Untitled Document

Child Care

The goal of the Child Care group was to strengthen child care throughout California, and the participants examined many different possible ways of accomplishing this. They began by exploring the ideal child care system and the vision of what child care ought to be (Round 1: Vision 2010). They then delved into specific themes and issues relating to administration, human resources, and infrastructure (Round 2: Synthesis). In a short Round 3 they returned to the big questions, which included concerns about the overall child care system. On the second day, they began by designing a new entity to serve the child care industry, and recognized that it would need to include both local and statewide organizations (Round 4: Organization Design). In the final round of work, they designed the statewide organization in more detail, and looked at pilots that could be developed in the shirt term (Round 5: Pilots).

Team 1

Assignment: The Ideal Child Care Center

The purpose of this activity is for you to develop your vision of Child Care in California, and to think about what an ideal child care system would be like.

Magically and mysteriously, the child care industry as you know it disappeared last night. Outside of this room, the world is now caught in a time warp on “pause” while you work to design a new system to replace it. There are, of course, a million and one issues that you could think about in designing a new system, but for the moment please focus on responding to the issues listed below.

Using the markers and white walls provided in your break out area, please prepare responses to the questions below that you can share with the other teams. Feel free to address any related questions that you think are relevant.

I am a child who gets dropped off at the ideal child care center.

What’s my experience on a daily basis?
From the moment I walk into the center until the moment I leave, what happens?
What do I like the most?

I am a parent who drops my child at the ideal child care center.

What’s my experience on a daily basis?
From the moment I drop off my child at the center until the moment I pick him/her up, what happens?
What do I like the most?
What’s it like to interact with staff?
What happens when I have an issue or a problem?

Describe the ideal sort of collaborative/cooperative structure/organization that would best meet the needs of child care providers to help them improve the quality of child care by increasing the profitability of child care providers.

What is its organizational structure?
What would it do?
How would child care providers interact with it?
Who else would interact with it, and in what ways?

You’ll have about 75 minutes for this activity, which includes the time for a working lunch.

Report Out

We want it to be very personal.

There is some concern that the staff comes between the child and the parent.

We want the families to be involved in some way.

That balances with the need for the program to be easy to get to, nearby, affordable, flexible.

We need odd-hour care, part time care, etc.

There is a need for other services. Parent education, information about other benefits that the family is entitled to. Access to health screenings and health insurance.

The child in the middle with the staff surrounding in a very supporting way.
The child care program is kind of a community and brings in other services.

There is a need for more resources.

We have to educate the [public about the need for quality.

Some kind of shared structure, member owned or member governed - it would be hard to attract CC providers if they felt they were giving up control.There could be training; technology to track child outcomes; administer subsidies, do the building.
There may be economies in joint purchasing.

85% of the budget is direct staff.

If there was an organization that could help efficiency, and could play the advocacy role.

Initial funding from the public sector. A way to start is to show providers that if they could capture all the subsidy dollars they’re eligible for.

Team 2

Assignment: The Ideal Child Care Center

The purpose of this activity is for you to develop your vision of Child Care in California, and to think about what an ideal child care system would be like.

I run an ideal child care center.

What’s my experience on a daily basis?
What do I do?
How does it feel?
What tools and systems do I use to make my work satisfying and effective?

I work in an ideal child care center. What’s my experience on a daily basis?

What’s my experience on a daily basis?
What do I do?
How does it feel?
What tools and systems do I use to make my work satisfying and effective?

Describe the ideal sort of collaborative/cooperative structure/organization that would best meet the needs of child care providers to help them improve the quality of child care by increasing the profitability of child care providers.

What is its organizational structure?
What would it do?
How would child care providers interact with it?
Who else would interact with it, and in what ways?

You’ll have about 75 minutes for this activity, which includes the time for a working lunch.

Report Out

We looked at the perspective of child care director and staff.

In the middle is a shared vision of what the child care day would look like.

Most important is happy healthy kids.

Everyone looked forward to going to work.

Director and staff feel calm, in control.

Director supports teachers; parents support directors and teachers.

Staff and director spend most of their time with kids.

Everyone is focused on the outcome of the children.

Staff would want to understand the program philosophy, and also have a lot of independence to work with children the way they choose. Successful, Proud. Secure.

