Child Care Newsletter
April - Volume 4, Issue 2
News and Announcements
Iowa Awarded a PDG Grant

Iowa has received a grant that helps facilitate strengthening Iowa’s services for young children and their families. The Preschool Development Grant focuses on all Birth to Five services in our State under our mixed delivery system. We are focusing our efforts on understanding gaps in access and quality in our system and how to best help families understand their options when seeking early care and education services. Please stay tuned for options to participate in surveys and/or focus groups.
Learn more about this work here.
Iowa Impact After School Conference

Do you care for school age children before or after school? If so, you may want to consider going the Impact After School Conference! 
Register here.
News Here to Help
How Prepared are You?

Emergency plans are critical to your child care business to prepare, respond and recover from an emergency or disaster. Just like your requirement to have a child care emergency plan, DHS must also have a child care emergency and response plan. Part of the state-level plan is to work with Child Care Resource & Referral (CCR&R) to collect information from child care businesses and determine the disaster’s impact to the community’s child care infrastructure. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) identifies “child care” as an ‘essential service’ for disaster recovery.
When there is a disaster in a community or county, CCR&R or DHS may contact you by email or phone to find out if there is damage to your child care business. The information helps us evaluate the impact of the disaster on child care and if resources are needed to restore child care services in the community. You can also contact your CCR&R consultant or CCR&R regional office to let us know if your business has sustained damages or if your business is operational and has child care spaces available to children that cannot receive care from their current child care provider.
In an emergency or disaster, we all need to work together because the child care services you provide are important to both families and the community. If you want to learn more about Iowa’s Statewide Child Care Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan click here.
DHS Inside Scoop
QRS Update

Beginning March 1, 2019 , programs requesting an assessment on the Infant/ Toddler Environment Rating Scale will be given the option to be assessed on the ITERS-R or the newly revised ITERS-3.

Starting September 1, 2019 , the 3rd edition of the Infant/ Toddler Environment Rating Scale (ITERS-3) will be used for all assessment requests made by center-based programs with infant/ toddler classrooms (birth to 35 months). Assessment requests emailed to ers@iastate.edu by August 30, 2019 will continue to be given the choice of ITERS-R or ITERS-3, even if the actual assessment date is not scheduled until after September 1, 2019.

Please note, that if a program still wants the option of being assessed on the ITERS-R, the program must request the assessment prior to August 30th (the last working day of August). This means, a program's QRS application will need to be submitted in a timely manner so the QRS application can be reviewed, DHS can inform CCR&R the program is ready for a level 5 assessment, and then inform the program to request an assessment. Assessors will not schedule assessments until they have received notification from DHS the program is ready for a level 5 assessment.

If you have questions about the transition of ITERS-R to ITERS-3, you can contact ISU Extension and Outreach at mswagner@iastate.edu or ers@iastate.edu .
Summer Schedule Rate Changes?

Once you have submitted your last billing cycle for the school year and if you currently have school age children you are billing for at the Before School, After School, or Before and After School rate and the child will need a different rate such as a Summer Rate, please notify your payment worker via email at dhscsacca@dhs.state.ia.us or by calling the toll free number at 866-448-4605. Summer rates would not be able to take effect until the center is done billing for the school year. 
Please provide the following information below to your payment worker:
  • KT provider number
  • Provider name
  • Start date of when the summer rate is to take effect
  • List of children’s names
  • End date of the summer rate
 
If you currently have a standard or summer rate, you do not need to send in a new provider agreement, just contact us by email or phone.
Resources
Iowa Family Child Care Association

The mission of the Iowa Family Child Care Association is networking to promote and strengthen the profession of Family Child Care. This volunteer-run organization is an affiliate of the National Association for Family Child Care. They provide professional development opportunities and work to be a voice and advocate for quality family child care. To learn more about them and how you can become involved, please visit here.

After attending an IFCCA event: "How inspired we were and how it was so much different than the recent training's we had attended. It made us want to know more about our profession, policy decisions, and IFCCA!" Amanda C., Wilton
Child Care Resource & Referral Regional Offices
Find CCR&R Services in your county:
Northwest Iowa Region 1
  • Mid-Sioux Opportunity Inc., Remsen
Northeast Iowa Region 2
  • Exceptional Persons Inc., Waterloo
Southwest Iowa Region 3
  • West Central Community Action, Harlan
Central Iowa Region 4
  • Orchard Place, Des Moines
Southeast Iowa Region 5
  • Community Action of Eastern Iowa, Davenport
Visit the Department of Human Services website .