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 Lead Agency will post its annual expenditure reports ACF-696 along with its annual Quality Progress Report. https://www.scchildcare.org/resources/ 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 SC Inclusion Collaborative (SCIC) provides training, coaching, and consultation to the child care workforce to support the use of evidence-based inclusive teaching practices in programs for children birth to five and school-aged children. High quality programs are programs who include children with disabilities. Current investments include activities conducted by the Lead Agency’s professional development office, SC Endeavors, to promote the professional development of the child care workforce in SC; funding for financial scholarships for child care providers to attend conferences sponsored by SC’s early care and education professional associations; and the following contracts that include training and professional development opportunities that benefit the child care workforce in SC: Third Sector New England contract for online training, USC Cohort/Leadership contract for professional development of cohorts of early care and education leaders to benefit the child care workforce in SC, USC SC Inclusion Collaborative contract that sponsors the Champions for Children conference for the child care workforce and other training, coaching, and consultation to the child care workforce to support the use of evidence-based inclusive teaching practices in programs for children birth to five and school-aged children, the New World Now contract that includes information system development/maintenance for the child care professional development registry, and financial assistance for the annual SC First Steps Early Childhood Summit. Future investments in these activities are expected to continue. 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. Approximately 5,000+ copies of the third printing of the South Carolina Early Learning Standards remain available. The third printing was completed in December 2019 just before COVID caused many programs to close for a period of time. Key partners remain very satisfied with the document and the decision was made to delay the cyclical review of the document for approximately 2 years due to the COVID pandemic. Partners have continued to train on the standards, other initiatives have aligned to the Standards, and distribution has been reinstated. The Spanish version is now complete and will be posted on key websites. It is expected that key stakeholders will convene during this Plan period to review this document. It has been a very popular publication available on the website in English and in an ADA format. Many teachers and caregivers prefer the hard copy to keep in their classroom; they are pleased with the format, it is easy to use with spiral binding, color coding, and heavy weight paper, and it covers ages birth to five in one document. Current investment in a USC contract that includes translation of the early learning guidelines into Spanish is expected to continue with future investment in making the early learning guidelines accessible to providers online. 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. ABC Quality celebrated its 30th anniversary in the 2022 - 2024 Plan period as a quality rating and improvement system (QRIS). That system has been successful due to its close association with the state’s child care scholarship program in which ABC Quality establishes best practices that child care providers voluntarily comply with their level of quality in the 5-tiered quality system which aligns with corresponding reimbursement level assigned by the Child Care Scholarship Program for serving eligible children. Participation in this system has grown significantly during and after COVID as a means of survival for many programs. While some other states have moved to Quality Improvement Systems, this QRIS is statewide and widely recognized. It provides for accountability and the potential for measurement of adherence to best practices by using clear definitions for indicators. As a prime example, the Lead Agency has partnered with the Department of Defense to bring Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood Plus (MCCYN-PLUS) to South Carolina. The Department of Defense has expanded their fee assistance program to include state quality rated providers to increase availability of child care options for military families. The Department of Defense conducted its own comprehensive crosswalk of the SC Child Care Licensing Regulations and ABC Quality standards to determine program types that met the federal requirements. The review determined that all licensed child care centers and licensed family child care homes/groups at a quality level of B+ and above qualify to participate in MCCYN-PLUS. Child Care Aware of America maintains a database of eligible programs from an ongoing feed of qualified ABC Quality participants supplied to them monthly by the state. Eligible ABC Quality programs will apply to participate and once approved can begin serving military families that qualify for this program. Programs that serve military families’ children will receive subsidy funding directly from MCCYN-PLUS. This program affords active military families and active guard/reserve members expanded access to affordable quality child care services in SC. Similarly, South Carolina’s First Steps to School Readiness uses the ABC Quality rating system to determine a higher payment for their 4K programs at Level B and higher. During the 2022-2024 plan period, a major revision to the QRIS has been accomplished and is currently under implementation. The system was transitioned to one tool for all centers including license-exempt programs with the scores reflecting the quality levels. Improvements to the system include: 1. Inter-rater reliability for assessors and an Anchor form of management to assure statewide consistency. 