WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe7iAOEMw8A

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: xe7iAOEMw8A):
- 00:00:01: Welcome, Introductions, and Recognition of Departing Member
- 00:03:28: Voices from the Field: Introducing Nikki Brooker, YANA CEO
- 00:04:46: Nikki Brooker's Personal Story and Founding of YANA
- 00:06:36: Maternal Mental Health Crisis Spurs YANA's Creation
- 00:09:29: Organic Growth and Divine Intervention Forming YANA
- 00:11:07: Pandemic Pivot: Prioritizing Support Post Child Birth
- 00:12:51: YANA's Three Pillars: Family Supports, Strong Mamas Program
- 00:14:33: Strong Mamas Hospital Program: Hospital Rounding and Outreach
- 00:17:59: Hospital Gatherings, Resources and Parental Support
- 00:21:14: Diversifying Funding, YANA's Podcast, and Community Room
- 00:23:02: Grandfathering Families, Questions and Answers Begin
- 00:23:37: Questions Regarding Online Accessibility, Expansion, & Multi-lingual Support
- 00:25:28: Funding Challenges in Other Counties and Support Offers
- 00:26:37: Expansion Strategies and Appreciation for Nikki's Work
- 00:28:56: Transition to Colorado Department of Early Childhood
- 00:30:13: CDEC Independent Evaluation Overview and Introduction
- 00:32:37: High Level Recommendations for CDEC Improvement
- 00:35:06: Data Usage, Governance, and Early Childhood Data System
- 00:37:35: Focus on Supporting Families, Workforce, and Voices
- 00:38:53: Open Discussion: Reactions and Thoughts on Recommendations
- 00:39:44: Quantitative Data Inquiries and Specific Recommendations Examples
- 00:41:43: Workforce Examples, Aligning CCAP, County Connections, Perspectives Confirmed
- 00:43:05: CCAP Rule Rewrite Committee Collaboration and Feedback Sharing
- 00:44:21: Family-Centered Approach, Data and Local County Perspective
- 00:45:34: Legislative Bills Discussions and Independent Body Dynamics
- 00:46:13: Expansion Opportunities and Multilingual Supports for Families
- 00:47:46: Provider Perspectives, County Funding, and Legal Structures
- 00:48:54: Alignment of CCAP and WIC Services and Focus on Engagement
- 00:49:31: Streamlining Local Infrastructure Confirmation and Perspective
- 00:50:13: The Potential of Recalibrating Budget and Diminishing Stimulus Funding
- 00:52:18: Communications Plan with New PIO and Comms Director in Effect
- 00:52:58: Transition to CCAP Overview with Mary Alice Cohen
- 00:55:26: CCAP Overview and Provider Closures Concern Begins
- 00:56:43: CCAP High Level, Types, and Freeze/Waitlist Data Breakdown
- 00:59:14: Lack of Enrollment Data at State & Provider Closures Trends
- 01:03:32: Reasons for Negative Churn, Urban and Rural Area Closures
- 01:06:08: Data Interpretation Challenges, CCAP Freezes & Impact
- 01:07:30: Private Business Data Collection Innovative Perspectives
- 01:08:07: Wildly Important Goals and Infant Toddler Capacity Progress
- 01:09:27: CCAP Provider Reliance Decreasing, What's Coming Discussion
- 01:10:02: Discussion on Lack of Care Options for Impacted Families
- 01:11:56: Innovative Attendance Data Capture, Discussion Continues
- 01:13:55: Capacity Heat Map Discussion, Explanation of Parameters
- 01:15:50: Larimer County Situation, Disagreement on Number Source
- 01:16:31: BridgeCare, Green Projects, More Representative Data
- 01:17:10: Data of Three Year Olds, Technical Question About Numbers
- 01:18:41: CCAP's Infant Toddler Impact with Reporting and New Tool
- 01:19:59: Wrap-up: Further Data Analysis, County Commissioners Meeting
- 01:20:44: Stream of Consciousness, Questions, Comments, Post-Presentation
- 01:21:19: Legislative and Policy Update Overview Begins
- 01:23:43: Department of Higher Ed Updates: OER and Dual Enrollment
- 01:27:25: Clarification Needed: Prime Sponsor Indication and Fiscal Note
- 01:28:05: Department of Early Childhood: Legislative Bill Updates
- 01:32:41: Inquires from Presenters About School Districts and License Types
- 01:33:26: Healthcare Policy and Financing: Budget Focus
- 01:34:42: Supplemental Budget Process and Budget Requests Update
- 01:36:44: Legislative Executive Order and Budget Pieces Continued
- 01:37:39: Behavioral Health Administration's Legislative and Funding
- 01:38:56: Community Partner Legislative Priorities: Children's Campaign
- 01:39:37: Early Childhood Systems Consolidation and Licensing Task Force
- 01:41:19: Legislative Priorities, Unanimity and Moving Forward
- 01:42:27: Executives Partnering to Invest in Children: Tax Credit
- 01:44:15: Re-authorizing Tax Credit Bill and Partnership Efforts Update
- 01:45:03: Healthier Colorado Update: Bill on Child Care Assistance
- 01:47:10: Provisions Postponement and Administrative Spending Discussion
- 01:49:20: Technical Difficulties & Celebrations of Commissioner Achievments
- 01:52:11: Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Advisory Council Updates
- 01:53:51: Strategic Plan of 2025 to 2030 - Workforce Goal Projects
- 01:55:48: ECCS Fiscal Map Project Complete Update
- 01:57:35: Rocky Mountain Early Childhood Conference Community Leader Focus
- 01:59:18: Subcommittee and Workers Updates - CCAP Rule Right
- 02:01:12: Moving from Freezes to Wait Lists and Prioritized Populations
- 02:02:30: Two Options for Prioritizing Population: How to Weight
- 02:04:26: Discussing Prioritizing Homelessness and Families Under 130%
- 02:07:02: Moving to the Eligibility and Vulnerable Family Considerations
- 02:09:35: Local Control After, Ability to Prioritize, Discussion Continued
- 02:12:15: Option Two, State Plan Discussion and Clarifications
- 02:13:37: County Lever for Homeless Stabilization, Additional Context
- 02:16:56: RACC Update and Volunteer Request Starts Here
- 02:18:14: Fiscal Rule - Department of Early Childhood Update Clarifies
- 02:18:57: Rules Advisory Council & Commissioners: RACC, Rules and Nom
- 02:19:39: RACC Role in Doctor Roy's Processes and Recommendations
- 02:21:40: What is the Composition of the Roles Advisory Council
- 02:22:56: ECLC Role in Nominating Individuals for the Rule Advisory
- 02:25:26: Looking for More Volunteers from Commission to join Working Group
- 02:26:45: Number of Applications and Time Commitment Clarification
- 02:30:03: Home Visiting Investment Task Force Postponed
- 02:30:40: Higher Education Policies and Early Childhood Workforce Committee
- 02:31:18: Federal Student Loan Changes: Higher Ed Pathways in ECE
- 02:32:33: Do No Harm Provision & Median Earnings Programs: Data
- 02:35:41: ZIP Codes and Internal Database Research for Better Understanding
- 02:36:56: Early Childhood Degree Production and Effects of Pandemic
- 02:39:42: Visual Timeline Illustration from the Department of Ed
- 02:40:56: Potential Impact and Earnings Threshold with Rule Changes
- 02:42:13: Program Areas with Percentage, Human Development and Family Studies
- 02:43:38: Recommended Resources, Information, and Updates
- 02:44:38: Questions Starts Here: ZIP Codes, Cohorts & Education Salaries
- 02:47:02: Pell Grants Effect Clarified and Discussion of Additional
- 02:48:10: Inquires: Important for Early Childhood Right and Intersects
- 02:48:50: Meeting Closure & Next Meeting Announced


