001All right. So, welcome everyone um to our uh 2026 2028 um childcare development fund um public hearing. So, we welcome everyone here. Uh we're going to start off with a land acknowledgement. Um and we do have folks joining us on Facebook Live. Um, and we do also have visitors here um, in the community who are visitors like me. Um, so we just want to make sure that we do land acknowledgement. Um, and so the land acknowledgement is shared by Angela D. Garcia Lewis. So it is vitally important to acknowledge that the land we live and work on is the homeland of the native people who have inhabited the landscape for millennia and continues to be spiritually connected to the aam and pash um of the salt river pima maropa and Indian community who live here
002today. So with that I'd like to invite our CCDF certificate program staff up. My name is Pamela Crasher. Ana Chugget Pamela Crasher. I'm the CCDF program manager here. Um we have Lisa Loya who is our billing specialist with the certificate program. We have Tanya Molina who is our CCDF liaison. So you might recognize her in working with the program. We have Lisa Inhon. She is our uh certificate program enrollment technician. We have Jennifer Korea who uh works primarily with uh the CCDF billing um with ECDC at the early childhood education center. And we have Sarah um who's our CCDF other CCDF liaison. So you might get to work with her as a childare provider or um as a family um in our programs. And then finally we have Dr. Michelle Kamo um who is our
003ECE site leader as well. So we have many parts in ECE um but we also have the certificate program as well. So we wanted to make sure that we introduced um fully our CCDF uh certificate program and staff. So thank you and they will be presenting throughout the night well not the whole um in different parts um as we share updates uh with our program. So our agenda for tonight um we were so blessed to have Mandar give a prayer um before we serve dinner. Um we are going to share our program overview and updates. Um then we will move into our uh of course celebrations. So things that we have been able to um share with the community in the last couple of years. and then we will go into our proposed changes for
004the upcoming CCDF. So CCDF stands for childcare development fund. Um and we'll talk a little bit about that and the program that it serves and then so we'll go into the proposed changes regarding payments for certificate program um proposed changes for eligibility and then expanded services as well. And then at the end we will open up for public response and feedback on the proposed changes to our CCDF plan um that will be soon to be implemented. So I will pass it over to Dr. K and she will um share some of our celebrations um and in regards to our CCDF program. Thank you Pam. My name is Good evening. My name is Michelle Cuomo. I am fairly new to the community. Um, started in November. I'm so excited to be here tonight. Really, this night
005is about you and us learning from you as a community what your child care needs are. But before we do that, want to be able to kind of share with you the services um that Salt River Schools provides related to early education and childare. So, with that being said, um, one of the things we want to go ahead and share is the purpose of tonight and the purpose of what we do in early education and child care is make those connections similar to how a person would weave a basket to tell that person's story and to preserve those traditions. And that's what we're hoping to do with tonight and our services going forward. So, our theme tonight really is about weaving those connections with you around early education and child care and giving you an
006overview of what we currently provide and where we'd like to go next. So, one of the first things um that we want to kind of share with you is we are different than maybe some sometimes we're defined as child care, but really we're early education and we do provide child care to families. We They're funded through two federal grants and they're up on the screen right now. Um, tonight we're really going to be talking about the one on the left side of your right side of your screen which is the tribal child care funding. Um, we also are funded through Head Start. And one of the wonderful things about these two federal grants is that the center you can see these are their system wheels for how we deliver services. pretty complex in how we
007deliver comprehensive services to families and children, but at the center of it all is always the children and families that we serve. So, I just wanted to kind of have you understand that we're grounded in knowing that we are here for the children and families in this community and that that is what um what we're here to learn tonight and get your feedback around your needs for your children and family. So, the first piece I wanted to share with you is just giving an over of our services is the Head Start program. Um that is a federal fund that we currently receive funding for and most of our services are coming through the ECE early childcare education center. Currently right now we have 202 um child slots available. We're currently fully enrolled. And one of
008the things that makes this grant different from the one that we're going to talk about tonight is that it's um our service location is confined to within the community here. So we can only serve children based on the children in this community. So I just wanted to be clear with that in that we have an early childhood center and again it's right across the street. It's Head Start funded and again we serve about 100 children birth to three um 80 of them in our center, 20 through our homebased program, and 105 Head Start um preschool children. So, the next part is really what we're going to focus on tonight. Because not everybody can access the early childhood center, we um are fortunate enough to have funding through the child um childcare development fund, which allows
009us to provide tribal child care. Now, this allows us to serve families and to work with providers in neighboring cities to allow families in this community to be able to access services that um you know, they can't be at ECE, but you can still have child care needs met. One of the interesting things about this grant is it does serve children birth to age 13. We do have a child care portion that we serve for children at ECE from the hours of 2:30 to 5:30 daily. Um, and then one of the wonderful things about this is we are also want to welcome our community providers who might be here um because we are able to partner with community providers around providing service um around non-traditional hours or there not being availability for child care within
010the community. So, it allows us to span to expand our services for you to meet the childare needs that you have. One of the things that's interesting for both of our grants is because they're federally provided, we do not um have the ability to only serve the children here in the community. We have to definitely um have a process in place and the community does get input on the priorities of the children that we serve. So, um, one of the things that's interesting about our childcare development fund grant is that, um, we receive, we're at a different level of funding than just tribally operated center. We're actually at what we would consider a state level of funding. Um, and that is because we serve all tribybally enrolled children birth to 13 years um, in this
011community, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, Tempe, and Glenda. So, we're able to expand services, but we also are able to serve um tribally enrolled children including the community here but others in other communities as well. One of the big pieces as a lead agency and that's more like a um a state level grant is we're able to receive more money because we have um the ability to reach more families and to provide more services. As you look at our graphic here, you can see um everything on the blue is really where we've been spending a lot of our time and effort, which has been really in the tribarally operated center, which is ECE. Um we're really excited as well to provide families with the opportunity to fund their um child care needs by participating in other providers
