Child Care Advisory Committee

Catholic Charities

September 13, 2017

Members Present:

Members not Present:  

Others Present:

• Meeting Notices:
• The Agenda and Meeting Notice were posted on 09/05/2017 on publisher@ecapitol.net  with a list of all CCAC meetings for 2017 previously submitted to the Secretary of State on 12/15/2016.
• The Meeting Notice was posted at Catholic Charities on 09/12/2017.

• Call to Order:
• Debbie Medley called meeting to order at 10:03 am.

• Reflection:
• Peggy Byerly provided words of reflection.

• Introductions

• Approval of Minutes:  
• June 14, 2017 minutes approved.

• Standing Membership Subcommittee Report:
• Rachel Proper provided report
• Subcommittee members met via email on Aug 16
• There were 4 resignations and one term-limit expiration:
• Donna Legaard
• Kami McManus
• Chrystal Nelson
• Anthony Stafford
• Doug Gibson
• Members being reappointed:
• Brent Thackerson – 2^nd term – Expires 11/2020
• Paige Whalen – 2^nd term – Expires 11/2020
• New member recommendations:
• Arianne Conner –Family Child Care Homes Metro – 1^st term 12/2017 – 11/30/2020
• Kay Floyd – Head Start Association – 1^st term 12/2017 – 11/30/2020
• Jill Goyette – YMCA – 1^st term 12/2017 – 11/30/2020
• Vote to accept the recommendations of the membership subcommittee
• All recommendations passed
• Subcommittee is still looking for member recommendations for the Family Child Care Homes Rural and Private Citizen positions
• Chairpersons are needed for the Child Care Facilities and Family Child Care Homes Subcommittees
• Rikki Cosper stated she is interested to be Chairperson of the Child Care Facilities subcommittee

• Standing Subcommittee Reports:
• Child Care Facilities (centers) Standing Subcommittee
• A chairperson for this subcommittee has not been appointed yet and has not met since last meeting.
• Rikki Cosper stated that she was interested in the Chairperson position
• QRIS Standing Subcommittee
• Rachel Proper provided report
• Subcommittee met June 14 2017
• Discussion centered on budget issues and how it would be difficult to increase Star levels or moving Stars program further when we are in such a dire budget situation. The consensus was to go ahead and lay the groundwork now and start working on that process so that when the budget improved perhaps the money would be there to move forward with that program.
• The other overall consensus was that quality needs to be encouraged so that it makes it more advantageous for all centers and not just those participating in subsidy and doing it in a way that is meaningful and not cost a lot of money.
• Subcommittee will start meeting monthly to start determining what an expansion of the Stars program would look like.
• Their next meeting will be today after CCAC meeting.
• Residential Standing Subcommittee
• Brent Thackerson provided report
• Subcommittee has not met since May 5, 2017
• The next meeting will be Nov. 2 in the Tulsa area
• Amanda would like to be added to the committee
• Residential Revision Subcommittee
• Brent Thackerson provided report
• Status of addendum - submitted in June to Legal, submitted to the DHS Policy unit in July, since that time there was a review with LeeAnne BruceBoone, will proceed for approval in legislative spring session in 2018; public hearing will be held in February. Effective date will be 11/1/2018.

• Legislative Update:
• Linda Whaley provided a legislative summary handout

• Licensing Sanctions Report:
• Kristi Simpson provided report and handout

• Old Business:
• Amy Cornelson, Office of Background Investigations
• Currently working within 5 days
• Livescan mobile unit is going out to 8 offices per month. Child Care Services send out a schedule on ListServ.
• If you have an individual that is going to be working both in child care and a school district – they can be fingerprinted through child care and it will be good for both – the law that child care is under allows sharing of the results; Dept. of Ed does not share results.
• Peer Review Board reminder
• Child Care Programs committee members (agency staff does not participate) are a part of the Peer Review Board and to please watch your emails because there are deadlines in those. If someone is not able to serve on the Peer Review Board they need to contact Lesli Blazer.
• Today is Doug Gibson's last meeting and we thank you for your many years of service as being the longest standing member of the CCAC.
• It is also Kami McManus' last meeting.

• New Business:

• Brent Thackerson – would like more information about the letter that was recently sent out to Residential programs and Child Placing Agencies regarding the website that DHS will have with a database containing various information about agencies.
• Child Care locator – provides the public an opportunity to search for child care and to also see a summary of the history of monitoring of that program. Everything we do has always been public record – parents can come in to the office and view a record but that's not convenient. We are required by our grant, the Child Care Development Block Grant (CCDBG), to provide a public database for the child care side. Several years ago it was brought to us that we needed to do it for the Residential and Child Placing Agency side as well. In an effort to be more transparent, use the technology we have, provide parents and other people who are asking for our records, an easier method to search.
• Will there be a place for a provider to give an explanation of write-ups?
• What currently shows up is the Plan of Correction which the provider tells the worker at the time, this is how I'm going to fix this.
• In the future we would like to add a comments section that a provider can use to make comments that the public can see.
• Has there been a recent assessment of the usage of the Child Care Locator?
• We have recently revamped our website as part of the CCDBG requirement and we received a planning grant to look at the implementation of things that were required in the new reauthorization. This is one of things that we looked at – consumer ed. – our website, including the locator. We've spent time on this grant preparing to evaluate it but we don't have any feedback methods so we're looking at ways to get feedback.
• Residential and Child Placing agencies will have its own locator separate from the Child Care Locator. We don't have a rollout date yet.
• Brent is concerned this will be a "tattle tale website" and would like the opportunity for programs to be able to provide a place for achievements or success stories about their program.   
• OCCRRA is doing a new website (through the OCCRRA grant website) that will be able to be controlled by Child Care providers which will be a place for them to show the positives about their program. They will be able post pictures (with permission from the families) and positive comments. CCS will publish a link to the website when it goes active.
• Amanda – regarding youth services, there is Senate Bill 718 that changes the language from shelter to resource center. She thinks there needs to be some conversation around that, what affect it will have, and will licensing standards have to change.
• Rikki – recently went through a Trauma Informed Care training and thinks it would be very beneficial if providers had access to this training.
• There should be a training on the registry.

• Public Comments:

• Tammy Maus, Licensed Child Care Association
• Child care programs of all classifications are struggling and continue to close. A lot of the children are moving into unlicensed care. People are trying to find ways to circumvent the overwhelming burden of requirements that have been put on centers without an increase in resources.
• There has been an increase in requirements in the number of Master Teachers because of the elimination of adding back in school-age. Centers have been burdened because resources such as the reward program have been cut.
• Fingerprinting – they recommend moving to the same system as public education.
• There remains a significant burden that is being placed on centers by requiring all of their employees to be on the registry when licensed child care homes are not required. They believe if it's good enough for those children, they're being cared for in those homes without multiple people there, it's good enough for all children in Oklahoma and they should have the same rule about the registry. They recommend that it be an option and not a requirement.
• They implore consideration of complaint investigation policy revisions.
• They urge the committee and DHS to take a hard look at this feedback and work with them to make changes that will strengthen our industry for children, families, and Oklahoma businesses that they support and their board would like to remind the committee that they make it possible for Oklahoma to work.

• Meeting adjourned at 11:45 am

• Next Meetings:
• Wednesday, December 13, 2017 – Sunbeam Family Services
• Wednesday, March 14, 2018 – Catholic Charities
• Wednesday, June 13, 2018 – Catholic Charities
• Wednesday, September 12, 2018 – Catholic Charities
• Wednesday, December 12, 2018 – Catholic Charities