Part: 1

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We'll go ahead and do this. Yes. We are recording this meeting. Thank you, Shannon. So welcome, everybody. Good to have you here for our February ECLC meeting. First thing I wanna do is welcome Shannon back. She's back with us after her maternity leave. And as you all know, we have a new mascot, and that's beautiful baby girl, Frances. And so welcome back, Shannon. We missed you, and it's good to have you here. But, also, thank you to Christina who picked up the slack while Shannon was out and did

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a tremendous job, juggling us with all of her other responsibilities. So many thanks to Christina as well. We're going to, dispense with a roll call today. Shannon can pick that up just from looking at all your smiling faces on the screen, and so we're not going to, take time for that. But, another thing I want to do before we move into approving the minutes is recognize Jake Williams. As I think you all know, Jake has resigned his position from the commission because he is taking,

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Healthier Colorado to the national stage. So he's going to serve in that national role and, therefore, will not be able to, commit the time that's needed to join us for the commission. But he was a great member. We will miss him and and really want to wish him well on this new endeavor. We'll be working with the governor's office to fill his seat with another person that's representing whole person health and well-being. So more, to follow on that front, as we get closer to the,

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spring and summer months. Okay. Let's move into our minutes from our 12/18/2025, meeting. Are there any corrections or additions to those minutes? You've all had them, seen them in your packet, I'm sure. Hearing none, is there a motion to approve the minutes from December 18? I'll move. One second. Okay. Great. A motion and a second to approve the minutes from December 18. Any discussion? All in favor, either say aye or put your vote in the chat,

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as well as if you're abstaining or a no vote. Aye. Aye. Ayes. Ayes are coming in. Okay. Alright. Thanks very much for that. We you you all may remember a time, sometime ago when we had a segment of our agenda called voices from the field. And it's been a while since we've done that. But with that in mind, we have had some discussion, and we're committed to hearing from those in the field about the work that they

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are doing to elevate new and innovative methods of supporting, families, reaching and supporting families. And so we're launching that again today with an amazing program. We're going to welcome Nikki Brooker, who is the founder and CEO of, a great new approach to supporting new moms with their mental and physical health in the first year after birth. She founded an organization called You Are Not Alone, and Nikki will tell you how that came about and and why she did that.

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But she has given so much time and energy to this program. It's something we really wanted to highlight. I had the pleasure of working with Nikki in the k 12 space a number of years ago. Loved working with her. I've missed working with her, and so it's just great to see her here today with all that she's accomplished. So I'm going to turn it over to Nikki Brooker, from you are not alone, to talk about what she is, doing in that space. Michael, thank you so much. There are some names in the list that I actually do recognize. So some of you have may may have heard my presentation.

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Michael and I worked together many years ago when I was a teacher. I was a teacher for, twenty years, in many different spaces, in daycares, in early childhood, and then all the way up until middle school. So kinda did it all. But I'm gonna explain to you, our nonprofit, what we're doing, and how we are changing maternal mental health, which then, obviously, as we all know, leads into child health as well. So, first slide, please. So my name is Nikki Brooker. Just a little of history on myself, and my journey. That's me on the left, way back in 1987 with my now husband.

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I was 12. He was 15. Yeah. We've been together ever since. And then that's our lovely family. We have, Alexis, 25, Isabella 22, and TJ 18. Alexis is on the East Coast, living in Brooklyn, and TJ is on the West Coast living in LA. So, yeah, my mama heart is it's hard. But the twenty two year old is back at home, so that's fun. We have a lawyer, and then we have one who wants to go to PA school and one who wants is in film school. So that's me and my family. Next slide, please. So just a little bit more about myself. I'm from Northern Michigan. My husband went to Michigan.

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We're big Wolverine fans. My favorite thing to do is be on any body of water and an actual body of water, not a pond that Colorado considers water, and, doing headstands on my paddle board. And then my, our therapy dog, Brady, who loves to be on my paddle board with me, love the mountains. That's why we're here, and because Colorado is amazing and we love it here. That other picture, I'm gonna explain in a few minutes, but that is our very first gathering, of our mamas in our program. So we're gonna explain that in a minute. So next slide. So now this is where the energy gets,

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gets lowered a little. So way back in 2016, Jennifer Labor there on the left, picked up Ethan and Adam, from my kids' elementary school, which is Bear Canyon Elementary in Highlands Ranch. She drove them behind what used to be a sports authority, and she took their lives and her life in the family minivan. I was an educator at the time and was working in the school, and the principal said, hey. I need you in the building, that that that evening. And I said, well, what am I what am I doing? And she said, I'll explain more tomorrow. So as I was ushered into the room,

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they told all of us staff what had happened and said, we don't know, what the kids know, what parents know, what even most of you know, because this broke late last night, and so we're gonna we're just gonna muddle through this day. And we have a sub here, that was what I was working at the time, and said, just just go support. I said, okay. And so as I walked around the building and supported kids and teachers and families, the sixth grade boy walked in sobbing. And I said, hey, buddy. What's up? And he said, Ethan was my reading buddy.

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How am I supposed to be okay with the fact that his mom murdered him? I said, honey, you're not supposed to be okay with that. And as I walked into the counseling center, he looked me right in the eye and he said, how do I know my mom's not gonna kill me tonight? And those two quotes, completely changed my life. I thought, oh my gosh. This is forever part of who you are, and this is gonna change who you will become. I then walked into the kindergarten classroom, and they were making pictures. And I said, what are you guys doing? And this sweet little girl said, well, our friend Ethan's dead. His brother's dead. His mom's dead, but his dad's not dead, so we're making him these pictures to make him happy.

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And I thought, this is your core kindergarten memory. This is how maternal mental health changes people, and that's not okay. And then Christie, there on the second, group of pictures, almost exactly two months later, took the life of Emma. She was 10, also in our community. And I was friends with Emma's best friend's mom. So I saw it from that side of it with this little 10 year old who I'd known her whole life who said, mommy, I spent the night the night before at her house. What if she would have picked that night? I'll never trust anybody ever again.

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And I've watched that little girl struggle for nine years now. So that's what kind of sparked everything to me. As an educator for twenty years with a master's degree and plan to teach forever, these these three quotes the next slide, please. These three quotes are what changed everything for me. I was like, okay. This can't be how we're gonna mother, and this can't be how these kids are gonna have to figure out things that even we can't figure out as adults. Right? These three quotes completely changed everything. So what I did, was I put it on my Facebook page, and I was like, alright,

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people. I don't know about you, but I can't sit here and watch this anymore. What are we gonna do? And it started an organic conversation with a bunch of my friends that said, hey. Let's let's start a support group. Hey. Let's start a nonprofit. Hey. Let's start this. I'll be honest with you. I was a teacher for twenty years. I didn't even know what a five zero one anything was. I was like, oh, okay. Sure. I don't know what that means, but all I know is I can't open the news and see this again, and I can't be touched by this again. So we've got to figure out how to support moms so that they don't feel this is their way out. So what are let's do it. So, it long story short, which I can share with over a glass of wine someday with you,

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but, basically, I was handed a location. I was handed I was handed a 501C3. I never filled out a single piece of paper. She literally changed the name, changed the agent, changed the address, and handed it to me. And then she said, hey. I have $1,500 in the bank. You can have that too. And within three weeks of me putting it on my Facebook page, we were a nonprofit. So YANA stands for you are not alone. And if you don't believe in divine intervention, I mean, you gotta be believe in some kind of intervention that says, it's gonna land in your lap, lady. Now this is what you're gonna do. So we started YANA, and so we started just supporting moms.

