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. [ ] 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 will continue to partner with vested statewide partners that are addressing ways to improve workforce compensation. The Preschool Development Grant (PDG) Action Agenda has workforce as a top priority, seeking to address the workforce crisis by effective, innovative, and sustainable solutions. 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 will continue to partner with vested statewide partners that are addressing ways to improve workforce benefits. 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 will continue to partner with vested statewide partners that are addressing ways to improve workforce mental health. 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 Lead Agency will continue to partner with vested statewide partners that are addressing ways to improve workforce compensation. The Preschool Development Grant (PDG) Action Agenda has workforce as a top priority, seeking to address the workforce crisis by effective, innovative, and sustainable solutions. 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 Nebraska Department of Education offers the Management Training Program for directors of child care centers and the Getting Down to Business training series for family child care providers as business trainings. They are required for child care licensing and embedded into Step 2 of Step Up to Quality. The training series are offered in each region of the state multiple times per year and are now offered via distance learning. These trainings are designed to improve business practices, policies and procedures, and program operations, and to assist programs to better support their staff and children in their programs. Both trainings are also currently being revised by a workgroup made of representatives from multiple agencies to better support providers and their needs. 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. [x] Compliance with employment and labor laws. xi. [ ] Other. Describe any other efforts to strengthen providers’ administrative business: 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: The Early Childhood Training Center (ECTC), part of the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE), works with several community centers in the Omaha metro area (the largest metropolitan area in Nebraska) to ensure training is accessible to providers for whom English is not their primary language. Two of the community centers predominately work with the Spanish-speaking population. A third community center, Heartland Family Service, serves a clientele of families and childcare providers from Myanmar who speak Burmese or Karen, or Southeast Asia who speak Hmong. ECTC approves training for these entities and provides as many translated resources as possible. The Midlands Latino Community Development Corporation works with ECTC to provide training and resources for non-English speakers wanting to work in child care to get licensed and trained. This work will continue. The ECTC translates training materials for child care providers. Spanish is the most requested language; others include Arabic and Hmong. Step Up to Quality materials are also translated into Spanish. Additionally, NDE works with schools and Early Learning Coordinators across the state with large English Language Learner (ELL) populations to try to identify multi-lingual persons, preferably from non-English speaking cultures, who are interested in becoming trainers. b. Providers and staff who have disabilities: The Nebraska Early Childhood Professional Record System (NECPRS) has modified processes for persons with disabilities to ensure their successful participation. Web materials are created to be ADA compliant. Interpreters for providers who are deaf or hard of hearing are available to sign for required training.