ELAC's October meeting touches on DCYF, other topics

The Early Learning Advisory Council (ELAC) had a full agenda at its daylong October 3 meeting in SeaTac. The full room included ELAC’s newest members, state legislators, and visiting parents from the Department of Early Learning’s Parent Advisory Group.

One of the big questions on the table is how advisory councils like ELAC will evolve or change as DEL becomes the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF). Councilmembers provided feedback on the transition and what they envision for the future of early learning in Washington state. Many members stressed the importance of keeping early learning a focus of the new agency, while at the same time putting DEL’s collaborative culture to work for even more Washington families.

For DEL and for many ELAC members, the transition to DCYF represents an opportunity to build even more relationships with Washington communities.

“I think the legislature recognized that in order to have a system that truly supports children, youth, and families that the new department needs to be both informed by, directly partner with, and be held accountable by communities in the state, and in particular communities that have the greatest needs,” said Frank Ordway, DEL’s assistant director of communications and government relations. “It’s just an unbelievable opportunity to reset the relationship between the state government and communities within the state.”

In the coming months, DEL will continue to seek the input of advisory groups as it transitions into DCYF, both during meetings and through other stakeholder outreach in the near future.

Other highlights of the October ELAC meeting included:

• An update from the negotiated rulemaking team. This group of parents and providers is reviewing licensing regulations in an attempt to clarify, simplify, and remove redundancies in child care rules.
• A discussion on the Working Connections Child Care (WCCC) program and how to maintain continuous, uninterrupted services during the transition into DCYF. ELAC members stressed the importance of placing families’ needs front and center as part of the WCCC program moving forward.
• An initial discussion on ELAC members’ priorities for 2018.
• A panel of members of the Parent Advisory Group (PAG). Nine of the 18 parents in PAG attended the ELAC meeting and shared their views on choosing child care and on various types of childcare. They also answered questions from ELAC members.

One of those PAG members, Teneille Carpenter, was recently appointed to ELAC. She and her husband have been foster parents for 16 years, and 7 of their 9 children were adopted from Washington’s foster care system.

“Many of my children have come from trauma and have required special services,” Carpenter said. “In finding the services for my children, we have a lot of learning and growing to do as a family. It’s not intuitive and it’s not something we were prepared for from the beginning.”

Becoming a part of PAG nearly three years ago helped her give a voice to families like hers, she said. Now, as a part of ELAC, she can bring her perspective to a different group of influencers.

“What I love about ELAC is that they value the input of parents,” she said. “It’s a specific strength of ELAC and the Department of Early Learning in general, they just create an environment where you feel empowered to use your voice to change things but also to help inform people.”

Carpenter also hopes to bring her perspective as a parent in rural Grays Harbor County, where many families struggle to access care.

Carpenter is one of many new ELAC members. Carlina Brown-Banks was appointed to the committee by the Washington State Commission of African American Affairs. As the family engagement manager at the Road Map Project and a mother of 7 kids, she recognizes the importance of engaging children and families as early as possible.

“Early learning is the basis of the outcomes of families,” Brown-Banks said. “If we can get a strong early learning foundation for families…it will build better opportunities for children over the long haul.”

Brown-Banks, who has been recognized by the White House as a Champion for Change, also stressed the need for more diverse voices in discussions on how to support children and families.

Another new ELAC member is Susan Anderson-Newham, the early learning supervising librarian for the Pierce County Library System. As the Washington Library Association representative to ELAC, Anderson-Newham hopes to share with others what the state’s libraries can do for providers. It’s easy to forget all the free resources that libraries can provide – everything from trainings to pre-school story time, she noted.

Sharing resources, ideas, and perspectives can ultimately help Washington’s children, she said.

“If we could all start swimming in the same direction then we could create real movement in the water,” she said. “That’s sort of what we’re looking for is to try to sort of align, partner better, not recreate the wheel, share resources, share ideas.”

Also in attendance at the October 3 meeting were two of ELAC’s legislative council members, Senator Mark Miloscia of the 30^th legislative district, and Representative Tana Senn of the 41^st legislative district.

The next meeting of the Early Learning Advisory Council will take place on December 5. During this meeting, members will have additional opportunities to discuss their priorities for 2018 and the DCYF transition. More details about this meeting will be available in the coming weeks.