The Child Care Facility Regulations are currently with the Independent Regulatory Review Commission (IRRC). If approved in this final-form, they will take effect Dec. 13, 2020. Over the past two years, OCDEL has released these changes as policy updates to align with the facility regulations. Programs who have been fully implementing these OCDEL policies will not experience any changes and should have limited updates to operations. Key changes relate to emergency and fire safety compliance; increased pre-service and ongoing professional development requirements for all providers. Specific to FCCH, additional regulations include the use of a monitor to see/hear and assess children at all time and a requirement for a second staff person to be employed in FCCH operating longer than 16 hours daily. Beginning Dec. 13, 2020, certification reps will cite providers for non-compliance on the updated final-form regulations. More information and additional changes can be found on the IRRC website.

Fire Safety requirements included in the final-form regulations were also included in Act 62, sponsored by Senator McLaughlin. These requirements will take effect in Pennsylvania on Nov. 11, 2020. Act 62 requires all child care centers and family child care homes to have an operable fire detection device or system, implement routine checks of operation, and documentation of operational checks and purchase date. View the bill here.

The Pennsylvania Key has released the document, Guidance for Operating a Child Care Center, Group Home or Family Child Care During the Coronavirus Pandemic in Pennsylvania. The document provides responses to frequently asked questions, which include Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Guidance, OCDEL Announcements, Pennsylvania Department of Human Service (DHS) Certification Regulations, additional resources and best practices for keeping programs, staff, and children safe and healthy during the pandemic. Click to access the document.

New enhancements to the online reporting system will allow early childhood education (ECE) providers to input their most current enrollment information and allow them advertise vacancies on COMPASS.

For additional information, please click here.

Amy Requa, MSN, CRNP, Senior Health Manager for the Pennsylvania Key, has been invited to serve as the Subject Matter Expert on I Am Moving, I Am Learning for the Education Development Center (EDC) and the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development.

I Am Moving, I Am Learning (IMIL) is designed to be an enhancement to what early childhood education programs already do to support children and families. IMIL seeks to increase the quantity of physical activity and improve the type and quality of physical activity. IMIL also addresses healthy nutrition options, communication with families, and activity.

Ms. Requa was part of the team responsible for the creation of a program designed to address childhood obesity in the United States and across the world, with Pennsylvania’s Head Start programs instrumental in a statewide effort to bring the training to everyone. She has also overseen the creation of recorded webinars for child care providers around supports during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pennsylvania Key staff recently provided highly-rated virtual presentations at the September conference, Building High Impact Registries: Cultivating Equity through Workforce Data, Relationships and Technology.

Kris Madden, Registry Project Manager for the PD Registry, presented Strategies supporting states in continuous quality improvement in workforce registries, the highest attended session of the conference. The interactive conversation discussed the importance of relationship-based approaches to gathering feedback from all early childhood professionals using the PD registry systems to continue to improve quality and functionality of these systems.

Amy Yagil, Data Systems Coordinator, presented Asking the Right Questions: Mind the Gap, the fifth (out of 20 sessions) highest attended presentation. The session helped decision makers understand the gap between the way in which many currently ask for data and the information data holders need to generate relevant reports. It also helped empower the data technicians to ask necessary questions to provide useful reports for data informed decisions.

The reviews of the presentations were overwhelmingly positive and place Pennsylvania in high regard in terms of workforce data efforts.

In Partnership with PA OCDEL, Penn State Better Kid Care (BKC) is offering a new resource to early childhood education (ECE) professionals and educators during the COVID–19 pandemic. Conversations with Dr. Timothy Shope, MD, MPH: COVID Care Questions Answered are series of bi-weekly interviews to address real questions from frontline providers in a way that is science-based and will provide information as timely and as current as possible. Dr. Shope is a general pediatrician and Professor of Pediatrics at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He is a nationally recognized expert on infectious diseases in group child care settings. 