2. Re-design of the tool to include elements, standards and indicators; clarifications and program manuals have been developed. 3. Revised framework which includes mandated eligibility requirements, a points- based on-site classroom observation (Process Quality), and a points-based structural quality portfolio (Structural Quality). Findings to date call for more training and technical assistance for participating programs, analysis of the scoring system, increase of assessors to manage increases in ABC Quality enrollment, and continued review of indicators for relevance and validity, which will be accomplished in future investments. ABC Quality has revised the family child care home and group standards. These standards originally developed as a block system with varied requirements for each level. This made it difficult for programs to increase quality and presented barriers to improvement. Family child care programs chose whether they wanted to be a Level C or B/B+ and needed to meet the requirements for the chosen level. The revised family child care home and group standards are modeled after the center-based revisions and represent a strength-based system that awards points for meeting indicators. These revisions consist of eligibility criteria which are the requirements to participate, structural quality (portfolio submission) and process quality (on-site observation). The revisions represent one tool for all quality levels with the potential for family child care programs to earn the highest levels of quality A/A+. This was not an option in the block system. These revisions provide a clear process to support programs’ ability for continuous quality improvements. Currently, the family child care home and group revised standards are undergoing the validity process. The Research, Evaluation, and Measurement Center (REM) at the University of South Carolina is facilitating the expert review process and summarizing the results of the revised family child care standards. The expert review process consists of both in-state and national experts in areas of content, inclusion, and equity. In addition, REM is administering surveys to and conducting focus groups of currently participating family child care programs to determine their understanding and ability to implement the revised family child care standards. Results from both studies will influence the final version of the family child care standards and determine what resources and supports are needed to promote program success. ABC Quality has issued over 300 materials grants funded by the Preschool Development Grant (PDG) to all of the currently participating family child care programs to support the transition to the new standards. ABC Quality plans a comprehensive training strategy, supports, and resources package that will support all stakeholders involved in the upcoming implementation of the revised family child care standards. Additionally, ABC Quality is exploring the addition of a provisional entry level for all program types that would be available to new enrollments only. This provisional level would require the program to meet all the eligibility requirements and agree to a Quality Improvement Plan to prepare for their upcoming quality rating within a maximum time period of two years. This provisional level would end after two years, at which point the program must have received the full rating assessment that meets the minimum score for participation. The goal for adding this level is providing additional technical assistance, training, and support prior to rating to increase quality scores/level and improving the program’s long-term success with ABC Quality. Other future investments ABC Quality is exploring are: 1. Hiring a specialized group of Quality Specialists to manage all Quality Improvement Plans issued to programs upon entry into the QRIS or when they score under the thresholds for maintaining their eligibility to participate. 2. Providing supplemental grants that would be available to programs after receiving their Quality Rating based on various criteria, such as serving infants/toddlers, serving children with identified disabilities, or meeting lower ratio and group sizes. 3. Hiring training coordinators to develop orientations and ongoing trainings for child care programs. 4. Increasing number of ABC Quality Assessors and Anchors to maintain caseloads at 50 per assessor and manageable workload for Anchors. 5. Developing an ABC Quality Ambassador program that would provide mentorship to other programs. 6. Developing an internal Quality Rating Portal that will be integrated with other internal data systems, including Child Care Scholarships, grants portal, and the Child Care Licensing Database. 7. Reinstating a Continuous Quality Improvement initiative previously known as Building for our Future for ABC Quality programs seeking to improve their quality scores/level. In addition to direct Lead Agency administration of the ABC Quality program, Child Care Licensing, Child Care Scholarship Program, and SC Endeavors, the Lead Agency contracts for a variety of services including support services to enhance the statewide system of quality child care services as follow: 1. Contract with state Revenue and Fiscal Affairs to build, maintain, and update the secure web-based customized application for ABC Quality assessment tools with online/offline capabilities and allow for synchronization of data collected. This system produces data reports related to analytic cubes as agreed upon by Revenue and Fiscal Affairs (RFA) and Lead Agency. 