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. [ ] 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. [ ] Other. Describe: 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, through the North Dakota Child Care Initiative, is planning to offer Career Pathway Advancement and Career Pathway Maintenance stipends for early childhood providers working in direct care positions. Payments will go directly to the providers. The Lead Agency has implemented the Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP) Child Care Workforce Benefit pilot. This initiative, aims to support child care staff by offering free child care tuition at the state maximum rate with waived CCAP copays for eligible employees working 25 or more hours per week. This benefit is available for employees' children aged birth to twelve, enrolled in licensed or self-declaration child care facilities. It is designed to alleviate financial burdens and improve the recruitment and retention of child care staff by providing significant tuition assistance, thereby sustaining child care operations. 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 Lead Agency plans to publish information to connect providers to health insurance and encourage utilization of the Marketplace to find health insurance plans that meet their needs. Contracted vendor partners will also be asked to share on their social channels. This initiative will launch after October 1, 2024. d. Describe any Lead Agency ongoing efforts and future plans to support the mental health and well-being of the child care workforce. The Lead Agency’s contracted child care resource and referral vendor has been charged with creating a shared services alliance with funding from the North Dakota Child Care Initiative. The vendor is exploring how it might be possible to offer an employee assistance program for CCDF eligible providers. e. Describe any other strategies the Lead Agency is developing and/or implementing to support providers’ recruitment and retention of the child care workforce. In the Preschool Development Birth-to-Five grant, the Lead Agency has outlined a licensing toolkit to be modeled after Nebraska Early Childhood Collaborative. The toolkit will include the creation of licensing orientation trainings to ensure that individuals enter the field with a solid understanding of the rules that govern their work. The Lead Agency’s contracted child care resource and referral vendor provides technical assistance for individuals considering the opening of a child care business. 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 Lead Agency’s contracted child care resource and referral vendor provides technical assistance and coaching for individuals thinking about or opening a child care business as well as existing early childhood services providers. The child care resource and referral staff work one-on-one with new and existing providers to build relationships and coach to best practices. Templates are provided for, but not limited to: contracts, policies, and business practices. The resource and referral agency offers an intensive business training in which providers learn legal requirements and best practices to write contracts and policies, build relationships, market their business, and plan for a strong financial future. The trainings also cover licensing rules, legal requirements and best practices for starting a child care business and running a child care center. The Lead Agency is developing a licensing toolkit and training that will support administrative practices and provide resources to newly licensed programs. The Lead Agency is also providing training incentives for the completion of each of the nine Aim4Excellence™ National Director Credential Trainings which focuses on leadership development and administrative and 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. [x] 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. [x] Use of technology in business administration. x. [ ] Compliance with employment and labor laws. xi. [x] Other. Describe any other efforts to strengthen providers’ administrative business: Insurance, Strategic Planning 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: Data is collected to assess the ongoing need to offer content in non-English languages. The Lead Agency’s Workforce Registry data tracks primary language of which 98% of the child care providers primary language is English. Of the non-English speaking or English is not the primary language, not more than 2% report speaking the same language. Spanish is the second largest primary language reported by the Workforce Registry at .8% and Somali is the third at .09%. The lead agency is working with the Registry data system provider to have the Workforce Registry translatable into both Spanish and Somali. The Lead Agency is also vetting training organizations which offer training in languages other than English. b. Providers and staff who have disabilities: The Lead Agency’s contracted vendors provide technical assistance to help support child care providers in setting up their business, establishing policies and practices, as well as procedures. Providers and staff also have available to them the use of Relay North Dakota for communication over the phone. The North Dakota School for the Deaf or North Dakota School for the Blind may be contacted for resource support.