012um that are within the neighboring area. And that's our certificate program. And then we again also provide extended day child care. Uh we actually employ 24 extended day aids at ECEC to provide child care from the hours of 2:30 to 5:30 daily. So the areas in blue on this chart are actually really where um the last few years the the money has been really targeted on us working on those areas. But as you can see the areas in yellow because we are um able to service more which means we receive more funding to provide services to this community as well as to other tribyally enrolled families. We have the ability to provide family education. All of the areas in yellow on this particular chart are where we'd like to grow to. As you look at
013this now, um, we're really targeting quality communication, information systems, family education, and continuous quality improvement. The areas in red that you see here are are priorities for us to grow within the next plan, couple planned years. So, uh, one of the interesting thing of of why we're having this, um, event tonight is we do need to apply for our next two-year application and grant period. And with that, we need to, one of the requirements is we need to check in with community and get your feedback around what are the needs um that you have for child care. So, as we look at these um components here in red, these are some of the um, opportunities we're looking to in our next grant two-year period. Um, it would be to expand to another location which was
014opened before the pandemic which was the Accelerated Learning Academyy's Eagle Nest. We had an infant toddler program there before the pandemic. Um, it was closed and has not been reopened yet. Our goal would be to um reopen that. In addition to that, we'd like to return ECE to prevent preandemic service levels and that would be to open five additional classrooms. We currently operate at 17 classrooms right now. We have 10 infant toddler and we have seven preschool classrooms. We'd like to expand to the 22 that we originally had. Um in addition to that over time we I'll talk a little bit about our construction expansion update as well where we added six additional classrooms and our plans to open those as well. This year we're hoping to we're actually in plans to have our first
015annual educator training which is a week-long training that we're inviting community um partners to get their annual training done. Um and we are currently in the process of planning that. And then we also are hoping to provide online child um training, childhood training that's required for all early childhood staff, centerbased staff. And so we're looking at an online library that we'll provide as well as an annual family conference that we're hoping to deliver in September. Just wanted to give you an overview of our goals. And then we also have the literacy for all program who has been doing wonderful work representing us in the community providing books and literature materials to families in the home. And we also have our literacy champions as well that support us um by working directly with our afterchool children
016because again we do also provide child care needs for again children who are uh K through 13 years old. So um 6 to 13 years old. I want to celebrate some of our accomplishments. So, two years ago, I believe they were in the process of planning the ECE expansion. That included a number of um a number of expansion items at the actual physical site across the street. One of the pieces was to add an upstairs addition um to one of our buildings to add on 12 um offices that the CCDF staff will move up into. We also have a state-of-the-art conference room and an employee break room. Um, one of the other components of the expansion included a multi-purpose room to allow our children to have somewhere to go and play when we have weather
017like extreme heat, allowing children to have um, and also a place for our staff to meet and be trained. So, it's just really been wonderful. On the one side of the screen, you're seeing our first event that we had, which was Read Across Salt River event. That was the first time we used the multi-purpose room. And then you can see on the other side, our children actually, this was the first time we tried it on a rainy day and the children were getting some exercise in that room. And then finally, we have those six brand new classrooms. And I'm happy to show you the furniture that was just delivered yesterday. So all of these classrooms have brand new, brand new furniture, including the teacher offices. And again, these are some photos of one of the
018classrooms. So we had six additional classrooms built on um and there were four for preschool classrooms and two for infant toddlers. To that end, I want to invite everybody to come celebrate with us because we are having a grand looming at ECE ribbon cutting ceremony to share with everyone um the wonderful updates and expansion that's happened at ECE. Um you have the QR code there if you'd like to have access to the save the date. It is May 1st. The we will be having it from 9:30 to 11. There will be a lot of fun tours. Um the children are planning fun activities to share with you and there will be food and celebration. So we would love to invite you to come and enjoy um all of the wonderful additions and the successes and
019celebrations we have to share at this time. All right, with that being said, want to get to the main purpose of tonight, which is we'd like to ask you to share the gift of your feedback with us because your input matters in terms of what are the services you say you need. We are going to share some of the changes that we're proposing to increase services for you in the community. Um, and we would like your feedback and opinions on and if we're missing something, share that with us. So, it's so important. We really want to hear from you because it your um feedback should be guiding what we do and what we do next. The other piece I want to share with you is we do have a community needs assessment going on at
020the same time. Um because we have two grants, both of them have applications due in this next coming year. So we really want we're also doing another way to learn from the community about their needs. So we do have a community needs assessment out at this time. Would encourage you if you do have the opportunity to complete it, please do so. Um, also we're looking to do some surveys for families to hear directly from the families that we serve. And this last one here is the public hearing. So with that being said, I want to welcome you to hear about our changes from Pam. And thank you so much for coming. Thank you, Dr. K. So a lot of uh things to celebrate and um things that we want to continue to celebrate. So, even
021though I'm going to be providing information and our team is going to be providing information on the changes, um I get really excited about it because um our team works with families and childcare providers um and the community on a day-to-day basis. So, they um have actually had the opportunity to work and hear um what are the changes that u families want um and the community want. So, I'm excited to share those proposed changes um and hopes that like Dr. K had shared um that we get to hear from you um and the changes that you want for our programs here. All right. So, a little bit about our a few of our programs. So, I'm going to just share uh briefly about um what our definitions are um what the CCDF defines things for
022our program um and then we'll get into the proposed changes. So, currently our current definition um for Indian child is child who is f federally uh enrolled in a recognized tribe um from birth through 12. Um they can go up to 13 if they um turn 13 during that year. Um so we will service them up to age 13. And um our service area is the Salt River Maricopa Indian Committee, Lehi, Mesa, Tempe, uh Scottdale and Glendale. So families live in that service area. we do have um the option to define what that means for the community. So you have that input. If you want to change the definition, you may propose that um at any time. Um however, today we we will be talking about the proposed changes that we have heard from families