2. Contract with National Safety Council to provide first aid and CPR training for eligible staff supervising children and directors enrolled in ABC Quality. 3. Contract with Greenville Technical College to maintain office space and support services for the Lead Agency staff housed at Greenville. 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. The South Carolina Program for Infant and Toddler Care (SC PITC) is a long-standing contractor for the Lead Agency to improve the quality of care for infants and toddlers through a year-long cohort model relationship-based technical assistance service offered to programs seeking to improve the quality of their services. Its long-standing core services in coaching, mentoring, and training are provided statewide by a network of skilled PITC Specialists with certification from the WestEd Program for Infant/Toddler Care (PITC). Additional services, resources, and trainings have been added to SCPITC’s service delivery model to reinforce and expand uptake of high-quality practices in early care and education that provide the kind of sensitive, responsive, relationship-based care necessary to support infants and toddlers emotional and social well-being as the foundation of overall development and health. These core services have expanded to include teachers of children ages 3-5 years, as the approach and associated classroom practices are beneficial to all young children. Current services include technical assistance for child care licensing and ABC Quality, Breastfeeding Friendly Child Care Initiative, Sleep Safe SC Child Care Designation, specialized training events for technical assistance providers and trainers and Baby Jam, a specialized virtual training event geared toward infant/toddler providers begun with PDG funding and continued with CCDF funding. Most recently, SCPITC has partnered with ABC Quality on Quality Care By Design, described below. The Lead Agency used PDG funds for a pilot initiative called Quality Care by Design (QCBD) to increase the quality of infant and toddler classroom environments in participating early childhood programs enrolled in both ABC Quality and South Carolina First Steps 4K in a mixed delivery model. To ensure demographic equity, 56 early childhood programs participating in QCBD represented the 4 regions of South Carolina, the Pee Dee, Lowcountry, Midlands and Upstate. Early childhood classrooms received a design plan, on-site technical assistance, and funding to purchase early learning materials/equipment to increase the quality of the learning environment in classrooms for children younger than 4 years. With leadership and assistance from a national early childhood design expert, SCPITC technical assistance specialists conducted monthly technical assistance and reviewed design case studies focused on the key elements of classroom design to prepare for the implementation of design plans. SCPITC’s senior designer, provided technical assistance support, interior design expertise and closely worked with the national expert for QCBD future sustainability. The University of South Carolina’s Research, Evaluation and Measurement Center (REM) conducted research with directors and early childhood educators to track the impact of QCBD on the early childhood programs. Based on their findings, directors and teachers reported that the QCBD project led to improvements in the classroom design, teaching activities and children’s learning and behavior. In addition, improvements in children’s independent play, self-exploration, peer-to- peer interactions, and physical activity increased. The most profound discovery was early childhood educators indicated that they felt more committed to the field of early childhood education because of participating in QCBD. The Lead Agency will continue to support the sustainability of the QCBD project by developing Engagement Centers throughout South Carolina that will serve as demonstration sites to engage their local community in the importance of high- quality infant and toddler care. CCDF funds will provide continuation of the QCBD initiative. To continue the support of early childhood programs serving infants and toddlers, recruitment of more cohort groups of early childhood programs participating in QCBD throughout South Carolina will continue. Improving the supply of child care services for infants and toddlers is difficult currently when providers are struggling to stay in business and the cost of infant and toddler care is higher to meet ratios and group size. Future investments will include: 1. contracted slots for infants and toddlers, children with special needs, and underserved populations based on geographic areas. 2. Opportunities for providing supplemental increases to providers to serve the youngest children. 