7.2 Use of Quality Set-Aside Funds

Lead Agencies must use a portion of their CCDF expenditures for activities designed to improve the quality of child care services and to increase parental options for and access to high-quality child care. They must use the quality set-aside funds on at least one of 10 activities described in CCDF and the quality activities must be aligned with a Statewide or Territory-wide assessment of the State's or Territory’s need to carry out such services and care. 7.2.1 Quality improvement activities a. Describe how the Lead Agency will make its Quality Progress Report (ACF – 218) and expenditure reports, available to the public. Provide a link if available. The Quality Progress Report is available on the Lead Agency’s website: https://www.decal.ga.gov/documents/attachments/GAQualityProgressReportFFY2023.pd f b. Identify Lead Agency plans, if any, to spend CCDF funds for each of the following quality improvement activities. If an activity is checked “yes”, describe the Lead Agency’s current and/or future plans for this activity. i. Supporting the training and professional development of the child care workforce, including birth to five and school-age providers. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. The Georgia Training Approval (GTA) System, which is managed by the Lead Agency, oversees approval of all trainings offered to providers. When submitting trainings for approval, trainers must indicate the topic areas covered in each training, goals/objectives for the training, competencies that will be addressed, and a scope and sequence of content delivery. Trainers are also required to provide information about relevant research used to inform trainings in these areas. Additionally, GTA approves trainers with relevant experience and education in key specialty areas to offer trainings in those areas. Specialty areas include Health and Safety; Foods and Nutrition; School-Age Care; Children with Disabilities; Administrative Management of Programs; and Social Work, Mental Health, and Family Services. Trainings in specialty areas are also reviewed to ensure alignment with state requirements specific to each area. Licensing regulations specify that all staff working in licensed programs must complete at least 10 hours of GTA approved training annually. Through GTA, the Lead Agency can ensure the quality of trainings provided to the workforce. The Lead Agency also maintains a strong relationship with GTA approved trainers providing support and technical assistance to trainers to continue to support quality of trainings. Through this network of support, the Lead Agency can also guide trainers to topic areas that are priorities for the agency. Moving forward, two focus areas for increasing the supply and quality of training will be school age and language/literacy. To increase the supply and quality of school-age trainings, the Lead Agency will work with state experts in school-age programming to support trainers to understand how to develop and deliver training specific to the needs of school-age programs. This work will include supporting trainers in understanding the Georgia After School and Youth Development Standards and aligning their trainings with the standards. Further, the Lead Agency will begin a comprehensive review of all language and literacy trainings approved through GTA to ensure they align with the latest knowledge on the science of reading. Updates to the Georgia Professional Development System will also be made to ensure users are able to easily locate and register for language and literacy trainings. Further, the Lead Agency will continue to expand its Online Learning Library Initiative (OLLI) to add three to five additional trainings on language and literacy as well as three to five additional trainings for school-age professionals. The Lead Agency’s Infant Toddler, SEEDS, and Pre-K Specialists provide professional learning opportunities. There is a current training focus on preventing and addressing, persistent challenging behavior, thereby reducing the likelihood of preschool suspension and expulsion. Professional Learning Communities of directors and teachers are supported by a team of Infant Toddler, Pre-K, and SEEDS Specialists. The Lead Agency also provides the training to early learning technical college faculty on how to embed the content into their course curriculum to be taught to students and prospective early learning educators. These efforts have been funded with recovery act (ARPA) funding in the current year but will be funded with CCDF dollars moving forward. The Lead Agency plans to provide nine cohorts of the training series available for infant and toddler, preschool, Pre-K, and family child care providers over the next three years. As mentioned in section 4.54, the Lead Agency provides an training series for early learning professionals focusing on understanding the importance of the laws that support children with disabilities, and strategies to support all learners in high quality early learning environments. The Lead Agency plans to train 500 educators across the next three years. The lead agency provides a mini -grant to early learning professionals who would benefit from technical assistance to support children with disabilities in their care. Professionals receive coaching and materials to support the child’s development. The Lead Agency plans to fund at least 75 mini-grants over the next three years. As described in section 4.54, the Lead Agency’s Infant and Toddler Program plans to fund three additional cohorts of the LITTLE (Lifting Infants and Toddlers Through Language Rich Environments) with center-based and family child care providers over the next three years. The Infant and Toddler Program will continue coaching Infant and Toddler Programs referred by the child care resource and referral agencies across the state to increase program quality as it relates to language development, literacy, responsive caregiving, and developmentally appropriate learning practices. The Infant and Toddler Program also plans to continue