023in the community. Um and so the goal of that for us today is to share out those proposed changes um and then gather that feedback. So we do have a a couple of um copies of the current CCDF plan that's floating around. Um there they are a few at the sign in um so you can grab one from there. Um we will also have one um available on our website and then um there should also be a comments form um that was provided. So um we are looking for feedback, comments, questions. Um this is the time for that. Um, and also if you're on Facebook live, um, please make sure that you put in the comments. Um, the comments form will be available and the CCDF plan will be available as well. And so, um,
024like Dr. K uh shared, we have the early childhood education center that services birth through five. Um, and then we also have the certificate program, which I feel um, very close to because I feel like it's been tucked under UCDC's wing. Um, but we do service birth through 12. Um, and we service those families who might need child care services off of the reservation. Um, and we, uh, partner with community partners, um, childcare providers that are state licensed, quality, um, accredited and nationally accredited as well. So, um, I would like to invite Lisa Lya to come up and we will, um, share the next couple changes which includes eliminating co-ayments for families increased subsidy and then quality adds. Thank you. Can you all hear me? Okay. Good evening. My name is Lisa. I am the
025accounting for the program for certificate program. I wanted to talk to you about eliminating payments. I was fortunate enough to go with Pam and Dr. K to a pre-print training um preint training um for this new plan. And there are a lot of flexibility with it. And so it's exciting to be able to do changes that maybe we weren't able to do before, but now we can. And one of those is eliminating family cos. So currently families apply they show their income and based on that income and their household size they are given a co-ayment that they would then pay to their child care provider. So we are looking to eliminate that co-ayment for those families and part of the benefits of that would lessen barriers and this will allow families the opportunity to work
026to attend school to enter job training. We know that living expenses have become very costly. Um rent has increased groceries car payments, car repairs, gas, electricity, phone bills. Uh with all these other expenses increasing, so has child care. Uh eliminating the family co-pays would be one less dispense, one less expense that families would need to worry about. Also, another one, eliminating family co-ayments would bring more stability to child care for families in our community. We've seen situations where families couldn't afford their co-ayments. Sometimes they fall behind by months and as a result their child was unable unable to attend care until that balance was paid. We also know how much that it can impact the entire family when a child does not have stable care. Parents are forced to scramble for alternate care. They could
027miss work. They might even risk losing their job. And that kind of stress is hard on everyone in the family. We would like to prevent this from happening and ensure children can remain in care without interruption. Eliminating co-pays would ease that pressure and help families to stay on track. One of the drawbacks of eliminating family co-ayments is the co-ayments that are paid to ECE go to a general fund for the tribe. So what would that mean for the tribe um if they were not to get to receive those co-ayments? The other thing is when we eliminate family co-ayments, um there are still may be overages that the parent would have to pay and it can look similar to this. So you have child A who is I'm just giving example. You have child A who
028is school age and they're in summer care. They go to childare center A and that center has a monthly tuition of $1,360 a month. The family co-ayment is $23 a month. This is based on this is an older sibling. So, this family also probably has a one-year-old child in the program. Right now, our current maximum maximum subsidized rate is $954. That means we can eliminate the co-pay, but what about the additional overage of $46 that we don't cover? that becomes parent responsibility. They can work with the provider. We try to ask the provider can they wave it will they can they just offer to take a portion of it but that is solely between the provider and the parent. I have another example of child B. This could be the sibling of that child. It's
029a oneyear-old toddler going to childcare center B. That provider monthly tuition is $1,725. That um family co-ayment for that specific child was 64.440. We can eliminate that is what we're proposing. The current maximum subsidized rate for a one-year-old. This provider happens to be enrolled in quality first. So we pay an additional um amount for providers who are enrolled in quality first or nationally accredited. So we would pay $1344 but you can see there is still an overage of 381 that the parent may be liable for. So we'd like to eliminate the co-pays but this could be a drawback. That's why I give her the signal. Yeah. So that was everything for eliminating cos. Thank you, Lisa. All right, so um I'll go back to my section which is increasing subsidy and I'm going backwards. So
030let's go forward. And so um uh we are re proposing that we increase our maximum subsidized rate to childcare providers. Um in the past we uh what we do is we look at the state um child care subsidized program that Dr. K had mentioned. Um and we are again similar but we service native families. And so what we want to be able to do is not only um match what dees um on the state side they call dees. We want to match not only match but um give our providers a little bit more um on the subsidized rate for families that they serve. Um and so we're proposing like Lisa shared uh sometimes you know when there's that overage that families have to pay it's a hardship on the families. So we want to make
031sure that there's no gap um that families have to pay. So we um have not increased our um subsidized rate in the past three years. Um that subsidized rate that we currently have is based off of the 2018 market rate study. Um, and so now we are looking to um we have looked at the rates and we're proposing to increase them based off of the 2024 market rate study. Um, and so this is an example of what it could look like for families. again, child A. Um, if we were to also eliminate the co-ayment, um, with the current maximize subsidized rate, it's 954. And like Lisa shared, the overage would be $46. So, our proposed um maximized sub subsidized rate, we are proposing to um increase it to say 1421. And this would leave the
032family um responsibility, Z responsibility. Um, again, the the benefits would kind of relieve the hardship for families. Um, and as Lisa shared when we've attended the training, there's a lot of flexibility around how um, childcare development funds can be used um, in order to better serve children and families. So, the goal is to u reduce that barrier and stress on families. Um here's another example. Um and we when we talk about quality first and nationally accredited tiered system, we want families to go to programs that are uh qual higher quality and that are nationally accredited. So we encourage families that you know if you want to send your child to a center that might be more expensive and they're probably more expensive because they're nationally accredited. We don't want that to be a barrier for