BKC invites ECE professionals and frontline caregivers to submit questions to BetterKidCare@psu.edu with COVID in the subject line. The first interview is now available. Questions will be presented to Dr. Shope in the order in which they are received. Each interview will address a set of questions and will be available, along with the list of questions addressed during that specific interview. Viewers will also have the option to go directly to a video segment for answers to a question they are particularly interested in learning more about.

Now available is the Pennsylvania Community Based Family Centers newsletter from the Family Center Steering Committee and Parents As Teachers state office. The newsletter spans across all Pennsylvania regions served by family centers and has information on family centers, including what types of services they provide, how to find one in each region, and feedback from families. To subscribe, send an email to PAT@csc.csiu.org.

The District 1199C Training is currently recruiting for apprentices for the Early Childhood Education Apprenticeship Program. Being an apprentice through the program has benefits like:

Visit the website for more info or share the flyer.

The first year of implementation each PDO has focused on strengthening articulation agreements between AA/AAS degree granting IHEs and BA degree programs. Establishing strong, reliable articulation agreements not only saves money and time but ensures early educators have access to career pathways that speak to their strengths and don’t require them to spend time relearning competencies that have already been mastered. PDOs are now tracking the transferability of CDA programs and can help individuals identify a CDA program that will shorten an educator’s course load in their next credential. Those interested in pursuing an education in ECE should contact their PDO to find out more about specific opportunities.

There is still time to register for the Early Childhood Education (ECE) Summit, Early Learning 2020 Leading and Learning in the New Decade, happening Oct. 18-21, 2020. The ECE Summit will be a fully virtual experience, bringing the same great content in a robust and engaging way. Each day will feature a Keynote session and four tracks of workshop sessions.

There will be opportunities for participants to connect with peers through live chat, to interact with thought-leaders during Q&A and gain knowledge needed to enrich participant's professional development in the care and education of young children. PQAS and Act 48 credit will be available. Sessions will be recorded and paid attendees will be able to view sessions they missed or are interested in post Summit. Click to get more info and register.

Governor Tom Wolf and Secretary of the Department of Health Dr. Rachel Levine recently launched the COVID-19 exposure notification mobile app, COVID Alert PA, to help fight the spread of the virus. Available now free to smartphone users as a download from the Apple App store or Google Play store, COVID Alert PA is available in English and Spanish. The app is voluntary and will never collect any personal information or track your location. However, the more people who use the app, the more effective it will be, so please consider sharing this information with your friends, family members, and colleagues. More information on the app, and a video explaining the application and its purpose can be found here. 

In the spring of 2020, the Office of Head Start (OHS) authorized programs to continue to pay wages and provide benefits for staff who would otherwise be employed but are unable to report to their full work duties during center closures. The ability of grantees to pay wages and benefits remained in effect through Sept. 30, 2020. Read questions and answers about what comes next.

The Children’s Equity Project and the Bipartisan Policy Center have come together to create an actionable policy roadmap for states and the federal government—as well as for candidates at all levels of government vying for office—to take meaningful steps to remedy these inequities in early learning and education systems. The three sections of the report, Start with Equity: From the Early Years to the Early Grades, are all part of priorities for the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL):

Read the report.

A new study, Can Center-Based Care Reduce Summer Slowdown Prior to Kindergarten? Exploring Variation by Family Income, Race/Ethnicity, and Dual Language Learner Status, investigated learning over the summer between preschool and kindergarten. The study found that learning slowed during summer with disadvantaged students suffering the largest slowdowns. Center-based child care during the summer was associated with faster growth for some children in some domains. However, lower-income children in center-based care had slower language growth than similar children not in centers. This raises concerns regarding differential quality and the need to ensure that young children with the greatest needs receive high quality early care and education in the summer prior to kindergarten entry.

Two recently released reports focus on the needs school-age children during COVID-19.

Afterschool in the Time of COVID-19: This report from Afterschool Alliance shares the first in a series of surveys that take the pulse of the afterschool field. It is clear that although afterschool programs remain a vital partner to help young people emerge from this crisis strong, resilient, and hopeful, they are in need of dire support.

