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DATE: |
September 27, 2022 |
09 |
SUBJECT
Title
AUTHORIZE COMPETITIVE SOLICITATION FOR CHILD CARE SHARED SERVICES ALLIANCE PROGRAM AND APPLICATION FOR FUTURE FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES (DISTRICTS: ALL)
Body
OVERVIEW
On June 8, 2021 (3), the San Diego County Board of Supervisors (Board) took critical action in advancing support to vulnerable San Diego County residents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by approving a framework for the use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding. As part of this framework, under the Child Care Subsidies component, $2 million of ARPA funding was allocated for the Child Care Grant program with the aims of supporting child care providers with support for their operations as they recover from the pandemic. Subsequently, on January 25, 2022 (9), the Board approved the 2021-2025 San Diego County Needs Assessment Report and Child Care Plan, which outlines an assessment of local child care needs and provides recommendations to ensure families throughout San Diego County have equal access to quality, sustainable, and comprehensive early childhood education and care.
In alignment with this resource, and in response to the available ARPA funding, the County of San Diego (County) Health and Human Services Agency, Child Welfare Services (CWS) and First 5 San Diego developed a collaborative plan to establish a Child Care Shared Services Alliance (SSA) Program to increase and strengthen child care provider capacity and provide equitable access to quality early childhood education and care in the region. In a Child Care SSA, a larger organization serves as a backbone agency to bring in resources for business infrastructure for a collective of smaller childcare providers. This nationally recognized model will enable more supportive services to child care provides than a traditional grant program by allowing providers, specifically smaller providers who have been impacted by the pandemic, to share costs and deliver services in a more streamlined way with a focus on high-quality care.
Furthermore, the Child Care SSA Program will address the overall goal of the Child Care Plan to create a more equitable, accountable, accessible, and affordable child care system that meets the needs of families in San Diego County and supports the early care and education workforce. Funds will be utilized to support business infrastructure and targeted facilities investments for Family Child Care providers, with the intent to bolster the efficiencies and sustainability of child care providers and enhance business resilience.
Today’s action requests the Board to authorize the transfer of appropriations of $2 million to the Health and Human Services Agency for the Child Care SSA Program; authorize the Director, Department of Purchasing and Contracting, to issue a competitive solicitation for the Child Care SSA Program; and to authorize the Agency Director, Health and Human Services to apply for any additional funding opportunity announcements, if available, to support the resiliency of Family Child Care providers.
This item supports the County’s vision of a just, sustainable, and resilient future for all, specifically those communities and populations in San Diego County that have been historically left behind, as well as our ongoing commitment to the regional Live Well San Diego vision of healthy, safe, and thriving communities. This will be accomplished by providing critical resources and services to aid in the development of comprehensive early care and education system that aims to justly compensate and support those who serve our most vulnerable children and families that have been significantly impacted during the COVID-19 pandemic.
RECOMMENDATION(S)
CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER
1. In accordance with Section 401, Article XXIII of the County Administrative Code, authorize the Director, Department of Purchasing and Contracting, to issue a competitive solicitation for administration of the Child Care Shared Services Alliance Program, and upon successful negotiations and determination of a fair and reasonable price, award a contract for an initial term of up to one year, with four one-year options, and up to an additional six months, if needed; and to amend the contract to reflect changes in program, funding or service requirements, subject to the availability of funds and the approval of the Agency Director, Health and Human Services Agency.
2. Transfer appropriations of $2,000,000 from the Finance Other, General Miscellaneous Expense, Other Charges, appropriated for the Child Care Subsidies component of the ARPA funds, to the Health and Human Services Agency, Services & Supplies for the Child Care Shared Services Alliance Program.
3. Authorize the Agency Director, Health and Human Services Agency, to apply for any additional funding opportunity announcements, if available, to support the resiliency of Family Child Care providers.
EQUITY IMPACT STATEMENT
High-quality, affordable, and accessible early care and education is critical to the overall well-being of children and is essential for working families. There is also an economic impact with over 70 percent of working families reporting having children under the age of 12 years. Child care in general is a concrete support that can strengthen families and enhance family well-being. It is also multi-faceted in that in order to understand and look at child care as a whole, it must include families, employer engagement, and child care provider considerations (i.e., needs and capacity constraints). Research from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation indicates that 50 percent of parents have not returned to work after the pandemic citing child care as a reason. In addition, up to 75 percent of working families have children under six years old staying at home, and only 10 percent are using child care centers. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, families are experiencing additional challenges in finding child care that meets their diverse needs. Multiple material and economic hardships can overload families and increase their risk for child welfare involvement. Evidence about the root causes of child maltreatment has been well documented, including poverty-related risk factors such as unemployment, single parenthood, housing instability, earlier childbearing, and lack of child care.