033families. So we want families to, you know, that's why I shared uh Tanya and Sarah, they are CCDF liaison. So they work with families to um provide education on what a high quality center looks like um and how they can kind of access those highquality programs. Um so the next um initiative that we would like or the proposed change would be the quality initiative and this would also provide add-ons to um only the certificate program. Um and so this is specific to the certificate program. Um but this would provide um opportunities to our childare partners um who do serve non-traditional hours who serve children with special needs and um who serve children with infants and toddlers and school age programs. So what we know is to access um higher quality programs um you have to
034increase this amount of services and what we know is it's really hard to find high quality programs that service infants and toddlers. There's a huge waiting list for that age group. Um as we know um on our you know in our infant classrooms here the ratio is lower. So you have one teacher to four children um and on the side in the childcare uh providers, most of them have lower ratios. So, it's harder to find school age programs. Um it's harder to find centers that service infant and toddlers. So, um we are proposing that we add on those um quality uh initiatives for those programs so that we can um um incentivize uh our families to go to those programs. And then we incentivize our providers to uh work with our families um around these
035um specific add-ons that we're proposing. Great. So our next proposed change is around eligibility and I would like Jennifer and Sarah Tanya and so they'll be sharing around eligibility for um so the start is for the certificate program and just make sure you're speaking right into the mic. Good evening. I'm Jennifer um accounting clerk. So we would like to update the definition of protective. We would like to add on a parent who is Thank you. We would like to add There you go. That's it. We would like to add on um a parent who is incarcerated to the definition. Our current definition right now is um children who are receiving protective services through appropriate agencies in foster care, state or tribal or in kinship care. In crisis situations due to domestic violence or safety plan
036has been put in place have been placed with long-term legal guardians or adopted parents of children who were previously placed in their care via foster care. kinship or other tribal or state protective services. Protective services is defined as a parent or guardian who who is attending or in patient or outpatient drug or alcohol rehabilitation program has a diagnosed disability, physical, mental or medical condition. So if we add on protective services as a parent who is incarcerated, that would help families by providing less stress for them. They're not so worried about how how am I going to make this payment? Because now they are considered protective service. So they would have a zero copay. It would help the child, but they would give have a school to go to where it's safe, where are free to
037learn, to be themselves, to grow up. We know that um children who are at a lower disadvantage, who have parents incarcerated, may have a higher risk of um mental health issues or physical issues. And just by relieving that co-ayment and helping that family, we can uplift these children. A drawback of this, we may have a more children which would increase our enrollment tax work. And how would we verify this? How would we verify a parent is incarcerated? That co-ayment would no longer be there and the funding would no longer come to the tribe. That small portion, what does that portion support in our tribe? Those are just a few drawbacks. Thank you. So if you have questions or comments or uh emotional outbursts, you can write it on your form and we will be um
038allowing um or providing opportunities for the public comments. So um if you have you know sometimes if something comes to your mind if you write it down it will be helpful. Um and then again like I shared we will an opportunity at the end to ask any questions and provide comments and feedback. So, I just wanted to share that. All right. Our next proposed change is to remove um per capita as part of our income collected to determine eligibility for our CCDF program. Um our current definition, our head starts definition of income is gross income which includes earned income, military income, veterans benefits, social security benefits, unemployment compensation, and public assistance, which per capita does not fit into any of these categories. In collaboration with other tribal CCDF programs, we have learned that tribes do
039not count per capita as income. um per capita also fluctuates and is not a guaranteed source of income. One example of this is when talking sick casino flooded in 2018, families shared that per capita decreased and impacted families financially. The benefit of excluding per capita would um benefit families by qualifying them for the lowest lowest co-ayment within our program which is taken from income um and family size. Another benefit would increase eligibility to more families whose total income may lie close between two of the highest levels of our billing which would be eligibility and and eligibility. Um the drawback from this from excluding per capita um would just be causing inconsistent income category across tribal agencies which can cause some confusion. Uh an example is housing authority in China does take per capita as um
040part of income. Little closer. So we would like to incorporate a selection scale for the certificate program. It's almost similar to ECE's um selection scale. There's a little variation compared to ECE, but right now our current plan is first come first serve and um sorry and um protective services children and siblings are um prioritized. And so our proposed change um families will be selected for enrollment into the certificate program on a proprietary prioritizes them to ensure fair and impartial process. Um and so one of those benefits would be um the selection for the family would be determined by the documentation that they provide with their um completed application and the needs of the children and the family which they indicate on their application. Um and then the selection will take place with eligible applications with
041the highest points as priority. So um you know, wherever families fall on the point system scale, that's how we would determine um enrollment for these children. The families the drawbacks um would could be we would no longer serve first come first serve and they might be um a wait list that might um we might need to incorporate and then additional another drawback would be we would require additional documentation and that might be a hardship on amilies and it may be a challenge um to be able to collect all that documentation that we would require for additional points. And then um applications may take longer to be processed just um have one enrollment tech and also um just verifying all the supporting documentation that would be submitted with an application. And so um that's pretty much
042it. And so I know on the screen there's um some of the points we were looking at. Um so so like protective services, what we consider protective services would be 20 points. Disability diagnosis would be 15 points. Homelessness and temporary placement is 15 points. Teen parent 15 points. Single parent households another 15 points. And then 10 points for Salt River Puma Maricopa Indian Community um department referrals and um that's any referrals within the with any oh my gosh sorry any um referrals that we receive with our from our community partners and then also um if our families or parents are um employed with any of the Salt enterprises and then also in a career development program and then five points if they're in Canada or food stamps and then another five. So that's what we're
043looking at for our upcoming 2026 2028 CC up there's Thank you, Lette. Um, and so it would I don't think it would be a bad thing if we needed another enrollment tech. So, um, uh, so think about how we can, um, how these services would, uh, impact our families and not only, um, you know, encourage how we can expand our services. So, we're going to talk about next expanding our services, which is Sarah, and she's giving out drinks. she's going. And so she's going to talk about the age 13 to 19 for diagnosed disabilities. Um and then then I'll come back and share about the inhome relative care providers and then prospective payments for our childare centers. So I'll pass it over to Sarah. Thank you. Hi, I'm Sarah. I am Sarah Kahunga. I'm a