Respected by their community.

Perks and privileges - substitutes to back us up, time off if we need it.

For directors - adequate time and money to operate a high quality program.

There is really is a question of resources.

Spend a lot of time in the class.

I am part of a network of directors.

A director would want to know there is a lot of demand.

You would be able to serve all children. You could serve children with special needs.

The new entity comes in and does all the background work.

This program has to be part of a larger network and linked to other systems. Health; financial. It’s not an isolated entity.

The program has the resources to serve all children and all families.

Adequate resources to hire an keep the best staff.

A good relationship with funders.

If it’s a non-profit, there is a capable, engaged, Efficient, effective Board of Directors.

Has a good business plan.

Sustainability - how do we support child care programs to be sustainable?

It could be inform of a trade association or a franchise combo. There has to be a way to engage the members, and they would determine what the services are - services are membership driven.

We would assess what kinds of services that they could access to reduce some of their costs. For example, if most programs were using quickbooks, it would make things easier.

Then we could ID where the gaps are.

The types of services would be purchasing, admin functions, payroll, benefits, HR, recruiting, training, shared staff among many programs. Most programs can’t afford a specialized teacher, but they could share it. And advocacy voice and a variety of technical assistance. Real estate, products, licensing., etc.

What ever this organization is, it has to have interactions and relationship with the business sector, with other nonprofits, govt agencies, K-12, and other relevant orgs.

Team 3

Assignment: Vision 2010

The purpose of this activity is for you to develop your vision of Child Care in California, and to think about what an ideal child care system would be like.

Today it’s 2010. Back in 2006, a group of people representing many facets of the child care industry met to consider how we might collaborate to improve the quality of child care in California. A number of initiatives were developed at that meeting, and were then carried through to implementation. The result was an astounding improvement in the quality of child care provided, which made California a world leader in early childhood development and quality of education throughout the Pre-K-12 curriculum.

As a result of these achievements, TIME magazine is devoting the cover story of its January 22, 2010 issue to this work, and has gathered together a group of the original pioneers who met in 2006 and launched the process. (Namely, you.)

Using the markers and white walls provided in your break out area, please prepare a briefing for the TIME editors that addresses the following issues:

What were the most important initiatives that you undertook to improve the quality of child care?
What were the key problems and challenges that child care providers faced in 2006?
What were the key things that had to change?
What were the obstacles and how did you overcome them?
How did you make the most of the opportunity the PFA initiative (Preschool for All) presented?
What were the major initiatives that addressed staffing and training issues? Facilities issues? Other?

Describe the collaborative/cooperative structure/organization that you developed to meet the needs of child care providers to help them improve the quality of child care by increasing the profitability of child care providers.

What is its organizational structure?
What did it do?
How did child care providers interact with it?

Who else would interacted with it, and in what ways?

You’ll have about 75 minutes for this activity, which includes the time for a working lunch.

Report Out

Our task is come up with a vision for 2010.

2010 is ambitious for our sector.

We want a coordinating body that would provide a menu of services for members.

We want people to be dues paying, but many providers don’t quantify their admin costs so they might not be able to assess the value.

We talked about PFA, with the increased admin burdens, that could be a source of funding.

Quality standards are needed.

We talked about the fiscal function, outsourcing the bookkeeping for smaller providers. At a minimum, quickbooks for all.

HR and benefits - we really like the PEO model.

We would like a partner for each element so we could connect with existing resources. We want a PEO connected with the unions.

We looked at Action for Children as a model for staffing. Pooling applicants.

We should address the marketing and PR functions for the sector at large and for the members.

Subsidy administration - at a minimum we want to be able to allocate among our members so that subsidies could be subcontracted.

Technical assistance relating to financing. Connecting people to capital pools - CDFIs, which acts as a clearing house giving people help for facilities.

A capital pool such as a KiddieMac.

Data management for administrative data as well as child development data.

Coordination around advocacy. Increasing subsidies, and working on the regulatory climate that supports child care.

How to create value for the private sector. Could this body come up with research that the private sector would buy. Maybe research on markets or staff or the availability of child care - businesses whose employees need to buy child care.

Thinking of good child care as we do for good schools. Real estate agents contribute to schools - so who would benefit from quality child care?

This is state-wide. It might be in regions or counties.