ECEAP Pilots Best Way to Support Families

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ECEAP (Washington’s state-funded pre-kindergarten program) is designed to prepare 3- and 4-year-old children from low-income and at-risk families for success in school and in life. Its comprehensive approach includes: preschool education; family support; parent involvement; and, health and nutrition services.

The program is doing a two-year pilot to help learn what helps families most and what resources are needed. To get a full look at the year-one report, go here: http://bit.ly/2cYIREH.  

We Want to:

1. Learn about the best ways to help families advance their goals, well-being and self-reliance; 
2. Test a statewide Family Strengths and Needs Assessment. The assessment helps to see family strengths, needs, and goals and note the progress that families are making. 

What Did We Learn from Year One?
ECEAP contractors tested two family support models, EMPath Mobility Mentoring® and the Family Development Matrix model. These models were chosen because they helped families in other states improve their well-being and family goals.

EMPath’s Mobility Mentoring® Model. This approach, grounded in EMPath’s Bridge to Self-Sufficiency™, articulates a family’s transformative journey from poverty to economic self-sufficiency by optimizing the family’s life in five domains: family stability; well-being; financial management; education; and career management. ECEAP family support staff act as Mobility Mentoring® coaches who partner with families to help them acquire resources and skills, and sustain behavior changes. EMPath outcomes include dramatic increases in education and training participation (45%) and household savings (63%).

Family Development Matrix Model. The Family Development Matrix (FDM) model is a family decision-making and goal-setting model that uses an assessment tool and online database with indicators to measure family and program outcomes. A 2014 California evaluation showed increases of between 10.8 and 15.9 points in percentages of families at the safe/self-sufficient levels in areas such as: children’s social and emotional development, and parental resilience.

Who Participated? 

Fourteen ECEAP sites serving families in cities and towns across the State tested each model. 1,552 families of different races, ethnicities, and home languages participated for the complete year.

“The biggest thing . . .that family support helped my family with was teaching me how to be a productive father and family member.”

--Puget Sound ESD Parent Participant

What Were the Results? 

Families in both models made gains between the beginning and end of the year. ECEAP staff said they liked how the tools from these models helped them have deeper conversations with families, so they could make sure that services and resources fit each family’s needs. They also enjoyed seeing families meet their goals.

What is Happening in Year Two of the Pilot?

1. Based on the information gathered in year one, DEL decided that Mobility Mentoring® was the best model for ECEAP. Staff from 20 contractors attended the EMPath Mobility Mentoring® training in August, 2016. These staff will train the family advocates. Family support services will begin when ECEAP starts in September. DEL ECEAP will provide ongoing training and support to contractors who are using Mobility Mentoring®. 
2. Family support conversations will be guided by ECEAP Bridge to Child and Family Self-Reliance.
3. DEL will ask all ECEAP families to take a survey at the end of the year. This will help us learn what services helped most and what else we can do to improve services. 
4. DEL will review the data and results. We will use this to recommend the next steps for family support in ECEAP.

Child Passenger Safety Week, September 18-24

The week of September 18 through 24 has been designated as Child Passenger Safety Week.  Obviously, parents and caretakers want to keep kids safe—the emphasis for this week is to make sure parents and caretakers are not only properly restraining kids in vehicles but using the correct car seat for each child based on their age and size.

 

A recent report released from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) on data from 2015¹ showed an uptick in the number of children killed in vehicle accidents.  Since this is only one year’s worth of data it is hard to draw direct relationships as to the cause(s) for this increase.  What we do know is that in spite of increasingly sophisticated safety technology in our vehicles and car seats—the car seats won't work if they are not used or are installed incorrectly!  Did you know that overall car seat and booster seat misuse was 46 percent in 2015²?

    

Here’s the good news, you don’t need an engineering degree to correctly install a car seat—you just need to know where to go to get help.  There are a lot of resources available to help you research the best car seat option for your child.  One of the most helpful resources is the Ultimate Car Seat Guide, created by Safe Kids Worldwide with help from automaker General Motors.

 

This guide covers how to:

•          Find the correct car seat based on your child’s age, height and weight.
•          Make sure it is correctly installed.
•          Register your car seat—to receive recall notices.
•          Know when your child is ready for the next car seat option.

To get help or to make sure you properly install a car seat, check out the following link to find a car seat checkup event in your area.  And remember, children learn by following your lead—set a positive example and always wear your seat belt.