044certificate program liaison and I service families with last names ending in K through Z. Tanya has A through J. And so what we're going to propose for our certificate program plan. It's okay. You can just talk. I was looking for Oh, you changed the Yeah, that's okay. You can just talk. And step right into the mic, too. Sure. Yeah. Thanks. portion of plan is children with a diagnosed disability aging out of the certificate program. Our current CCDF plan states the tribal lead agency does not allow children um to get services using CCDF funding who are over age 13 but below age 19 who are physically and or mentally incapable of selfcare. Our proposed change to the plan is to allow a child with a dis diagnosed disability up to the age of 19 to receive
045CCDF funding for care. So, one of the goals is to support low-income families by providing quality child care assistance. And another benefit is the tribal lead agency is allowed to raise the qualifying age to 19 if the child is physically or mentally unable to care for themselves. Some of the implications or the drawbacks is the division of diagnosed disabilities here in the state is slow to respond and there are not very many centers that take children over the age 12 with special needs. So that's something that would be a barrier and the CCRNR which is the Arizona childare resource and referral is very limited and um they work with the families to offer education to find a program for their special needs child but they're far few and far between. So that is that portion
046of children with diagnosed disabilities. Thank you. Thank you Sarah. And so the next um two proposed changes are expanding services. So inhome relative care. Um this has been I say a dream a lot for a lot of us of providing um inhome providers um an opportunity. So for example um if we were to expand services within the community around child care. We have heard from families that sometimes when um you know if they're working at the casino and you know they have a relative that would come in to their own home um their child's home and um watch their child while they work. Um we are hoping to implement a program that's similar to that that would keep um our funding within the community and um provide it back to our community members here. Um,
047so that's a program we are in the beginning stages of proposing. So we would pilot this program. Um, and so we're looking to hear feedback and um, comments from the community on what that might look like, what questions you might have around it. Um, is it a need, how will it benefit the community? Um, so that's an area that we're we're starting to really kind of um wrap our brains around and how we can bring this um this service to the community that we we you know are are wanting to um provide. Um, additionally, so that would be for the community, but prospective payments is our next proposed change as we expand services. So perspective payments would look like for our childare partners, um, our community partners where we pay in advance for childcare services
048rather than in rear. So right now what we do is um we wait for the centers to bill us for child care services. So we this is proposing that we would pay in advance to the child care um center and so the state is state dees the state dees services are moving towards requiring um to have prospective payments in the coming year. So um we want to stay ahead and um kind of work side by side along with the state um so it's less confusion for our childcare providers. Um, so we are looking to um potentially pilot a program that we would offer prospective payments. Um, so we're just looking for feedback and thoughts around that as well. And so that is a summary of all of the changes we are proposing um and any
049additional um feedback that you might want to share as well. And so this is a summary of this uh proposed changes. So payments for certificate program, the eligibility piece and the expanded services. So um again the payments for certificate and ECEC is eliminating the co-ayments for all of our families. Um the also payments for certificate program would be increasing the subsidized rate to our childare providers. Um and then eligibility we would and then doing the quality initiative for add-ons to our healthare providers. Um eligibility, looking at removing per cap as part of the income, updating our definition of protected services. Um incorporating the selection scale. Um for expanded services, we are looking at um expanding our services to children who have a diagnosed disability from 13 to 19. Um and in home relative care providers.
050And then finally the um expanded um services to prospective humans for our childare provider. So we will um open it up for public comments. So um just a helpful reminders um again you can um we are allowing comments in the chat or um the for Facebook live. So if you do um please if you can state your name and um your comments and then if you do provide a comment um you know if you would like a followup you can put your contact information or you my contact information will be shared out on our site as well. Um and then for those of you are here in person um we ask that you know we we give five minutes to your comments. We do have a timekeeper u Miss Tina and she will um help
051keep us on track. Um but if you can um please come up to share your comments or your feedback or your question. And when you do, if you can please talk directly into the mic and state your name. And if you are a family, if you are representing um a certificate family, if you're representing an ECE family, um or if you're here for the community as you know from the community or as a staff. So we welcome um all of any comments, questions um and then feedback as well. Who is the brave one to go first? And please come up. You don't have to raise your hand. Did how do you want to do in the Facebook? There's comments and there's a couple questions. Maybe we can alter you got it. Hello, my name is
052Jana. I'm here for the community member aspect. Um, first of all, I want to say thank you. Sounds like you guys got a lot of good information from your guys's um training. So, I love that. I love the changes. Um, I do have some questions a little bit about everything. Um, I'll just go into Oh, sorry. I'll just go. Um I went to the first proposed change which I believe was eliminating the co-ayments. Um is there a way that information more information could be provided um about exactly what that looks like given the student total and what we currently pay versus what it would look like in the future. Um just to make a more informed decision I guess. Um but uh those are just for those are things that I support. I believe that
053you know that's it's very fruitful. I think Um there's been a lot of struggle with um obtaining child care for a lot of people and I've kind of recognized that over the years which is like falling just either inside or just outside of being able to qualify. Um so I do support those. I think we just I would like more information about that um possible. Um, and then for the eligibility, um, and I think I was thinking more towards the I think you guys had talked about how you would remove per capita as an income, um, to be able to help uh, families qualify. Um, and I just wanted to get more I guess example of what it would look like. I guess kind of what was described was that it would be a little
054bit confusing within the department. Um, that TANIF and other programs do utilize per capita as income and if I guess I'm just wondering if this is kind of like already something that the departments are talking about and just wondering if that's something that's going to like be collaborative I guess and understanding um because I I don't like giving people to run around and so I would think that I'm hoping that that's the case and just hoping that that's something that can go forward but just maybe being intentional about like hey this is going to be a difficult thing for all of us you know understanding navigating the system departments and things like that but um I do love those ideas. I think the I really liked the proposed change for increasing quality services and and