On January 25, 2022 (9), the San Diego County Board of Supervisors approved the 2021-2025 San Diego County Needs Assessment Report (Needs Assessment) and Child Care Plan which evaluated the needs of San Diego County residents in all communities with an equity lens to ensure the needs of all residents are considered regardless of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender identity and/or sexual orientation. The Needs Assessment provides data on race, ethnicity, language needs, special education needs, protective services involvement, working families, income, and migrant families as well as access to care for all residents. The Child Care Plan is developed to address the needs identified in the Needs Assessment and incorporates input and recommendations provided by the community.
The Child Care Shared Services Alliance Program will involve a focused cross-sector collaboration with early care and education providers and community stakeholders, to keep community and provider needs and engagement at the forefront and leverage complementing and available resources. Outcome measures will be developed to monitor the success of the programs in supporting the overall goal of the Child Care Plan to create a more equitable, accountable, accessible, and affordable child care system that meets the needs of families in San Diego County and supports the early care and education workforce. In partnership with the community, Child Welfare Services and First 5 San Diego will continue to explore pathways to sustainability including layering available funding from various sources and participating in collaborative grant opportunities to ensure long-term positive community outcomes.
SUSTAINABILITY IMPACT STATEMENT
Quality child care offers families a reliable resource that impacts parent’s and children’s wellness alike, by potentially reducing stress and creating opportunities. Implementation of a Shared Services Alliance (SSA) Program will contribute to and enhance sustainability in areas of wellbeing, and also the environment and the economy. By providing opportunities for child care providers to partner and participate in decisions that directly impact them in an approach to support scale and sustainability within the family child care provider community supports the County of San Diego’s Sustainability Goal #1 to engage the community in meaningful ways. The SSA Program also supports Sustainability Goal #2 to provide just and equitable access to resource allocation by providing Family Child Care providers who were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic with opportunities to increase child care provider capacity and enhance business resilience. Additionally, the program supports Sustainability Goal #3 to support green job creation. Through this program, Family Child Care providers will be able to expand their business infrastructure, such as facilities improvements. These types of improvements can support green construction jobs and the creation of more sustainable facilities, but also could have other environmental impacts, depending on the type of facilities improvements that are needed. A plan to increase sustainability awareness and explore sustainability options with providers has potential to help mitigate challenges and tradeoffs that some improvements may have.
FISCAL IMPACT
Funds for this request are included in the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022-24 County of San Diego Operational Plan. If approved, this request will result in estimated total program costs and revenue of $2 million in FY 2022-23 through FY 2024-25. The funding source will be American Rescue Plan Act. There will be no change in net General Fund costs and no additional staff years.
BUSINESS IMPACT STATEMENT
N/A
Details
ADVISORY BOARD STATEMENT
This item was presented to the Child and Family Strengthening Advisory Board as an informational item on May 13, 2022.
This item was presented to the Child Care and Development Planning Council as an informational item on April 25, 2022.
BACKGROUND
On June 8, 2021 (3), the San Diego County Board of Supervisors (Board) took critical action in advancing support to vulnerable San Diego County residents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic by approving a framework for the use of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding. As part of this framework, under the Child Care Subsidies component, $2 million of ARPA funding was allocated for a Child Care Grant Program with the aims of supporting child care providers with support for their operations as they recover from the pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic substantially impacted the lives of working families trying to balance work and child care, child care providers attempting to remain open, and employers seeking to carry out their return-to-work plans in consideration of working families challenged in finding quality child care that fits their diverse needs. According to the United States Census Bureau, in San Diego County, 70 percent of working families have children under the age of 12 years. Nearly 190,000 children in San Diego County under 12 have no stay-at-home parent and no available child care spot. The lack of child care as a concrete support in time of need can impact a family in a multitude of ways including increased child welfare involvement. Some experts have suggested early care and education services may mitigate the effects of child maltreatment and enhance the safety, permanency, and well-being of children removed from their homes and placed in out-of-home foster care.