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We had play dates every week, and it was loosely based on the AA model. So we had gatherings and play dates or meetings that mamas could come together, any mom. Didn't matter how old your kids were. It didn't matter where you were in your mama's victory. Just come for free at this all women's gym and hang out with us. And then we offered any mom who wanted one a support mom, and a support mom is like a sponsor in AA. It's just another mom who can say I've been there. I've locked myself in the bathroom and cried too. Because over according to CDPHE, according to seventy percent according to them,

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seventy percent, and we actually believe in our research is closer to eighty percent of moms who give birth in the state of Colorado are not native to Colorado. Nobody's from here. Right? So they don't have their people, so we hand them people, and we say, well, these can be your people. And maybe they're not your people, but let's help you find some people. So that's how we started. So that was, April 2017, and then we did all of that until the pandemic. Well, pandemic changed everything. Nice slide. Next slide, please. So we the pandemic changed things in that we couldn't really have those in person gatherings anymore, and I realized that we were kinda missing the boat because we were supporting these

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moms two, three, four, five, six years into motherhood. Right? And I'd say to them, oh my gosh. How have things been? And they've been like, really hard. I haven't had a community. I don't have any friends. I don't know how to do this. I don't know what I'm doing. And the more I heard that over and over, I realized, well, then maybe we should change or at least add to our supports and give every mom who gives birth at birth the support they deserve. What if we did that? So during the pandemic, I got certified in maternal mental health, and I did a bunch of research on what other countries do to support their

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moms, and I went, wow. We're like a third world world country. We do nothing. We do a really good job in this country for prenatal care. We measure you. We weigh you. We check your blood sugar. We check baby. We do ultrasounds. We check and check and check and make sure everything is healthy, but then as soon as you give birth, we're out. You're on your own. Good luck. And, actually, in the state in The United States, only forty two percent of moms go to their six week postpartum visit. Forty two percent. That means fifty eight percent are not, and that means that they're getting absolutely no support. Right? So these are our three pillars of support for the nonprofit,

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YANA as a whole. We have the family supports. So we still give any mom anywhere a support mom if they want one. All they have to do is fill out a survey. They get matched with the support mom. They can have a support mom. That's any mom. And we also just opened a community room in Centennial. It is in a where our office is. It's at the Village Workspace, which is a workspace. It's a it's a common area, and but it's like kitty corner from Topgolf, off of Havana. And it is a space where any family can come and get what they need. That is open to anyone in the community. They can come get diapers,

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wipes, formula, clothes, books, toys, bottles, baby food. Everything that we've had donated to us is in this room and available for the taking. So that's oh, we just opened that last week. It's been very exciting to have. Then we have open hours for that on Mondays and Wednesdays where any mom can come and just talk to other moms. We have it staffed from ten to one, with other moms, kinda going back to our roots of that first in person gatherings that we had at the all women's gym. The second big program, is our biggest flagship program. After the like I said, we had to you know, after the pandemic,

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we kinda went, we gotta do better. We gotta we gotta do more. Before the pandemic, we, we, supported about 500 moms between April 2017 and the pandemic, and I thought, well, that's good, but it's not great. Like, we gotta do more. So then once I put all that together, I created a program called Strong Mamas Thriving Babies, and this program is a hospital program based. Next slide, please. So in this program, we are all about how do we, how do we sorry. Let me go over this family supports. I forgot to put this in here. So this is again the first pillar. So any mom can have a support mom.

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We have online support groups too. We have a guys of South Denver, single moms, families in recovery, families with kids with disabilities, families experiencing, infertility. So we have lived experience online WhatsApp groups that are started, and anyone can join those as well, and then we have the works or the, community room in the workspace. Okay. Sorry. Now next next slide. So this Strong Mama's hospital program is called Strong Mama's Thriving Babies. It is a full year of wraparound support that is given to any mom who gives birth at one of our participating hospitals for free. So we started this program in January 2024 with UCHealth Highlands Ranch.

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June 3, we added, Parker, and November 1, we added, Castle Rock. And so in the first year, we had we were in three hospitals, and we're still in those three hospitals. So we just celebrated our two year anniversary, which was very exciting. We did a whole ribbon cutting with the community room and our two year celebration, and we also celebrated the fact that we have enrolled 5,000 moms in two years. I kind of expected about a 75% acceptance rate. We've hit a 98% acceptance rate. So if that doesn't speak to the need, I don't know what does. We do speak we do keep a lot of data.

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But what our program looks like is we round at the hospitals every single day, three hundred and sixty five days a year, seven days a week. I don't want the one mom that we miss to be the one that I have to read about on the news, so we do everything we can to be to get to every single mom. We walk into the hospital room of mama, and we present our programs to them face to face one on one because we know flyers and folders don't work. So we walk in and we say, hey, mama, you matter. It's so funny when I walk in, I get a lot of different responses. A big response is, oh, baby's over there. And I go, well, baby's I'm not here for baby.

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I'm here for you. And mom's response is, oh, I still matter? Yeah, mama. You sure do, and let me tell you why, because we're gonna give you this whole year of support. So then we explain our program to them, and I say, good morning, mama. How are you? And they usually go, I'm great. And I say, really? You can say you're tired. You just gave birth. And that kinda makes them laugh. Right? And then I said, my name is Nikki. I'm here to tell you about our program. It's called and we always come in with branded clothing on, in everyday clothing. We are not in scrubs. We are do not look like a medical professional because I'm not, and I don't ever want to be. I am a peer. This is a 100% peer program.

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This is nonclinical, and that's by design because everybody lies to the medical professionals anyway because they're afraid. They're they have white coat syndrome. You're gonna take my kids away. You are gonna judge me. You're gonna put it in my my file. Listen. I walk in as a mom just trying to figure this out just like you. Right? As a mom, anybody who is a mom knows that this job changes every minute of every day, and there is no such thing as a parenting expert because you can be a parenting expert of your child, but not me and not mine. So we don't ever say we're experts on anything. We're just moms trying to figure this out. And like you saw,

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I have a 25 year old. I've been doing this for twenty five years. Does that mean I have any more answers than you? Absolutely not. It means I tried and failed more times than you. But I can tell you what worked for me, and I can tell you what didn't work, and maybe it'll help you. But that's all we're here for is to just give that safe space to say, none of us know what we're doing. We're we're floundering around just the same as you. So every mom is offered. So I walk in, I say, so our first part is an app called Strong Mamas where you can chat with each other, plan play dates. There's a calendar of events. There's discussion rooms. It's just a safe online space to be with moms in our program.