055expanding it to special needs and things like that because I feel like those students kind of fall outside of the realm sometimes and regardless I think of any hardships that maybe the department or the community has and finding that. I feel like that's something that still needs to be identified because there's still a parent and there's still a child that has to identify with that. Um I think one of the last things was just the inhome relative care. First of all, I love the idea. Um I think I just would like more information about what are the certifications or qualifications that one must have. Um would that be in collaboration or compliance with foster youth services here maybe potentially. Um, and then I just also wanted to add that I think that that is kind
056of like a good uh segue into potentially getting more employees here. Um, because I think it's a great opportunity to come here and service the community. And I was just wanted to get more information about, you know, whether it be contracts or any type of checks and balances or compliance, I guess, in related to that. And might be it. I'm not quite sure how you want to do the comments though because we have a variety. For instance, the first one is like more of a statement and really has nothing to do with season. But then we also have like this, but it's not like I don't even know if that's like a real name. You know what I mean? So what we can do maybe is like we have a question from Facebook or like
057or a comment that says this rather rather than say the name. Yeah. Or just a statement comments about two of them actually say that. Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. So, we're trying to navigate both worlds, right? In person uh on Facebook Live. And so, there has been a question or a statement um in the chat that says ECE is closed way too much. And so, this is why we want to, you know, hear from the community and and provide feedback. Um we do have certificate program available um to families who you know um when we have at at the early childhood education center have closure dates. Um we do have um certificate program that families can utilize on those closure days. Um and additionally it's helpful to hear um feedback um and potentially you
058know maybe this is um why the inhome relative care provider um might be an options to those families who who might need services on those days. Um we recognize that ECE um does have professional professional development um days that we are closed. Um and that is to also um ensure that our staff have trainings and um requirements for those health and safety trainings that are part of our grants. So we have um like Dr. Michelle shared we do have health and safety trainings that are requirements through Head Start which is our grant our grant and then our CCDF the childcare development fund grant which are required training. So we have to have those trainings um in our program and so we we're trying to balance um both worlds and so we appreciate the comment um
059because then it helps us plan um for those days when we do have to be close um different options that we can think about. So, thank you for that comment. Is there anybody in the live audience that would give feedback or comments? Thank you. Hello, my name is Elena Ray. I am a community member in a certificate family. I really am blessed to have be a part of this program and the changes that are proposed um for the 26 28 year. Um so I do love that you know the co-ayments are gone and are going to be proposed to be gone and then also the increased subsidy um because you know if we do eliminate that that is good. I don't have a a barrier to the What is it? Um the co-pays, but it
060would help me as a family. You know, like you said, everything is going high. It's a headache. But um it also be, you know, blessing for every other family that is a part of this program. But last thing too, um so I saw that you guys are going to do the eligibility. I appreciate that because you know a lot of families are in need of that. But you know you know thinking about myself you know um there is people that have like a two parent household that don't meet those qual qualifications um and that might be a barrier to them. So I I appreciate you know the disability aspect but it would be nice to have what you guys have going on now and then also have section for foster care and then also the
061disability um part of it. Um and then I do love the what is it the um in house relative care because I know that the higher education provides that and then all they do is have the person taking care of the child fill out like a time sheet and then they'll pay them on that. So I really appreciate this and everybody good job. Hey, you actually like this one. I think I think this one right here. All right. So, we're jumping to the uh Facebook live. Um question with the inhome care can you offer positions where you have a variation of times for students/kids to have access to care like a follow like one of the most care centers but yeah so right now Um I hope I'm answering this correctly, but for now we
062are just looking for um in home um an opportunity to service children in their own child's home um and having a relative come in the child's home to take care of that child. Um it wouldn't be set hours, it would be whatever the need is for child care for that child and that family. Um so it would be you know we're looking at different programs um of what different options there is available. So some communities that we have seen um have like an age limit of that a relative who you know some have 18 years and older some have 21. Um a family suggested to us uh that the person should be 25 years and older because what we know about brain development. Um so uh we we this is the time for feedback and
063suggestions around that. So if you know if we understand that some families have um like non-traditional hours of work or work on Saturdays and Sundays on the weekend and it's harder to find child care uh centers that and providers that meet the needs of our families. So we're really looking at what um the needs are for our families that we can better serve. Okay, we have a comment on Facebook live asking um if our funding is being impacted by any of the changes um to administration for children and families and health and human services. Uh one of the both of our grants are housed under administration for children and families. So at this time we are watching things very carefully. We are communicating any communications we receive from Washington that impact our program with tribal
064council as soon as we can so that uh we can get guidance around um any steps that we need to take. At this time though everything is we are normal operations and told different until we're told differently. Um we have heard there are some different things um happening in terms of proposed proposals that some of our grant funding is not in the next administration's plan. Um however, none of this has been verified. None of it's been confirmed. One of the nice things about one of our funding sources, um, Head Start, is that it is an active Congress. And so that for them to make any changes to that programming would need to be pretty significant in terms of um, the entire Congress agreeing to remove that funding. Um, and we also know that Congress can
065tend to take some time. So, um, with that being said, we are being really proactive in terms of responding to our grants, getting things in as sooner rather than later to make sure that we can maintain our funding um, regardless of any changes that are on the horizon. So, as we know things, please know we are letting this house superintendent know and then they are also um communicating with tribal council and that we would be sharing any feedback that they feel families need to know with um the community. Good job. And I just wanted to share um there were some questions that were asked. Um we are taking those questions down. We're taking note of those questions. Uh Lisa is our notetaker. Um so we will be um collaborating as a team to um answer