the activity training series to train 150 teachers a year for the next three years. The Lead Agency’s Child and Family Development Program provides training and resources on developmental milestones and developmental monitoring for child care professionals using the CDC’s Learn the Signs, Act Early initiative and works with a team of Family Peer Ambassadors to provide information and resources on child development to families and child care providers within their community. The Lead Agency plans to recruit and train 20 Family Peer Ambassadors per year across the next three years. The Lead Agency plans to use CCDF funds to continue the Thriving Child Care Business Academy online training platform for child care business owners and administrators and expand its offerings during the next state plan period, including adding between three and five new trainings and associated resources. These future trainings will be informed by feedback from biannual surveys and interviews with child care business owners and stakeholders. ii. Developing, maintaining, or implementing early learning and developmental guidelines. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. As described in Section 6.3, the Lead Agency provides a training series and resources for using the Georgia Early Learning and Development Standards (GELDS) to inform instruction. Moving forward, the Lead Agency will have two key priority areas for continued use of the GELDS. First, the GELDS trainings will be expanded. Existing trainings are currently being revised, and training topics related to the GELDS will be increased. Second, based on recommendations from the previously described Workforce Taskforce, the Lead Agency will begin reviewing the existing standards for next steps. iii. Developing, implementing, or enhancing a quality improvement system. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. Georgia's primary mechanism for measuring quality is Quality Rated (QR), the state's quality rating and improvement system, which launched in 2012. Programs are assigned a one-, two-, or three-star rating based on five standards submitted via an electronic portfolio and an independent observation using the Environment Rating Scale (ERS) family of instruments. The portfolio measures structural quality, including standards for teacher and director qualifications, family engagement, nutrition and health, intentional teaching practices, and ratios. A team of assessors conducts the ERS observations and another team scores portfolios and assigns ratings. Ratings are valid for three years, at which time the rating process is repeated. Currently, more than 2,800 providers are Quality Rated including 72% of licensed child care centers and 47% of family child care homes. CCDF providers who are eligible for a rating are required to be rated or in the process of earning a rating. DECAL has contracted with external research partners at Child Trends and the Urban Institute to engage in a comprehensive review of Quality Rated. Extensive data-gathering activities occurred during 2023 with data analysis and stakeholder convenings planned for 2024, leading to proposed revisions to the entire QR system in the future. Current investment costs also include developing a new IT application that will be fully integrated with other Lead Agency programs in the ongoing upgrade of DECAL’s Child Care Solution. To improve customer service and response time, the Lead Agency has contracted with IT partners to enhance the functionality of the Quality Rated HelpDesk into a fully functional ticketing Call Contact Center with automated response and AI generated knowledge base. iv. Improving the supply and quality of child care services for infants and toddlers. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. To help improve the quality of child care services for infants and toddlers, Quality Rated has revised the on-site assessment component of the rating to specify that all centers offering infant and toddler care will automatically have at least one infant and one toddler room assessed rather than following the author’s guidelines of assessing 1/3 of each ITERS (infant/toddler environment rating scale) age group. This change will allow providers to receive feedback on the quality of their environment for infants and toddlers instead of having just one ITERS assessment conducted on the randomly selected infant or toddler classroom. As described in section 4.5.4 b, the Lead Agency provides coaching and training to infant and toddler teachers, administrators, and family child care learning home providers serving infants and toddlers on topics including responsive caregiving, early literacy, developmentally appropriate practices, developmental milestones and monitoring, and family engagement. Through our partnership with the child care resource and referral agencies, infant and toddler teachers will continue to receive coaching from Infant Toddler Specialists across the next three years. The Lead Agency plans to continue to provide professional development for early learning professionals caring for infants and toddlers through our LITTLE grant by funding three new child care learning center cohorts of 15 programs each and three new family child care learning home provider cohorts of 10 providers for the LITTLE grant over the next three years. The agency plans to continue the Infant and Toddler Activity Training Series to 150 teachers a year for the next three years. The agency provides mental health training and technical assistance to increase the quality of care, early identification of, and response to infants and toddlers who have experienced trauma through the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health pilot. v. Establishing or expanding a statewide system of CCR&R services. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. The Lead Agency currently has a CCR&R network composed of six regional CCR&Rs across the state. During the next state plan period, the CCR&Rs will continue their work of supporting providers to meet quality standards. Additionally, the Lead Agency will explore avenues for leveraging CCR&Rs as regional hubs to support key focus areas, including workforce development, credential attainment, and increasing the supply of high-quality care for target audiences, such as infants and toddlers or children with disabilities. See Section 8.3 for additional information vi. Facilitating compliance with Lead Agency child care licensing, monitoring, inspection and health and safety standards. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x]Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. The Lead Agency has child care licensing consultants that help facilitate compliance with child care licensing, monitoring, inspection and health and safety standards. These staff are regionally based and work in supporting these initiatives through a variety of capacities Regionally, child care licensing consultants are conducting annual unannounced licensing and monitoring visits to assess for compliance. In addition, DECAL also has specialized staff in identified units that also support in various roles. The Special Investigations Unit staff are responsible for the extreme incident investigations and monitoring of compliance for child care programs around rule violations as a result of those. The Applicant Services Unit staff are responsible for the initial licensing of child care programs to ensure compliance with health and safety standards and licensing requirements, prior to being given a license to operate., The Technical Assistance Unit staff are responsible for assisting licensed programs in areas of technical assistance to help support compliance around rules and regulations, health and safety standards, training, and proven best practices for program operation. The Exemption Unit staff are responsible for the inspection and oversight of exempt and informal child care programs receiving CCDF funds, ensuring compliance with health and safety standards. vii. Evaluating and assessing the quality and effectiveness of child care services within the State/Territory. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. DECAL assesses child care quality through Quality Rated, the state’s quality rating and improvement system, which assigns ratings up to three stars based on observations using the ERS family of instruments and scoring a portfolio made up of five standards. viii. Accreditation support. [x] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [ ] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. ix. Supporting State/Territory or local efforts to develop high-quality program standards relating to health, mental health, nutrition, physical activity, and physical development. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. Using $87,500 from the United Way of Greater Atlanta, the Lead Agency will explore developing a Nutrition and Physical Activity Endorsement to Quality Rated. Pilot development is under way and includes a pre- and post-training assessment using Go NAPSACC (Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment for Child Care), conducted with providers as an interview by DECAL Nutrition and Quality Rated staff. Nutrition and physical activity tool-kit materials and participation stipends will be made available to pilot participants. Participants will engage in self-assessment to identify specific goals and draft an action plan focused on three areas of improvement. They will attend training workshops and receive targeted TA tailored to each participant. The pilot will help determine the scalability of a Nutrition and Physical Activity Endorsement and the role this may play in the revision of Quality Rated. x. Other activities determined by the Lead Agency to improve the quality of child care services and the measurement of outcomes related to improved provider preparedness, child safety, child well-being, or kindergarten entry. [ ] No plans to spend in this category of activities at this time. [x] Yes. If yes, describe current and future investments. The Lead Agency will continue to provide a Pre-K Summer Transition Program to support school readiness. The program is designed to support students who need additional academic support over the summer. The Pre-K Summer Transition Program will continue to run for five weeks during June and July and is a full-day instructional program. Currently, there are 324 Rising Kindergarten classes that support more than 4,500 students and is offered in 62 counties in Georgia. The Lead Agency is currently supporting an Infant Early Childhood Mental Health Consultation (IECMHC) pilot project to increase child care programs, staff, and family access to mental health resources and services through funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Currently, CCDF funding supports 12 child care sites receiving IECMHC services in the Macon, Savannah, and metro Atlanta areas and will cover the evaluation of the project. The project evaluation will inform whether the IECMHC pilot will be expanded. 8 Lead Agency Coordination and Partnerships to Support Service Delivery Coordination and partnerships help ensure that the Lead Agency’s efforts accomplish CCDF goals effectively, leverage other resources, and avoid duplication of effort. Such coordination and partnerships can help families better access child care, can assist in providing consumer education to parents, and can be used to improve child care quality and the stability of child care providers. Such coordination can also be particularly helpful in the aftermath of disasters when the provision of emergency child care services and the rebuilding and restoring of child care infrastructure are an essential part of ensuring the well-being of children and families in recovering communities. This section identifies who the Lead Agency collaborates with to implement services, how match and maintenance-of-effort (MOE) funds are used, coordination with child care resource and referral (CCR&R) systems, and efforts for disaster preparedness and response plans to support continuity of operations in response to emergencies.