Helpful Resources:    

• Traffic Safety Flyers: https://www.trafficsafetymarketing.gov/get-materials/child-car-safety/child-passenger-safety-week 
• Parents Central, keeping kids safe in and around cars: http://www.safercar.gov/parents/CarSeats/Car-Seat-Safety.htm?view=full 
• National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) press release: http://www.nhtsa.gov/About+NHTSA/Press+Releases/ci.nhtsa-cps-2016-09192016.print

¹ https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812309  

² https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/812142

Move it! DEL Promotes Health and Wellness this Month

September is National Childhood Obesity Month and it's time to get back to school for many Washington kids! This is a good time to re-commit to eating healthy, getting more active and spend less time in front of TVs, computers, and other screen time devices.

Parents and their children create and eat snacks
together at a Kaleidoscope Play and Learn group in Olympia.

According to letsmove.gov, nearly 60% of our youngest children spend time in child care, which means providers play an important part in modeling healthy behaviors.

Looking for quick and easy lessons and activities about health and wellness for kids? 

• Team up with parents! Parents can set a great example for the whole family by making home a healthy environment. Here are a few simple ideas for parents: 
• Keep fresh fruit in a bowl within your child’s reach to grab a quick snack
• Take a walk with your family after dinner.
• Plan a menu for the week. Get children involved in planning and cooking
• Turn off the TV during meals and share some family time
• Talk to your provider about organizing a “family physical activity day” at the child care center or family home
• Download the full tip sheet and share with parents!

• Check out “mini lessons” from Smart from the Start’s Enrichment Zone (EZ), and incorporate them into your center of family home today! These lessons are fun and play-based, and can be used by parents, caregivers, and volunteers to teach children important skills they need to develop healthy habits. More resources and information can be found Smart from the Start’s website.

• Below are one-page summaries of the updated infant, children, and adult meal patterns, as well as a one-page summary of optional best practices.
• Infant Meals One-Page Summary
• Children and Adult Meals One-Page Summary
• Best Practices

Using the Updated CACFP Meal Patterns to Lower Costs
This fact sheet provides guidance for CACFP centers and family child care homes to help keep costs low while implementing the updated meal patterns. It includes examples of nutritious meals that meet new meal patterns by making simple, low-cost switches.

Child and Adult Care Food Program: Using the Updated Meal Patterns to Lower Costs

Are you practicing healthy activities with your little learners? Share with the Department of Early Learning and the Department of Health on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag: #HealthiestNextGen! For more information about Governor J. Inslee's Healthiest Next Generation initiative, go here: HNG.

DEL Celebrates Arts in Education

The arts are an essential part of a complete education, no matter if it happens in the home, school, or community. Students of all ages—from kindergarten to college—benefit from artistic learning, innovative thinking, and creativity. Celebrating National Arts in Education Week is a way to recognize this impact and share the message with friends, family, and communities.

National Arts in Education Week is a national celebration recognizing the transformative power of the arts in education. Designated by Congress in 2010 through House Resolution 275, the celebration is designated to bring attention to this cause for elected officials and educational decision makers across the country and to support equitable access to the arts for all students.

So what makes art so important to a child’s education?

How does learning how to draw, paint, dance or sing help children in their other subjects as well as in life in general? For children across all physical and mental abilities, various art mediums allow children the freedom to express their ideas and emotions that more structured educational subjects don’t. 

 When there isn’t a “right” or “wrong” answer, children have the freedom to think differently.

In standard subjects such as social studies or mathematics—there are generally, right and wrong answers and hence it is much easier to quantify the level of proficiency in these subjects. The problem is that creativity, ingenuity and perseverance are not skills that are easy to quantify. Whereas, test results can “prove” proficiency in traditional subjects like math and reading comprehension.

But how do you teach skills and mental habits that are invaluable life skills such as problem solving, creativity, perseverance, or dedication? 

Photo courtesy of Kaleidescope Play and Learn, Thurston County

Through studying art and seeing a different perspective or practicing paint brush techniques—children gain skills and personal habits that help them in other areas of their education and life.

In addition, many students struggle with the structure and rigorous requirements of subjects like math, science or reading. But a child that loves to dance, draw or play an instrument can get lost in these activities for hours because they enjoy what they are doing. A child that has fun in creating a work of art or performing in a music or dance recital will learn the importance of perseverance, giving and receiving feedback, and the importance of dedication. A child’s self-confidence can’t help but flow into other areas his/her life.

So maybe the importance of art in a child’s education isn’t easily quantifiable or even going to provide the same benefits to each child. Perhaps the benefits of art education won’t sift out into a tidy equation. But, like art, the intangible skills, perspective and personal habits would be evident if children never got to experience, create or participate in it.

