargaining agreement with CCPU in June 2023. The two-year agreement provides funding for the creation and ongoing support for a retirement benefit trust and a health benefits trust. These supports are available to family child care providers and are administered by CCPU. The State contribution does not require the State to assume any administrative or fiduciary responsibilities with respect to the trusts. Annually, CCPU will provide required reports to inform California Department of Social Services (CDSS) of how much funding is needed to fully restore the balance of the trusts. d. Describe any Lead Agency ongoing efforts and future plans to support the mental health and well-being of the child care workforce. The CDSS funds the California Infant and Early Childhood Mental Consultation (IECMHC) Network to support the mental health and well-being of not only the children in child care but of the child care workforce as well. The IECMHC Network provides tiered levels of support for child care providers to access free of charge. The Network offers a toll-free helpline where child care providers can call to receive immediate help with issues they may be having in their child care setting and IECMHC Specialists also provide linkages for child care providers who need information on how to access community resources to support their own mental health. Child care providers can also join one of the IECMCH open-door drop-in sessions held monthly or join a Community of Support held monthly, where they can get support from other child care providers and learn about a variety of topics on supporting children’s mental health and their own mental health and self-care. Child care provides can also request direct consultation through the IECMHC Network where they will be matched up with an IECMCH Consultant to work directly with them over the course of many months to support the child care provider in learning how to support the needs of the children in their care and their own self-care. This is an ongoing effort supported by CDSS and additional funds were added in the 2023-24 budget to directly partner with Resource and Referral agencies to reach more local child care providers to share information and training. Additional funds have also been allocated to increase the number of providers who can receive direct consultation between 2023-26. e. Describe any other strategies the Lead Agency is developing and/or implementing to support providers’ recruitment and retention of the child care workforce. The California Early Childhood Mentor Program (CECMP) provide stipends and honorariums to mentors participating in the CECMP. The CECMP will allocate and issue stipends and honorariums to select colleges, participants, Tribal Child Care partners, and to Alternative Pathway Mentors. The Child Development Training Consortium (CDTC) issues annual Instructional Agreements to participating colleges to provide local support services to college students. Instructional Agreements specify the support services, which include support for educational expenses (items supporting students to move forward on the pathway to an (ECE/CD) degree, meet licensing/setting guidelines and requirements, and the child development permit), tutoring, child care expenses, assistance for textbook loaning, and technical assistance on the services provided. Additionally, the Quality Counts California (QCC) WPG supports child care and development providers by providing scholarship/tuition assistance and/or stipends for center staff and family child care staff to complete early childhood education courses and professional development to support educational attainment, address their competency gaps, and support ECE career advancement. The lead agency also administers the CCIP, which is a statewide project funded to build supply and improve the quality of care. Efforts include recruiting license exempt providers to become licensed, as well as providing supports to assist small homes with the goal of increased capacity and inclusion of infants and toddlers. Activities to support retention of child care providers are also included. Additionally, provider rates are being addressed through the transition from the use of a market rate survey to an alternative methodology that utilizes the true costs of care to inform rate-setting. 6.1.2 Strategies to support provider business practices a. Describe other strategies that the Lead Agency is developing and/or implementing to strengthen child care providers’ business management and administrative practices. The California Department of Social Services provides support to providers via local Child Care Resource & Referral (CCR&R) programs that offer professional development to strengthen providers’ business practices. The CCR&Rs administer the California Child Care Initiative Project at the local levels and the project focuses on recruiting, training, and retaining family child care home businesses. In addition to these opportunities, the State provides technical assistance to contractors and grantees to support business practices. Furthermore, professional development is offered via the California Early Childhood Online platform. Providers can strengthen their business practices by completing trainings on topics that include Business Practices in Family Child Care, Preschool Program Guidelines, and other professional development training to strengthen their business practices. b. Check the topics addressed in the Lead Agency’s strategies for strengthening child care providers’ administrative business practices. Check all that apply: i. ☐ X Fiscal management. ii. ☐ X Budgeting. iii. ☐ X Recordkeeping. iv. ☐ Hiring, developing, and retaining qualified staff. v. ☐ X Risk management. vi. ☐ X Community relationships. vii. ☐ X Marketing and public relations. viii. ☐ X Parent-provider communications. ix. ☐ Use of technology in business administration. x. ☐ Compliance with employment and labor laws. xi. ☐ Other. Describe any other efforts to strengthen providers’ administrative business: Not applicable. 6.1.3 Strategies to support provider participation Lead Agencies must facilitate participation of child care providers and staff with limited English proficiency and disabilities in the child care subsidy system. Describe how the Lead Agency will facilitate this participation, including engagement with providers to identify barriers and specific strategies used to support their participation: a. Providers and staff with limited English proficiency: Per the Quality Counts California Workforce Pathways Grant, each workforce grantee creates a workforce plan based on the needs of the workforce in their county or region. Funding is used to support providers who identify as limited English speakers. Examples include providing professional development in native languages, tutoring in native languages, translators, offering specific non-unit bearing professional learning opportunities based on local needs and linked to the QCC unified quality improvement approach as appropriate (e.g., offering trainings on trauma informed care, offering training on supporting Dual Language Learners (DLLs) in communities where DLLs make up a large population, inclusion of children with disabilities and implicit bias trainings). Additionally, the Infant/Toddler and Preschool Learning Foundations are available in Spanish. The core publications in the California Early Learning and Development System are available in English and Spanish and additional translations are to begin in 2024 to ensure all publications are available in English and Spanish. Chinese translations of publications will also begin in 2024. Online training modules available through California Early Childhood Online platform are available in English and Spanish, and Chinese modules are beginning to be launched in 2023-24 and will continue to be released over the next three years. Training and coaching provided through the various Child Care Development Fund (CCDF)-funded quality initiatives are provided in English, Spanish, and some in Chinese to meet the needs of providers with limited English proficiency. The Preschool/Transitional Kindergarten Learning Foundations are being updated and finalized by California Department of Education. The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) will begin translating this in 2024 as well as the Infant/Toddler Learning and Development Foundations and Curriculum Frameworks which are slated to be updated and translated in Spanish and Chinese over the next three years. The CDSS is also working on a language access survey. The goal, in alignment with the CDSS’ policy on language access, is to provide translations of all of CDSS’ Child Care and Development Division’s vital documents in the top languages used by constituents. b. Providers and staff who have disabilities: The CDSS supports all members of the workforce regardless of race, gender, or disability, and the workforce is eligible to participate in all CCDF- funded programs and activities.