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. SC CCR&R’s Family Services promotes high-quality, affordable child care options for families through customized referrals to child care programs including centers, family child care, Pre-kindergarten, faith-based, Head Start and after-school programs. A team of Referral Specialists including a bilingual specialist are available to provide customized information regarding licensing standards, types and hours of care, health and safety standards, group size, adult-child ratios, teacher qualifications, ABC Quality level, and other quality indicators to assist families in their search for programs to meet their individual needs. Families are provided information on free or subsidized child care programs including the Child Care Scholarship program, First Steps 4K, Head Start, and Early Head Start programs. Families can conduct their search via the SC CCR&R website (www.sc-ccrr.org) at any time to explore their child care options. Through the website, parents can search by various criteria including type of care, openings, and cost of care, compare programs side by side, and map programs based on preferred areas. Parents have access to a chat feature, English or Spanish language, or can submit a request to the Referral Specialists at any time. The SC CCR&R Referral Specialists work in coordination with the Child Care Scholarship Program to provide seamless referrals from the parent referral line to Child Care Scholarship staff to assess eligibility for the Child Care Scholarship Program. Dual Language families and families experiencing homelessness have dedicated SC CCR&R Referral Specialists to work specifically with those families on their needs in finding care and coordinating with Child Care Scholarship staff to determine eligibility. SC CCR&R Family Services provides information and referrals to other programs, initiatives, and resources that offer other child-related services to meet the needs of the family. SC CCR&R’s Program Services provides statewide teams with Quality Coaches in four areas: Quality Improvement, Compliance, Family Child Care, and Business Support. These teams work with family child care providers, child care centers, directors, and staff to provide professional development through targeted technical assistance and research-based training. SC CCR&R Technical Assistance services uses a structured, relationship model based upon a customized action plan to address specific goals and objectives for the program. These goals are developed to ensure that children receive high-quality care that is safe, healthy, nutritionally adequate, and developmentally appropriate. A Dual Language Quality Coach works across the four teams to provide technical assistance to child care programs to help programs better support the needs of dual language families, provide resources and information on dual language learners, and provide coaching on implementing these practices in the classroom. A Spanish Conversation Director’s Cohort and Dual Language Office Hours led by the DLL Quality Coach are available virtually for child care program directors and staff to join to learn more about incorporating cultural competencies, engaging families, conversational phrases, and other ways to support dual language families or staff. SC CCR&R provides research-based trainings to child care programs as part of their action plan for improvement and to meet state licensing standards in addition to technical assistance. These trainings are focused on early care and education topic areas and incorporate SC Early Learning Standards, ABC Quality Standards current early childhood research, application of adult learning principles and promote linkages between theory and practice. SC CCR&R Trainings are continually being developed in new areas to support providers including introducing more business support topics, health and safety and providing all trainings in Spanish. In addition to training developed internally, SC CCR&R staff have trained to be anchor trainers for Project Learning Tree and the Strengthening Business Modules, allowing for train-the-trainer opportunities and the ability to reach more programs with the content. The SC CCR&R offers two two-day conferences each year for child care programs throughout the state. The SC CCR&R Conference and the SC CCR&R Family Child Care Conference utilize a hybrid model with one day virtual and second day in-person. The SC CCR&R Family Child Care conference is the state's only conference for home-based programs. It provides a unique experience for family child care providers to receive professional development that is specific to their needs, provides a networking opportunity between family child care providers from various regions of the state, and connects the family child care providers to other organizations that may be useful for their program or the families they serve. The SC CCR&R manages the SC Family Child Care Early Learning Network that engages family child care providers in statewide and regional network meetings that help build professional relationships, provide trainings, materials, and leadership opportunities. The SC CCR&R convenes a quarterly statewide Partner Forum attended by other early childhood organizations including from SC Child Care Licensing, ABC Quality, SC Endeavors, Head Start, technical and community colleges, SC South Carolina Inclusion, SC Program for Infants & Toddlers, First Steps County Partnerships, etc. The Partner Forum provides a platform for updates, information sharing, guest speakers, and facilitated regional discussions to address statewide and regional needs and coordination of services to the early care and education community. The SC CCR&R Director’s Forum is offered bi- monthly for child care program directors and follows a similar format. Through community outreach, conferences, events, and networking meetings provide an opportunity for SC CCR&R to establish and strengthen relationships with organizations, school districts, employers and communities to promote early care and education initiatives and programs. 