SEL + OST = Perfect Together, A Conference Report: This report from The Wallace Foundation provides insights to contribute to thinking as afterschool programs move through the challenging times of COVID-19 when addresses the challenges of teaching social and emotional skills to young people in out-of-school time programs.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACFS) discusses the unique challenges of recruiting and collecting data from early care and education settings in a new brief. When it sought to gather data for their Assessing the Implementation and Cost of High Quality Early Care and Education project, ACS found it took on average of five attempts to reach anyone at a center and an average of seven total contacts to get the center to agree to participate. They needed to contact as many as ten centers to successfully recruit just one into the study.

A new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds that consistent 4-year participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is associated with a higher quality diet among 4-year-old children. The finding, which was published today in the WIC Infant and Toddler Feeding Practices Study-2 (WIC ITFPS-2): Fourth Year Report, highlights the WIC Program's role in helping low-income children achieve a more healthful diet.

The September 2020 Family Support News Brief from the Center for Schools and Communities is now available. This edition features information about creating connections, talking to kids about race and culture, and more.

Every year, thousands of babies die from sleep-related causes. That’s why it’s vital that professionals talk to families about recommended practices and empower all caregivers as safe sleep champions. This interactive handout from National Institute for Children's Health Quality (NICHQ) supports those conversations. Families can also access the handout at home and use it to teach their friends and families about safe sleep.

Children under the age of four are at a high risk of choking while eating. Created for parents and caregivers of young children, this colorful four-page resource from the USDA Food and Nutrition Services includes tips on:

Download this resource in English or Spanish.

National Farm to School Network is compiling back-to-school resources that will be relevant to farm to school and farm to ECE stakeholders during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. See the resource list. Have resources to suggest? Please email them to info@farmtoschool.org. 

Preschoolers learn best through exploring, using all of their senses to understand their world. While playing, they are better able to focus on what interests them, but they still need lots of support from caring adults to help them develop the habits they need to thrive in school and beyond. Find resources from PBS to support child's early learning.

Available from Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) are Learning Bursts for teachers and providers to support having conversations on racial equity, race, and justice through the pedagogy of farm to early childhood education. View the resource here.

Two recorded webinar series from Child Care Aware of America, can provide helpful information child care providers need to know.

Recorded webinar: Considerations for Infants and Toddlers During Disasters. Child care providers who care for infants and toddlers may face additional challenges when it comes to preparing for and responding to disasters and emergencies in child care. The Child Care Aware® of America’s Emergency Preparedness team shares info about child care emergency preparedness, with a focus on the unique needs of infants and toddlers.

Recorded webinar series: Business Automation: The challenges of operating a financially viable child care program threaten to overwhelm providers. In this three-part webinar series from Child Care Aware of America, learn how business automation tools can help child care businesses survive COVID-19 and thrive beyond it.

From Camille Catlett is the September Issue of Baby Talk, featuring info on the importance of early interactions, why rural infants and toddlers are less likely to have access to key health care resources, and more. The October Issue of Baby Talk features info about playtime with dad, babies who cry it out and more. Also available is the September edition of Natural Resources featuring info on factors that close opportunity gaps among children of color, addressing the African American achievement gap, and more.

Get a #CACFPCreditable recipe perfect for September apple harvest together with crafts and physical activity ideas for the children in your care. Send this fun fall flyer home with parents and potential families to let them know you participate in the CACFP.

The National Farm to School Network's Vision and Key Strategies to Advance Farm to Early Care and Education (ECE) shares the vision for long-term impacts of farm to ECE, offers a comprehensive list of key strategies to advance that vision, and elevates examples and resources that demonstrate these key strategies in action. The resource includes key strategies relevant to multiple levels of farm to ECE stakeholders from local to national levels and highlights the best tools and farm to ECE practices from across the country related to: Racial Equity and Justice; Communication, Promotion, and Awareness Building; Programs and Policy; Programmatic Capacity Building; and Strategic Collaboration.