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The next part are in person gatherings that we do back at the hospital or the local library. And the whole idea behind doing them at the hospital is it creates a community at the hospital. You know, we only go to the hospital for really, really negative horrible things and one good thing, and that's to give birth. Right? That's it. That's the only positive you go to a hospital for. So why don't we bring more positive? Why don't we bring more community? So we have our in person gatherings at the commune at the hospitals in their conference room if we can find conference space, which hospitals were designed by people who thought there'd be one thing happening at a time in a conference room. So,

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sometimes we have to go to the library. So we walk in, we have these in person gatherings where we literally hand mamas a village of other mamas all in messy bones and yoga pants, and we say, well, you know what? You're all going through it, so let's talk about it. Then we bring in community experts to give them tips and tricks on mama hood, pelvic floor physical therapists, sleep experts, infant massage, the county, WIC, developmental pathways, the libraries, infant chiropractors, mental health. We bring in Diane Smith from the early childhood council from Douglas County, and she talks about how to help them find day care if that's what they're looking for.

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So we bring in all these different resources to say, hey. This this these are just things out there that are out there, and a lot of moms are like, I didn't even know this was a thing. So pelvic floor physical therapy is an automatic thing in Europe. It is the first appointment they make for you after you give birth. We don't even know what it is here. Right? So we talk about, like, what is it? We talk about pain management. We talk about, did you get opioids when you went home with your c section, and are you taking them? And if so, why? Are you in pain? How can we help you with that? We just talk we just open the floor. We talk about our win for the week,

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and we give ours. Like, I give my win with my 25 year old, and I give my challenge of my 18 year old. And we give ours too because that's what it's all about. It's just keep keeping that camaraderie together that moms need to know that they're not alone. Right? Like, even as a 20 mom of a 25 year old, I'm still freaking figuring this out. So, so then, the other part of our program is they get phone calls and text messages throughout the first year of momma hood, especially if they report with a high EPDS. In Edinburgh suicide score, we, we check-in on them sooner. We have webinars every week on every topic you can imagine,

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and all those community experts that we've partnered with, we have over 60 right now, they do those webinars for us. So we have everything we've had a webinar on what's a five twenty nine and how to save for college all the way to breast versus bottle. We have a pelvic floor physical therapist who does a pelvic floor workout once a month that the moms tune into. We record everything and put it on our website so that they can go to it anytime they want. So we have webinars once a week on everything you can imagine. We have a family event once a month where we bring the dads and the kids. Again, those community experts,

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they sponsor those those nights, and so it's free to the families. And so we go in and the dads get to connect and the older siblings get to connect. We have, the community room that we talk about. We just have all these different supports. We have a dads group. Right? We just all these different supports that we can say, listen. These are all available to you, 100% free. We never charge anything to our families. To run our program costs $60 a mom. Not a month, just once. $60 gives moms a full year of wrap around support. So as I said, we started at UCHealth Highlands Ranch. We added Parker. We added Castle Rock.

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We are, looking to add, Sky Ridge. They're a for profit hospital but wanna be the first to say they don't owe any money, So we're working towards, diversifying our funding sources so that we can diversify it for hospitals. We know that $60 mom seems to be, a big ask of hospitals, so we are working on bringing that down by coming together and finding other funding sources. So we're going after lots of different grants and corporate sponsorships and government relations and all of the things. So, next slide, please. We also have a podcast. We have a podcast called Let's Be Real Mama Journeys.

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We interview moms about their mama journey because we know the more they tell their story, the less alone they feel, and then the more other moms hear the story, the less alone they feel. So it's all about you're not alone, and we've been doing that for four years. We have, all different, that's on our website. That's on iHeartRadio. That's on, Spotify, all the places Apple, all the places you can find podcasts. Next slide, please. So this is our community room. I'm so proud of it. I'm so excited. As you can see, we have lots of stuff to give away and tons of different donations, formula wipes, clothes, diapers, diapers, diapers. We did builders for babies,

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and, oh my gosh, I have diapers coming out of my ears. So tell your families about it. I can send out as, a flyer. I can send it to Michael, and she can send it out to you guys. Please, please, please share with your families. We want this to be utilized, and we want all of this to go because we keep getting more donations. Next slide, please. So that's really it. We wouldn't be here without the the support of of our community. How can we work together? I love making sure that people know what we do and that you can share the stories. We do grandfather families into our program if they give birth at a hospital that's

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not one we're in yet, because I will never turn a mom away. If a mom says I need you, then I'm not gonna tell her no. We also say that it's a full year of wraparound support, but we've never kicked anybody out. We're twenty five months in, and we have 25 olds, moms who are still with us because they still see that they're getting some benefit from it. So we'll never kick anybody out. If we you're finding, you know, any kind of support from this, then stay as long as you need. So what questions do you have? Nikki, I think you may have just answered one that was put in the chat by, Lisa Jensen Thompson,

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and that is are the online opportunities available to moms outside the Douglas County area? So any okay. So I know we're on three Douglas County hospitals, and it sounds like we only serve Douglas County families, but you'd be surprised how many families are come from different areas to deliver at those hospitals. So we actually serve a 130 different ZIP codes, which is kinda crazy to me, but we are all over The States. We have moms everywhere. And so we so the the the, digital gatherings the the, sorry, webinars, they are not on our general website.

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They're on a special, like, behind the scenes part of our website that we can give them, the availability to. It's really for the moms in our program, but, also, we don't wanna ever like I said, we'll never say no to a mom because I just I can't. So, if they'd like the webinars, they're not open to the public quite yet. They will be once we have our YouTube page up and running. Great. Nicole, you had a quick question? Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing about this program. This is fantastic. First question, apologies if if I missed this, are counties funding this at all? Sort of. So that's that's why we got started in Douglas County.

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Honestly, the Douglas County commissioners, believe it or not, were the first to fund us. They gave us a suicide prevention grant that was part of the ARPA funds. And so we got that for 2023, 2024, and then partially for 2025. So, yes, but not anymore. So they launched us and they so that we could walk into these three hospitals and say, listen. We're gonna be able to pilot this without charging you a penny, which was awesome and amazing, but now we're asking for them to, you know, have some skin in the game. And so we are working really hard with the government relations and trying to get more funding from government entities.

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Arapahoe County has been a struggle to get into. We're very versed in Douglas County, but we wanna expand. There are, 46 birthing hospitals in the state of Colorado. 46. There's not one I don't wanna be in. Right? So we're actually in conversations with Montrose and Grand Junction. We're also in conversations with Colorado Springs and Greeley. So we're kind of, like we wanna expand. We wanna be in all of them. I'm not quite sure who's gonna be first, but it's wherever we can help find the funding and diversify it for the hospitals. Thank you. And I think I heard you say that eighty percent of women giving birth in

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Colorado are not from Colorado. Is that accurate? Between seventy and eighty. Our research is closer to eighty. CDPHE officially says, I believe, it's seventy two. But it's funny because when we walk into the hospital rooms and we ask them for their, all we ask them for is their email and their phone number, and then we fill in the rest, from the grease board that we get from the hospital. But, I can tell you that over 80% of the time, that phone number that they give me is not a 303 720 number. So that's kinda how we are researched that, oh, you're not from here. Right? So I would we're the our numbers are definitely closer to 80%.