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. Current investments include activities conducted by the Lead Agency’s Child Care Licensing offices in operating SC’s system of licensing, monitoring and inspection of child care facilities’ compliance with health and safety requirements and related FBI/SLED fingerprint background checks conducted for the child care workforce in SC by the Lead Agency’s Office of Inspector General; a contract with the SC affiliate of the National Safety Council to provide Pediatric First Aid and CPR training/certification for the SC child care workforce that serves children with CCDF-funded child care scholarships; a contract with Sybatech/CodePal that funds and maintains an information system for fire safety officers of the Lead Agency who monitor child care providers for compliance with fire safety requirements. Future investments in these activities are expected to continue. CCL and ABC Quality staff who inspect and monitor the child care providers have online access to all caregivers’ training transcripts maintained by SC Endeavors. When child care providers and their staff have completed their 15 hours, Pre- Service Training if enrolled in ABC Quality, the 15 hours will count toward the annual child care licensing requirement of 15 hours, address all required subject areas, and meet ABC Quality training 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. Current investments include activities conducted by the Lead Agency’s ABC Quality offices to operate SC’s quality rating and improvement system (QRIS), contracts with New World Now and RFA that include information system development/maintenance for the QRIS, and USC for QRIS evaluation activities. Future investments in these activities are expected to continue: 1. Contract with University of South Carolina Research, Evaluation and Measurement Center (REM) to provide leadership and technical assistance on research investigating the revised ABCQ standards to include literature reviews, design of studies, data collection and analysis, and writing technical reports. 2. Contract with University of South Carolina (USC) College of Education to assess the impact of Master’s cohort funded through CCDF and make recommendation on feasibility of continued investment. 3. Contract with Third Sector New England to provide strategic guidance, capacity building, and consultation and support for ABC Quality, SC Endeavors, SC Child Care Licensing, Division of Early Care and Education, and online learning consultation. 4. ABCQ internal quality control of reviews with rater reliability policies. 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. The Child Care Ready for All (CRAwl) provides nurse consultation and training to child care providers to care for children with chronic health conditions. This support is individualized to the needs of the program, child, and family. Pyramid PIECES offers program coaching to support programs to implement the Pyramid Model program wide. Programs work with program coaches to support the use of Pyramid Model practices in the classrooms. Pyramid Promoting Integrated Early Childhood Emotional & Social supports (PIECES) also offers the Behavior Support Network (BSN). This support is available to any child care program who is caring for a child with significant challenging behavior. The BSN works with directors, teachers, and families to avoid the use of exclusionary practices (i.e., suspension and expulsion). 1. Grant with SC Infant Mental Health Association (SCIMHA) to widen the scope of SC infant/toddler initiative to include mental health consultation, Help Me Grow state office, and professional learning on FAN and ABC support modules. 2. Contract with USC College of Education to offer technical assistance to child care programs through services by Be Well Care Well (BWCW) health educators to enhance the capacity of child-serving professionals to meet the social-emotional needs of young children in their care. 3. Contract with SC Department of Health and Environmental Control to lead multi-year Grow Outdoors SC initiative in partnership with the Lead Agency to transform early childhood outdoor spaces into diverse, naturalized environments that spark play and learning to support ABC Quality Program Standards. 4. Grant with National Wildlife Federation (NWF) to provide program and technical support for the redesign of early care and education programs’ outdoor environments to support learning and physical activity outdoors. 5. Future areas of focus/interest include licensing of outdoor/nature-based preschools, recognition program, training criteria for SC Endeavors related to nutrition and physical activity, and Farm to Early Care and Education (ECE). 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. Current investments include: 1. Contracts with Able SC to assess child care facilities for compliance with ADA requirements. 2. Contract with Anderson Interfaith Ministries (AIM) for supporting students with children with child care assistance as they complete their education. 3. Contract with Family Connection for supporting children with other needs and abilities in child care. 4. Contract with Third Sector New England for consultation to the Lead Agency’s offices to promote child care quality improvements. 5. Contract with USC for Child Care Data Collection and Analyses to identify and promote development of strategies to address unmet child care needs throughout SC. 6. Contract with USC for SC Inclusion Collaborative to support providers in addressing the needs of children with disabilities in child care. 7 Contract with the United Way Association of SC in funding various local child care initiatives throughout SC. These investments are expected to continue in the future. 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.