On June 18, 1991 (84), the Board established the Child Care Planning Council, subsequently renamed the San Diego County Child Care and Development Planning Council (CCDPC), to assess the child care needs of families in San Diego County. Pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code Section 10486(b)(1), the CCDPC shall conduct an assessment of local child care need at least every five years. This needs assessment identifies planning activities associated with child care needs in San Diego County and informs the local Child Care Plan, which outlines strategies to address the identified needs. The 2021-2025 San Diego County Needs Assessment Report (Needs Assessment) and Child Care Plan were approved by the Board on January 25, 2022 (9). In alignment with these findings and in response to the available ARPA funding, the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency, Child Welfare Services (CWS) and First 5 San Diego developed a collaborative plan to establish a Child Care Shared Services Alliance (SSA) Program to increase and strengthen child care provider capacity and provide equitable access to quality early childhood education and care in the region. In a Child Care SSA, a larger organization serves as a backbone agency to bring in resources for business infrastructure for a collective of smaller childcare providers. This partnership of child care providers working together to share costs and deliver services streamlined and efficient way allows the providers to focus their efforts less on business infrastructure and more on providing high-quality care. The concept particularly benefits providers in low-income communities through the ability to share some portion of the financial burden of operating high-quality programs.
The SSA model is a nationally recognized model for early care and education. Additionally, there is already a small pilot for this model in the San Diego Region, led by the YMCA and CDAA and in partnership with First 5 San Diego. Utilizing the ARPA funds for this model enables the County and First 5 San Diego to develop a larger Child Care SSA Program and provide more supportive services than a traditional grant program.
CWS and First 5 San Diego seek to procure a contract to secure a contractor to serve as the backbone agency and administer the Child Care SSA Program. This program would have a specific focus on Family Child Care (FCC) providers. FCC is child care offered in a provider’s home. FCC providers offer small mixed-age group settings in nurturing home environments and depending on the size, have either one person as a sole caregiver or two or more individuals providing child care services. FCC homes were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and struggled to sustain business amid capacity restrictions, declining enrollment, and increasing costs which contributed to a decrease in the number of FCC providers. The California Department of Social Services Community Care Licensing department Child Care Home Data-Report shows that over 400 San Diego County FCC licensed providers hold a status of closed or inactive and 131 San Diego County FCC providers closed between 2020 and 2021.
The intent of this Child Care SSA Program is to bolster the sustainability of child care providers and enhance business resilience. Eligible FCC providers participating in the Child Care SSA will be able to collectively determine the supports they need. Examples of the supports that may be needed include and are not limited to maximizing enrollment, full fee collection, daily operations and expenses, family engagement, and access to grants to support facility upgrades and expansion to meet capacity and ensure a safe, developmentally appropriate, and high-quality environment for children. FCC providers will be prioritized based on the Healthy Places Index which supports communities that have been disproportionately impacted. FCC providers will also be encouraged to participate in the San Diego-Quality Preschool Initiative - which focuses on continuous quality improvement of early education programs.
The Child Care SSA Program is projected to be a three-year program and anticipated to begin in Fiscal Year 2022-23. In partnership with the community and in pursuit of sustainability, CWS and First 5 San Diego will continue to explore pathways to sustain safe, high-quality child care including layering of available funding from First 5 CA via First 5 San Diego and participating in collaborative grant opportunities.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the challenges of FCC and early care and education providers. The Child Care SSA Program affords an opportunity to institute concrete actions to further support child maltreatment prevention efforts, address the workforce and child care crisis, help working parents seek and obtain employment or return to work, and bolster economic recovery efforts. Today’s action requests the Board to authorize the transfer of appropriations of $2 million to the Health and Human Services Agency for the Child Care SSA Program; authorize the Director, Department of Purchasing and Contracting, to issue competitive solicitations for the Child Care SSA Program, and authorize the Agency Director, Health and Human Services Agency to apply for any additional funding opportunity announcements, if available, to support the resiliency of FCC providers.
LINKAGE TO THE COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO STRATEGIC PLAN
Today’s proposed action to award a contract for the Child Care Shared Services Alliance Program supports the County of San Diego’s 2022-2027 Strategic Plan Initiatives of Sustainability (Economy and Resiliency), Equity (Health and Economic Opportunity), Empower (Transparency and Accountability and Innovation), Community (Engagement, Quality of Life, Communications, and Partnership), and Justice (Environmental) by increasing and strengthening child care provider capacity, and providing equitable access to quality early childhood education and care.
Respectfully submitted,
HELEN N. ROBBINS-MEYER
Chief Administrative Officer
ATTACHMENT(S)
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