066those questions. Um and then we will be posting them on our um CCDF uh Salt River Schools. Um and then if you go to the early hood um education center web page. Um we have a section that says CCDF um and we will be answering those questions that um have been presented tonight on that website. So please follow back up uh with our website for those questions or you can always reach out to me. Thank you. Just go um Kunika Martha Loa Martinez. Good evening everybody. My name is Martha Loa Martinez here. Part of the community and had had about um I think we've had about five children come through ECC at one point in time. Um and for our family, we currently caretake nine of our grandchildren. Well, my mom's grandchildren, my nieces and
067nephew, as well as my um daughters that currently attend ECC. So, I guess I had a couple more questions to kind of add on that. U the change to prioritize um whose priority and what that would all entail and if you give more examples of maybe um I guess where that priority would fell or change I guess currently to now because I think about it like for many of us who are um blended families together or multiple families helping one another uh because we have all of that support together we're not poor enough to be poor but we don't make enough to get all the services we need but um I guess that's one important thing to just take into consideration with that. And for other families that I do know of that have grandparents
068that help with maybe parents who are younger with them, that is still a difficulty for them to get them over here uh onto the campus. And so just kind of taking that into consideration and those whom who do work. I know that I do appreciate with all the ladies that what they do here including and coming to um the school to make suggestions about those who work within the community in different enterprises. So just thinking of those individuals as well with all of the changes of their schedules or work schedules. So those swing shifts or those graveyards are important to incorporate. Um and then uh kind of to go off a little bit more of the inhome relative care. I guess with that having that consideration of the age was one thing I wanted to
069bring up because of that. We talked about development but also talked about uh legally what they're able to do at that particular age. But if that's something we looking about uh eligibility um with eligibility or actually expanding ages for expanding services. If you have uh a relative who is able to care for that individual from 13 to the age of 19. If that would be some type of incentive for them to continue on with their learning, but also then uh in a way to either pilot a program or something where either staff here would also get that training or would have the capability of offering that to others as well. Uh so it's kind of like in the family they knew they know that and they're receiving some type of funding for it. um but
070also encourage that continuous learning and then seeing how that then benefits the community and whether that then opens up a teacher who will then want to apply here to be able to offer those services here on campus because even then I know that's um it's a lot of expectations for the teachers and what they're required and I would say not just wanting to learn what they're required to have in that. Um, so I guess too just I guess sharing that information a little bit more of uh what this all covers including those um professional development days. I know that's quite a bit here in the community and what we have. So it's just trying to make sure that we're complying with what is necessary but also letting family knows well if that's going to continued
071hardship. We also have this funding that allows you to uh not take a day off. You still have care during that. And then if that is the case, you have a whole schedule for the upcoming months. Hey, we can already schedule that out for those days. Just remember that they're going to go to this location. Um, and I guess a little bit more about what was talked about earlier on any kind of miscommunication that can go about with removing per capita as income to just clarify that if that were something that were to change then if we don't qualify for TANF or for WIC or whatever else that is um you would still qualify here. So, would that cause any kind of hardship for the community in any capacity because those those documents have to
072be submitted? Um, that would be another one that I would want to double check and make sure if that's something that complies with the community or hurts the community in some way. Thank you for those questions and and as I shared we will take note those questions and then we will uh post them on the website. Thank you for the feedback comments and then the questions. Sorry. We love you. Hello. Can you hear me? Can hear you. My name is Kim Manuel and um I'm currently raising six grandkids. So, a couple of grandkids have been through this program. I'm actually on my last year with my last grandchild uh who will is four. So, she'll be graduating pretty soon, but I will not be gone. I'll still be around. You'll see me. I had a
073couple questions. Now, I don't think um this first question was even mentioned. How much is the CCDF grant? Do you know the entire grant? You can't say. We can we can say we can say um it's about 12 million. 12 million. Oh, okay. But that's because to clarify that's a I'll wait. Yeah, that's okay. My next question is how many community member children are actually in the CCDF program? Meaning, how many community member families have their children in the CCDF program? I'll just give you the questions. Perfect. Okay. Now, if it's more the majority of off the reservation, what kind of advertisement are you giving for the community members, parents of the community to participate in the CCDF program? Because I know my uh nephews, they've had children, but they were never aware of the
074CCDF program. So, I want to know what you're going to do to let these community members know that this program is is here now. And then my other question is, What qualifies inhome relative for the care program? Do you have to go through a training or you know if you adapt that into this program? I'd like to know the qualifications and do the qualifications include grandparents. So if it does include grandparents, then I want what those child care people are making per month. Okay. And then I'll stay home. Okay. And then question um Now, are there points for being a community member in your point system? Because I think I saw it just said working for the community, but do you have points for being a community member? Is that in there? No. Okay. And
075then um my last one is when you talk about the general fund on the co-pays where the co-pays were going to the general fund, was the general fund going to the tribal government general fund? And if so, what were they doing with that money? You know, did it did it come back to you guys or was it just given to them? That's it. Thank you. Great question. So, I just wanted to clarify again. Um, one of the questions was about the total grant award that we have at this time. Um, we have approximately 12 million um, in this current budget. However, one of the differences with this grant is because we're at a state level type of grant, which means um when we wrote the first plan, it was based on the potential to serve
07612,000 children in the community and our surrounding community. So, we were given more money because we have the potential to serve more. So they would like us to create more services to reach that and have that impact. Um so that's one of the other pieces. And your question about the how are we letting the community know I think that is a huge piece that we're really wanting to target um with a website with um multiple ways for you to be able to find the services that we have. Um that's one of the pieces that I was looking for when I first came was where Our part of our grant requires that we do consumer education. Um, and our goal is to create services that are similar to the state's um, CCNR, community uh, resource and