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Okay. Yeah. I'd love to see if I can find that number with CDPHE too. I think that's fascinating. Yep. Liz, did you have a question? I saw your hand up now. I don't see it. I don't know. I did, but it's related to expansion and, you know, this program and other she she answered it as Yeah. So thank you. And to to add on to that expansion, that's one of the ways that, people can help us is getting us connected to other hospital systems, other government systems, other places where there might be funding. We're going after some opioid abatement money, because inherently, we're an opioid reduction program because we give community,

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and that's what stops at. And so we are working towards getting into all those hospitals. But any connections, we would greatly appreciate. And don't think, oh, yeah. I'm sure you've already talked to. You don't know. I might I might have not. So we'd love any connections. Nikki, another question. We'll take this as the last one, and then we can further but we'll we'll share with you any other questions we get down the road. But are there multilingual supports for families? So, yes. We are working on so we have an, online we also have online gatherings once a month,

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so anybody who doesn't wanna leave their house can be on there. We're starting a Spanish speaking online gathering in March. And so we also have people who make phone calls to those moms in other languages. So, yes, our in person gatherings that are in person person, not quite yet, but we will build that as we need it. So for instance, when when I'm gonna say when, not if. When we get into Anschutz, I know I need a Russian speaking one. I need a Spanish speaking one, and we'll hire for that. We'll make that happen as we need it. We're building it from the backside right now, but we I mean, we're in we're in we're not in the need isn't there quite yet,

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but we will, as soon as we can. So and our app is available in Spanish, through the App Store. So Wonderful. Yeah. Nikki, we have another couple of questions and also some offers of support. We'll connect with you We'll take those. After this meeting and share that information with you. But I really wanna thank you for being here today. This is just in incredible work. Thank you. It's something you should really be proud of. Thank you very much. It has been a labor of love, but, the difference we're making is huge, so we're really excited.

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So thank you all for what you do. As an educator for over twenty years, I greatly appreciate everything you put into this. I ran a day care. I did all the things. So, really appreciate you. So thank you for having me, Michael. I really appreciate it. Thanks, Nikki. You're welcome to stay and listen in if you'd like, but happy to I'll see the next thing, but thank you so much. Take care. Bye bye. Okay. Running a little bit behind time. That was a great, opportunity to hear from Nikki. And now we're going to hear from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood. But before we get to that, I failed in my responsibilities at the beginning and failed to introduce my two co

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chairs, Sue Renner and Happy Haynes. And you'll hear from both of them, later on in this agenda, but, couldn't do this work without Sue and Happy. So, for the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, we have doctor Lisa Roy and Mary Alice Cohen here with us today. And doctor Roy will talk to us about the independent evaluation, where things stand with that, and and and, really, how we can be of service in that work. And then we'll hear from Mary Alice with updates about CCDF and CCAPS.

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So, doctor Roy, happy to have you with us today, and I will kick it off to you. Great. Good morning, Michael, and, chairs and, members of the ECLC and any community people that are participating today. Many of you know that House Bill twenty one thirteen o four created the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, and this legislation also included a requirement for us to hire an independent third party vendor to do

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a complete evaluation of the operations and functions of the department and to measure our progress toward the goals outlined in the original transition report put out by the ECLC. The independent evaluation examined Colorado Department of Early Childhood's progress since its launch in 2022 to ensure a robust, efficient, effective, supported early childhood system for children, families, and early childhood professionals, In contracting with Child Trends and Watershed Advisors,

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we had an opportunity to hear insights from outside experts to assess the progress that the Colorado Department of Early Childhood has made in developing the new systems and processes, as well as point out specific recommendations for improvement. Before we open it up to the floor for your reactions and thoughts on the recommendations, Then I hand it over to Karsten and Christina for a quick overview of the recommendations so that they are top of mind. Karsten and Christina. Yeah. Good morning.

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Just quick introduction. I'm Karsten Baumann. I am the director of the division of data strategy and impact at, the department. And, Christina, do you wanna jump in and introduce yourself real quick? Sure. Hi, everyone. Christina Heil. I am our state and community partnerships manager at CDEC. Nice to be here. Alright. We're gonna talk fast. Normally, we take a half hour to forty five minutes to do this, but we we won't do that to you all. So, as doctor Roy just said that, there was a requirement to do this evaluation three years in. And one of the challenges is there's no rubric,

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by which to do an evaluation of something that's in process. So the evaluator's first, order of business was figuring out how do they measure this progress towards CDC's vision and then give us something, actionable to walk away with. So identifying what some of the challenges and opportunities for improvement are, which they did. And, we're just Christina and I are just gonna touch on the high level, recommendations. There's more detailed, information on the background, the findings that led to these recommendations in the full report that you can peruse

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at your leisure, and Christina and I are always happy to give you the the the full show at at a future date or in your own organizations. So let's, let's jump on in. I think, Christina, you're up next. Awesome. Alright. You can jump to the next slide. As Carson said, we're just gonna go through the high level recommendations. So the report goes into detail about all the findings that, reflect the legislation and the questions there. And then, pulled from that eight recommendations that really look across the whole department. So that's what we're gonna walk you through really quickly today. The first one,

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was around organizing our, structure within CDEC by function. We have a lot of programs, across the whole department, and some of our teams are organized around function like our workforce unit, but not all of them. So this is something that we're exploring of how we can be best, situated within CDEC. The second was around coordinating and simplifying program structures. We know that it's hard, to navigate so many different programs and systems, and so this recommendation really says, for us to continue to simplify and make it easier for our families and our providers.

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And then the third recommendation was around the, local infrastructure. So thinking about our early childhood councils, our local coordinating organizations, our family resource centers, we have so many folks on the ground doing work in our communities. How can we really connect and support, that system and make sure it's, really, really, efficient for for those those, providers as well as the families that are accessing services. And, Kirsten, I'll pass back to you. Alright. Next slide, please. Alright. So, these next two recommendations focus on the data side of things.

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So the recommendation for, talk broadly about, we sit on a lot of data at the department, much of which you all might be providing to us, and the recommendation here focused on what we do with those data. So partly, it's around, getting better at using the data not just for contract monitoring or compliance, but also moving towards more of a quality improvement mindset on taking a look at what we as a department could do better, but also, all the people that we that we serve and the providers that we work with in using those data to improve services and supports to,

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families and and children and and to do that across the continuum. But with that also comes more responsibility and protection. So, the recommendation includes that if you have all this data, you need to establish or continue to evolve the data government structure governance structures on how we collect the data, how we store it, and how we report, those data. And good progress is being made there too, I I have to say. Recommendation five focused on a very specific, nerdy thing that I love. It's something called the ECIDS,

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the early childhood integrated data system. So much of our data lives in very specific individual databases, some of which are legacy systems that were built to answer or collect data on specific programs or associated with specific funding streams. But now we're, taking steps towards looking across the data system. So looking across what are the programs and services in which families and children are participating to better be able to answer the questions around access and reach,

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and then, down the line looking at, at outcomes as well. And the system will continue to to evolve. Alright. Back to you, Christina, for the next, recommendations. Thanks, Carsten. Alright. Number six here, you can see on the screen, is around supporting our families and children with developmental delays and disabilities. So, you all know that early intervention is within the department of early childhood, and then we have our preschool special education program, which is our department of education. And so just making sure that we're really being thoughtful and, connecting our families to make that transition as smooth as possible.

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Recommendation seven is around our workforce. So the report does acknowledge that we have a very robust and comprehensive workforce plan for our state, but we know how critical our workforce is to having an early childhood system that works for all of our families. And so this recommendation is really encouraging us to continue to look for ways that we can recruit and retain and really, build that early childhood, workforce that we need. And then the final recommendation is around bolstering our family and provider voice. So the report acknowledged that we have a lot of different commissions and councils and

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advisory groups, but we can do more to really elevate what we're hearing in those groups in in lots of different, places and help, make decisions at the state level that really reflect what we're hearing, from our families and from our providers around the state. So, I'm particularly excited to dig into that one. Alright. Doctor Roy, we'll pass it back to you. Thank you, Carsten and Christina. So I wanted just to take the time to hear from you. And so I have a couple of questions, and, hopefully, you were able to, at least skim the report.