Introducing art in early education can contribute positively to*: 

• Fine motor skills. Grasping pencils, crayons, chalk and paintbrushes helps children develop their fine motor muscles. This development will help your child with writing, buttoning a coat and other tasks that require controlled movements.
• Cognitive development. Art can help children learn and practice skills like patterning and cause and effect (i.e., “If I push very hard with a crayon the color is darker.”). They can also practice critical thinking skills by making a mental plan or picture of what they intend to create and following through on their plan.
• Math skills. Children can learn, create and begin to understand concepts like size, shape, making comparisons, counting and spatial reasoning.
• Language skills. As children describe and share their artwork, as well as their process, they develop language skills. You can encourage this development by actively listening and asking open-ended questions in return. It is also a great opportunity to learn new vocabulary words regarding their project (i.e., texture). 

*Courtesy of Michigan State University. 

Back to School Immunizations

It’s back to school time… are you and your family ready? August is typically the time of year that many families get their children ready for school, and are busy checking the school supply list to ensure their children have the proper school supplies for a successful start to the school year.  There is no denying that this is an important part of school readiness. Often overlooked, but equally important are immunizations.

Schools, child care facilities, and preschool programs are prone to outbreaks of infectious diseases.  Children enrolled in these settings can easily spread illness to one another due to poor or improper hand washing techniques, interacting in crowded environments, and not covering coughs or sneezes.

Vaccines provide a safe and powerful tool to protect children from serious infectious diseases, such as measles, mumps, and chicken pox to name a few. 

When children are not immunized they are at an increased risk of contracting infectious diseases.  They can easily spread the disease to others in their classrooms, playgroups, to family members with weakened immunity due to age or health conditions, and the community they live in.

To help families navigate the requirements for immunizations and how to obtain a copy of a child’s immunization, or to answer questions about the safety of immunizations, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have the following links that can provide valuable and current information regarding immunizations and vaccinations.

• Department of Health Immunization   
• CDC Vaccine Safety website 
• CDC parents’guide on vaccines   
• Common Immunization Questions 
• Provider resources for vaccine conversations with parents 

Together let’s keep all children in Washington healthy and ready to learn.

 

DEL Posts Approved CCDF (Federal Funding Source) Plan

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is a Federal funding source that supports low-income working families by providing access to affordable, high-quality early care and after-school programs. CCDF also improves the quality of care to support children’s healthy development and learning by supporting child care licensing, quality improvement systems to help programs meet higher standards, and support for child care workers to attain more training and education.

In Washington, CCDF dollars fund essential programs in early learning, including but not limited to: 

• child care licensing
• quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) - Early Achievers
• data collection and analysis to better understand child outcomes. 

The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 reauthorizes the Federal early learning law of 1996 and represents an historic re-envisioning of the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program.

Learn more about the law.

As the lead state agency for the CCDF block grant, DEL must submit a plan every three years for how the funding will be used to improve accessibility to and quality of child care in our State. This past fall, DEL submitted the following:

• CCDF Plan Draft
• Summary of s1086
• CCDF Plan Outline

See the 2016-2018 Approved CCDF plan here: Approved CCDF Plan.

If you have questions, please contact: Child Care Administrator, Lynne Shanafelt at Lynne.Shanafelt@del.wa.gov.

DEL Posts Approved CCDF (Federal Funding Source) Plan

The Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) is a Federal funding source that supports low-income working families by providing access to affordable, high-quality early care and after-school programs. CCDF also improves the quality of care to support children’s healthy development and learning by supporting child care licensing, quality improvements systems to help programs meet higher standards, and support for child care workers to attain more training and education.

Authorization with CCDF has allowed essential programs in early learning to thrive including but not limited to: 

• licensed child care
• quality rating and improvement system (QRIS) - Early Achievers
• homeless child care

The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 reauthorizes the child care program for the first time since 1996 and represents an historic re-envisioning of the Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) program.

Learn more about the law.

As the lead state agency for the CCDF block grant, DEL must submit a plan every three years for how the funding will be used to improve accessibility and quality of child care in our state. This past fall, DEL submitted the following:

• CCDF Plan Draft
• Summary of s1086
• CCDF Plan Outline

See the 2016-2018 Approved CCDF plan here: Approved CCDF Plan.

If you have questions, please contact: Child Care Administrator, Lynne Shanafelt at Lynne.Shanafelt@del.wa.gov.