077referral so that you can come to our website and you can find the centers that you need. Families can look for inhome relative care providers um, or they can look for providers that have higher quality ratings and so forth. So, um, our goal is to work with, um, the the division to find out how we can increase and market ourselves better and provide resources more readily available to the community. And this is why I was saying earlier when I came on that certificate program is really close to my heart because we've been tucked under ECE's wing and I feel like um the 6 to 8 uh 6 to 12 years age group um has been missing and so we really want to um focus on what our future goals on how we can market for
078that for the community. um you know we we have so many departments that and families that can utilize the afterchool and as I shared the quality add-on um that it's a huge um I I I don't want to say market but it is a need in the community for that school age group because we need to know where our children are going after school and how we can provide um more services to that age group. the inhale of care only be for the community. So there is a question in the uh Facebook live is the inhome relative care um only within the community. Um right now we are proposing that we do a piloted program um specific to the Salt River Pino Maropa Indian community. Um and so we're looking for feedback on that. Um
079but right now we are proposing um just within the community and this tribal community. Thank you for that. We have one more question coming up. Hi, good evening. My name is I am a parent at EC and also um a CCDF um parent as well and I'm just very grateful um to be able to committee but uh I don't have any questions but um I just want to just um you know that you that the um you know providers the services is that um some of the providers that we that I use outside the community um they you know they it's called a drop off service a lot of them they don't allow like drop off service so my um and it's you have to it was hard for me to find like a um
080a daycare or child care service for them you know to drop off my son just for that one day we have like trainings you know um two twice or two three times um you know here at EC. So that that's just a comment and you know some some care providers don't they're like you know either drop off service or full you know working there or being there full-time and you know um so but um other than that you know that's just kind of common and it's hard for my son to you know go to one day one day at the dayare and then like hey you know he's like confused like oh we have to go day tomorrow and then go to back to school. It's kind of confusing, you know, but I try to
081work with him and he kind of gets confused. But but um I've been using this program, you know, he's four now, three years now. But I just wanted to, you know, share that comment. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the comment. And again, there's forms on your table or in your on your chair um if you would like to write down comments or things you're thinking of or if there's any staff can provide comments. Can you go back a couple screens? We've got your information, but like kind of just Yeah. So, we can just kind of revisit those things in our heads. Okay. If we have any questions or anything Can you see the kind of this Okay. Yes, this is very helpful. So, I think if you could if the yellow is what
082we're hoping to to build with our program as our goals for future planning. Yes, I can zoom if Oh, nice. Will this be available? Yeah, it will. The PowerPoint will be available on the website as well. Good job. Great question. So, the annual family conference is happening. Uh we are in developing stages. So, if there's there was a survey that went out for families um for topics of interest. If you um didn't get a chance to complete it um please write on the comments form um topics of you know suggested topics of for the conference that you might be interested that we can provide trainers on. Am I moving it too fast? Can you recognize our literacy for all literacy champions? Yes. All right. And then so in the purple on our little map, we
083have literacy for all. Um, and so I just want to acknowledge um, Miss Triny and Wendy who um, provide the literacy for all in the community and I'm sure you've seen them out and about in the community handing out books. So, thank you for all that you do. And then of course Deina um she works with the literacy champs that Michelle had shared earlier um in regards to um tutoring and um providing support um for the afterare program and we have some lit champs in the back [Applause] and then uh Chris McIntyre who um oversees the literacy for all and um other grants within um education division. And then [Applause] And then we would um like to acknowledge um Micah Carlos, Councilwoman Carlos um who's here as well. Thank you for your time and um
084and Dr. Heaven, our education board. and then Dr. Emily [Applause] New and to all of you, thank you for your time and um your input and your feedback. So um you know it is 7:15 almost. If there are are there any comments or feedback call or online. Can I just say it? Yeah, you can say it or you can write it down. If you say it, Lisa can um you vote. Okay. So, with regards to the definition is defined as an extended upon a fally recognized child. Yes. Will that continue to be um ter and all of those other markers. So that continue to the state or uh so right now our definition for CCDF is the a child who is enrolled in a US federally recognized tribe. Um so tribal CCDF programs have the
085opportunity to uh determine what that definition looks like for the community. Um, you know, so right now we um can service all of the federally recognized tribe. Um, it does impact uh funding if we do change that definition. Um, I'd like to always put that out there. Um, you know, some tribal communities have just um decided to just service their own tribal members. Um, and some communities have decided to um service the community member and their ch child who might not be tribally enrolled. Um and some communities have serviced their grandchildren um as descendencies who like the grandparent might be tribbally enrolled but then their child and then their grandchild is not tribal enrolled. So really it is up to the community um and your public uh comments and feedbacks on how we define the
086definition of Indian child including the service area. So we do have the potential to add on cities within the service area. So, for example, if we have a family that moves to Chandler or Queen Creek, we currently would not be able to service them in our certificate program because of their location. Um, and we know that housing um is difficult in the community to sometimes find. So we have the opportunity um to pro you have the opportunity to provide feedback to us on what how we should define service area in detail. So any of that those changes um currently we're not we are it is going to remain the same for the next proposed plan but there is opportunity for future if that does come up. So just to clarify are you saying what is
087in the previous text going to transfer over? Yes. All right. So, um, with that, uh, if there's not any other questions or if you're like me and you think of a question like 2 o'clock in the morning and you're like, "Oh, I should have asked them this or should I should have wrote it down." Fear not. You have an opportunity to write it on your comments form. You can also uh go to our website and post it on our web or share on our website or email us. Um but we just want to say thank you as a whole early childhood education team and certificate program team. Thank you so much for being here. Your input is invaluable. Um and we do really take all of your questions, comments, feedbacks into consideration to help us
088guide and guide our program for the community. So, thank you very much. And I don't know if Dr. We're good. We're good to go. Thank you so much. Um, everyone times