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But based on, the recommendations and, hopefully, what you were able to garner from the evaluation, Wanted to know what surprised you in the findings. Any surprises? None. Okay. Nicole. Hi, doctor Ryan. Thank you, everyone, for, for your work and presentation on this. I don't I don't know that any of these things, surprised me per se, but I'm curious about whether there was do we have any quantitative data from, parents and or providers or partners being served by the department that informed this evaluation.

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So, net promoter scores, for example, things like that. I'm curious if we have any of that data. And then I was also wondering if the team might be able to provide some examples of, kind of specifically what were those first three recommendations I'm talking about. I'm, you know, I'm sure some of us are maybe less familiar with the functions, and the structure of the department, so it might be helpful to have a little bit more detail on that. Sure. Well, those are several questions. So what else what I'll mention is that there's a compendium of all of the quantitative data that was given to the researchers,

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and that is part of the extended report. So we can you know, Carsten is our our data guru and can walk you through any of, those particular data sources, if you have further questions. The other thing that, you asked, we did not, I would say, concentrate as much on we we did quantitative and qualitative, and we have lots of, surveys that we do in different ways with families with all of the programs that

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we have. But as you could imagine, and some of you know, this was on a very short timeline. So we I I wouldn't say that, we got as robust, information from every single stakeholder or partner, in the short time that we had. But it but we had, again, a lot of data from a lot of the programs that we have. The other thing that you asked about were the three recommendations. And so one example about function that Christina mentioned was workforce.

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So, we know that our workforce are teachers, assistant teachers, early childhood mental health providers, nurses, social workers. So, again, as opposed to mental health being over here and health being over here, the workforce division really does comprehensively look at the function of supporting professional development, as opposed to that falling in each single program. So that's one example. Coordinating and simplifying program structures.

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They talk specifically about CCAP and universal preschool. And so aligning our policies, funding structures, and operational processes. So we, for instance, with, unified application work, think about how a family can apply for one program and see if they qualify for other programs and not have to do five different applications with the same agency. That's one example. Yes. Thanks, Shelley. Another example is, again, with,

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Dawn and doctor Flasheen, and Karen Rosa working together more closely on licensing and quality standards and expectations for teacher qualifications. So, again, even though they're three very distinct programs, how functionally does quality and teacher training and professional development go across all these areas? So that's, again, goes back to the function, but also how do our program how are our programs align and simplify for families

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and early and providers. And then the local infrastructure piece, is also looking at how we work with counties. That's a huge, opportunity for us to do better and more. And we know that right now that there are bills in the legislature looking at how we can streamline and support families, based on our county connections. But, again, our whole goal is around making sure that everything is family centered from the family's perspective that,

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again, there's no wrong door. We've been talking about that, Nicole Wright, forever even when you were with the Denver Early Childhood Council. We want it to be seamless for families and, not confusing for them. So appreciated that there's lots of rooms to still grow in these areas for the department, but we're headed in the right direction. Did that answer all of your questions? Yes. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Of course. Thank you. Any other surprises? Sorry, doctor Roy.

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I just wanted to ask in re in regards to some of those, bills that are coming up, I know they're attached to our agenda today. Are there any concerns or hesitations or things missing that you think we as a commission should be, sending comment on? That is a great question, Jasmine. I want to be careful with that because, again, you're an independent body. What we can do is to have Shannon walk you through the bills and give our stance on the bills. But,

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again, giving you a comprehensive perspective of each of the bills so that you can decide whether or not you even agree with the department on, what is mentioned. So, we can arrange for that, and it can be a tight we you don't have to wait until your next meeting. We can set that up, for those of you who would like to attend. I know we're we actually have Shannon, on the agenda today. She is on the agenda. I thought she was. Okay. So Shannon look at that. She'll get her today. Yeah.

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She was I know she's six, so grateful that she was able to make it still. But, yes, she can walk you through that today. I know we were limited in time. Again, same kind of question, but were there any perspectives of yours that were confirmed by what you read as far as the recommendations? And then the last question is some of these align with your strategies as the ECLC, and your goals. So are there places that we can work together as you're working on systems wide approaches to things like data?

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So those are my two questions to you as a group. Liz. And, Liz, great job again on your testimony. Thank you. Thank you so much. For being in Colorado. Thank you. I guess it's not quite a question, you know, aligned with your second bullet of, you know, do they confirm where we should continue to make progress? I do agree with the strengthening and streamlining local infrastructure, and you spoke to that just a minute ago of really focusing on counties. But I feel, and then there's some commentary in here in the recommendations about strengthening family and provider voice. And it feels like provider voice,

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may be taking second fiddle to county or family. And I'm not saying that that's not right or wrong. I guess what I'm trying to say is maybe picturing the voices as as as multiple avenues and having equal weight in several committees that I'm, privy to or a part of. A county may have or counties may have a stronger weight or, in general, where a provider voice is is it's kind of minimized. And when we think about the impacts of CCAP or some of the things that CDEC has control over, providers are a critical piece of that,

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and I just don't wanna, lose that that the perspectives of providers have gotta be included in a really meaningful way. Thank you, Liz. I really appreciate that. And, again, we wanna make sure in everything that we do, provide our voices at the table. So when we're taught with the RACC, we've gone above and beyond with statute head where we only, had to have one provider. We have home based, center based, and school based, for instance. We always wanna make sure that there are multiple perspectives of providers on the ECLC.

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So we we are committed to that. And any spaces where, you feel that we're not living up to our goal, we need to know that. But do understand when I speak, and I think you know that I say families. Well, children, I start with first, but children, families, and early childhood professionals. And that includes our pro providers who are providing the service, and very much a critical voice for the department. And, I brought counties up in this instance because it really has to do with the

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legal structures around the funding, as you know. And we do need to work that out, in ways that are as supportive of our providers and families as possible. But keep us honest. Appreciate you so much. Shelley, quick question. Yeah. When you talked about the alignment of CCAP and, the work, The CCAP rule rewrite committee is redefining definitions and everything, and I'm sure there's systems in place to make sure that is being shared.

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But I just wanted to ask how that is happening. Thank you, Shelley. I don't know if Mary Ellis probably can answer that question a little bit better because she's more in the weeds, with CCAP and her staff, doing the I'm not gonna call it a rewrite because, again, there's so much going on at the federal level. So you all know that the feds are getting input on their potential rules, and so we're waiting for that. We were given a waiver on the Biden administration rules that were that we were

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expected to, promulgate within rule and within policy and then implementation. We are also, again, in a situation where all of our stimulus funding is gone, and we are recalibrating to a diminishing budget with CCAP and looking at ways that we can save money at the state level so that more money goes to children and families. But still, as you know, Shelley, CCAP is a limited pot of money,

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and we're lucky if we can even get to 11% of the eligible population statewide. So there's so many complicating factors with CCAP that even if we could resolve for one issue, the funding is so limited that we still have to have a plan b and c for how to move forward with this limited pot of funding. Did you want to add anything else to that, Shelley? No. I I was just as sometimes, you know, how when you have people working in committees,

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they make decisions, and we're actually gonna present later, get some feedback from the commission. And I just wanna make sure that, that there's a system for anything from that committee, to be shared since there's an increased focus on alignment. That's all. Yes. And, again, Mary Alice and her team will ensure that that happens. They have a communications plan for everything, literally. We have a great new, PIO and comms director, that is assisting with that. And with that in mind, I wanna be sure we get to Mary Alice and and have some time to

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hear from her on CCAP. Vanessa is the only one still with a hand up. Quick quick question perhaps. Sure. I'm happy to be brief. I just wanted to chime in as the county representative, and and I do oversee the CCAP program for my county. I also serve on our early childhood council's board of directors, and they are our LCO. So I am really grateful to see the the prioritization of streamlining what the local infrastructure looks like. We met with, senator Bennett last week to discuss the complexity across the system.

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It was a wonderful conversation, to just talk through the fact that CCAP really is a small component, and county certainly needs to be a strong voice in the sort of eligibility process around CCAP. But the way that we engage providers, we really do rely heavily on our early childhood council for that at the local level. So the combining of the early childhood councils and the local coordinating organizations is a fantastic move.

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In our community, it is already aligned, but it's not aligned everywhere. So for the folks that are supporting families through the entire service delivery system, I think across the state that's going to be really a meaningful and impactful change and I think that this, recommendation here makes a whole lot of sense. And I also have a child in in UPK right now. I used to serve on the board of directors of a child care of a nonprofit child care center, so recognizing it from all of the perspectives that,

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like, this is a really complex financial system that is so deeply impactful. We heard that in the first presentation. So just it does confirm. The recommendations confirm the local perspective and, and the county perspective as well. So not a question, just my remarks on that. Thank you, Vanessa. Doctor Roy, I'm assuming that's your last slide? That is my last slide. Absolutely. Thank you so much for all of this information, and we really want to engage and support. So looking forward to further discussions about implementation.

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Thank you. So much. We look forward to circling back to you all at the end of this year with where we've landed. Thank you. Thanks. Mary Alice, apologies for our our time. We've just had such good information today. Wondering if ten minutes works for you on this overview. Sure, Michael. Absolutely. And, really, this is just sharing out a lot of the data that we've been digging into in response to a few questions that the, ECLC co chairs had for me at our last meeting that we thought would be

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helpful to bring to this group. Vanessa, as you just shared, it is so complicated, and a lot of the data that we're looking at today will bring up probably more questions than answer. And so, so, Michael introduced this as CCAP, overview time, but I really wanna dig into the primary concern that many of you are experiencing and hearing from people in your community that as we have, continue to extend the freezes and wait list, child care providers that have been able to hold on,

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for the last few months are now at the brink of closing. And so, what does that look like in our state and what are our, trends showing. So, I thought I would just first ground us, in three slides that are just high level overview on, CCAP that we serve about 27,000 children through 2,300 providers, and it's administered by a 184 county workers. And then if you go to the next slide, this is just background on the different, types of CCAP that we offer in our state. And then if and we've done presentations to this group which is why I'm quickly

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moving through these for the purpose of what we want to talk about today. The next slide. I updated the numbers here as of 02/01/2026. We now have 13,511 children, and 9,257 families that are on a freeze or a wait list. And 19 counties are on a freeze and five counties are on a wait list. And just to clarify those two terms, a freeze is when a county completely stops all enrollment. There's they do not accept anyone,

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and put them on a wait list. Our wait list have a much smaller impact in number. Right now, what we're working toward is our, our strategies of how to help counties that can now look out to the end of the fiscal year and see that they are under spending, and they want to open up and move from freezes to wait list to serve priority populations. Shelley, as a member of the, CCAP rule re rewrite committee, I was really grateful that I took a peek at the slide deck to see

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that you're gonna dig into this today. So the, CCAP rule rewrite committee and the CCAP allocation committee are deep in the weeds really tackling these challenging strategies, and we are gonna move on a rule package, to address these issues directly with the support of the z capital right committee. So now move, moving into, provider closures. So I wanna start by saying, just to clarify what we have at the department to help share, a picture of what's going on.

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The department does not have enrollment data. We only have licensed capacity data. So we have ATS for CCAP, but as you know, only a portion of our health care providers, have CCAP children enrolled. And, and we collect that data through, ATS and CHaTS. So what we have at our disposal is the license data and we can look at our churn of how many providers are closing their doors, how many are opening their doors. And I think for many of you,

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this is gonna raise more questions than it does answers as we try as we challenge many of the assumptions that we've had on closures and as we look forward. So you'll see here that just on average last year, we had about 19, childcare providers open and about 23 closed. But what we noticed with that is that many of, like, the the smaller family childcare home providers were moving into lice larger family child care licenses, and that more families were actually moving towards centers.

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So even though there was that difference, our capacity was continuing to increase. And then you could see just recently in January, we had seven providers open while 13 closed, and this is the fifth consecutive month that we've had negative churn. And then when you look at, oh, yes, Matthew. Well, this, Christina posts them on a website, and we'll send them out. And for any of you as you dig into this and you're like, what does this mean? You know, we can get together with Karsten and some of our other team members to start

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trying to get our heads around what this data means for our early childhood sector. When you look from January July 2025 to January 2026, we have, 36 more that closed and 15 fewer that opened. We're also seeing the trend that centers are closing at a higher rate than small family homes, and then you'll see this next bullet breaks down, the just over a three month period looking at some of the data by different types of providers,

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and it's our centers that are closing at the higher rate. Okay. This last bullet is the one that really made me like okay. So our Colorado we increased our overall infant toddler child care capacity, from in between July and January, and overall license slots decreased, from July to February. So this is the the complicated nature, and you think you know, one of the things we'd like to assume from this data is that,

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is that our licensed, all the work, and funding that we channeled into our infant toddler sector is continuing to pay dividends. Steph, one second. What was your chat here? It's hard to tell with the net loss of the slots and sites closed. It is oh, thank you. Yes. The thank you for clarifying this, and I'll update the slide here. It's slots. So it's licensed slots. So it went from, 39,304 in July to 39,999

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in January for infant toddler. Okay. So, Vanessa, at the end, I'm gonna show you a, a a new tool that we have that breaks it down by county. But, again, it's not it's not enrollment. It's capacity, which, again, makes makes it challenging. Okay. Then we go to the next slide. A lot of us have been thinking like, what is going on? Why are are we having a negative churn? And so what we're seeing here is that the oh, I wanna make a note here. We just started collecting this data.

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So we, implemented this change in, Colorado shines, added a field about wiring closing, but it didn't we really didn't see start seeing an uptake of people filling that out until October. And so what I'm showing here is data from, since October. But the number one, reason is personal reasons, burnout, voluntary exit from the industry, then we have ownership shifts, economic pressures. And, what many of us, know is that we have an aging population, and so we're seeing about,

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9%, is a natural exit, of our experienced providers. Then, one of the questions Sue asked is on the next slide of where are we seeing more closures? Is it more in urban areas? Is it more in rural areas? So on the next slide, you'll see, that, we have the top five counties. Can you go to the next slide, Shannon? Thank you. So this shows the top five counties, where the impact is, most being felt. And then, just one second here. I'm going back into the chat.

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Nicole, can we get a breakdown of this data based on county and provider type? Yes. And so, that is on my next, interactive slide that I'll show you here shortly. And then, Liz, it would be very interesting to see enrollment in the new infant toddler slots. Yes, Liz. So that is that's exactly a lot that came to mind for me is that what we are hearing is that, the the, demographic that is the most impacted by the CCAP freezes are our infants and toddlers.

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And so what we're seeing is they're aging out of the infant toddler room and into larger classrooms, and then these classrooms that serve our babies aren't able to accept more. And so this is particularly, impactful for communities that don't have private paid families. And so you look at communities where they only have CCAP slots that is resulting in them having to close their classrooms. So they may with this and who knows? Like, we're we we're trying to interpret the state, but we don't have an evaluation on this.

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So it's looking at this and trying to draw some conclusions. But, could those license they could have those license slots, but they don't have that classroom open. Right? Because we we don't have enrollment data. Okay. Let's see. Mathu. Yep. It's the churn. Yep. Lisa, JT, and Adams were almost doubled the number of closures in 2025 from the previous two years. Right? So, and then, oh, should happy. This is the million dollar question. So many people ask this is, should CDC have the enrollment data,

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and how can that happen? Well, these are many of these are small private businesses. Right? And so, that's the way that's one of the complex issues within our state and within the early childhood head sector as a whole. But this was particularly challenging during COVID. Remember when we were we weren't able to gauge what enrollment was at our centers. So we were doing it through early milestone surveys and through other resources. And, Jen, I see to the per early milestones, I see you on the call too,

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so hop in for anything on this as well. We have so many experts on the call that are living and breathing this every day. So, okay. So now if you go to the next slide, I wanted I just have brought in a couple slides from our wildly important goals that we measure for the governor's dashboard, which is public. And there were two that I pulled here that I thought might be informative, for this purpose. So our goal, for the last few years has been to increase infant toddler child care capacity since this is a pretty dire crisis in our state.

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And so you'll see from 2024, to '25 the progress that we made, and then the blue bar here is 2526. And so, based on how this graph is formatted, it's hard to see that, 1.9, 1.8, what the true differential is there. And what we have seen in three of the last four months, is that the infant toddler capacity has decreased. So I think what this is demonstrating is that we are now seeing the, where the data is now showing us,

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the impact of the freezes and wait list. Right? That it's and I think in the next few months, we're really gonna see that, downward trajectory until we can get counties, to wait list and off of freezes. Okay. And then last, one more slide down is CCAP. And this to me is so heartbreaking because think collectively, all of us, what we have worked on to make, CCAP really, an exciting program to join to support families. And now what we're seeing is providers are not seeing it as a reliable funding

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source, and so they're starting to turn away. And this decrease between December and January is just awful. And so and what is that gonna look like in the next few months ahead? Okay. Let me pause and do more questions, and then I would like to, jump over and share my screen, Shannon, so I can show the interactive map that we have on, capacity that will answer some of these questions. Okay. Erin, do we have data from families impacted by the closures about the care options that okay.

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So, Erin, what I meant to say at the top of the call that this, is that we don't crack family friend and neighbor providers. Right? So as providers are closing, what are they choosing to do? Or when they don't aren't able to access CCAP, and they have to go to work, what are they doing? What choices are they making? And we've heard from some counties what's happening is that they're seeing tenants, truancy issues with their high school families with high school kids because the high school

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and middle school children are staying home to take care of the younger children so the parent can work. So that is one data point that we really need to, work with the counties to look at. We're also we also know that they are moving into family, friend, and neighbor care, but we'll need to rely on our, our folks like early milestones and others to do those surveys, to really find out what's happening. And then with our, CDC independent evaluation, we're also going to be shifting really to looking at and working with families.

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Okay. Hold on here. Steph, when the payment data make it, yes, for CCAP. Right? But not for the sector as a whole. Did you wanna follow-up, Steph, on that? No. Thanks. That's a good that's obvious. I should have known that. No. But that's something everybody thinks, Steph. It's like, why don't we have this? But then you think the the, attendance data because they have to check-in. But Yeah. Anyway, there's gotta be a way to get this that's administrative data rather than a survey. So Yeah. So maybe stuff like Brian could put his head his brain on that too and

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really help us think from an innovative perspective. How can we gather that from, small independent businesses that may not in any way receive public funding? Okay. Sue, online childcare management oh, right. ELV. Right? Can provide real time attendance data to CDC. So ELV is that has such an incredible resource to support us, but, again, it's, not for the whole state. Yeah. I was I also wonder which of these might be taking advantage of the tax credit.

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Mhmm. Yeah. So that might be anything in this place. Mary Alice, I just wanna point out that EOB is just one system. There's others in the state, and it could be super curious. I I know ELV system is I don't know what the word is, but connected into the state with childcare licensing. But maybe the other systems have that same capability. And if, Carsten could maybe be pulling some of that data from the back end just even to do spot checking around certain counties or certain age groups, I think that could be super valuable data to you guys.

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Love that. Yep. That's really safe. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Then we have Matthews. Yep. Agree. And Liz. I think that's interesting idea, Sue, but might be skewed by larger providers who have funds for the systems and marketing via smaller providers. Right? There's all these complexities and nuances as we're trying to to get into this. I'll share my screen now, Shannon, if I have permission because I'm, I can't do this via link. I wanna show the interactive nature of our tool that we have. Okay.

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Kelsey Moody, for those of you that know Kelsey, I think she's on maternity leave or about to go on maternity leave, but she is phenomenal and is always looking at how do we, create interactive tools to help us dig into, capacity issues. So at the top here, it's too small for you to read, so I just wanna share this, this statement. This map shows the percentage of a county's estimated birth to five child population that could be served by the estimated licensed child care capacity

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if optimal conditions are met, such as complete staffing, child care demand, etcetera. As as the, map's creation date, each layer shows the associated age group, estimated population, and the age group's estimated licensed childcare capacity. A darker color indicates a larger percentage of the b five child population that could be served. And then ratios exceeding a 100% indicate that available licensed capacity, exceeds the population in that region. Okay. So what you have here is infant, toddler capacity. I'm gonna jump over to birth to five.

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So here's our birth to five heat map. Here's our preschool. Look at that. Isn't that amazing that we, are really able to meet the demand, for UPK? But then you look as you go younger and you go down to toddler capacity and then infant capacity. Vanessa, what county are you in? Larimer. And this, I was I was actually typing this in to say we have overcapacity for UPK slots and undercapacity. So this confirms what we know, but it's really helpful to see this in a statewide context too.

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Right. Yeah. That's right. So, and let's see. Was there another oh, Kirsten. Kirsten, do you wanna, come off really quickly and just add your commentary, and then I'll go over to you, Shelley. Yeah. I was just just saying, I mean, there there's so many nuances around the capacity, and I've already had conversations with, like, the folks from BridgeCare about what we can pull there. But, again, the problem is the coverage. And, you know, my concern would be that, you know, what we're finding in providers that are using BridgeCare or one of the other, online systems might actually skew the results and miss what's happening in the more rural

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or frontier areas or even, by size or or license type. So but we are exploring, like, alternative ways to get that. I've I've got a few, green projects in mind that would address some of these things too from, like, the the parent experience, as well as getting, more representative data from, providers in an ongoing basis. Mhmm. Thank you, Carson. Carson, I also see that we have a new baby boy who has joined our staff, so we need pictures. And, Shelly, please go ahead. Where do three year olds land in this data?

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Because we're talking UPK and then toddlers and infants. I'm gonna get back to you that on that, Shelley. I'm not sure how Kelsey has broken it out between toddler and preschool unless somebody else here knows the on my team knows the answer to that. Vanessa, this is publicly available, but but I and look. I'm gonna add the link here. But when I look at this, Carson, it has download, and it has my drive. So I don't know, I don't have the publicly available link if you do, Kirsten. If not, we will get that from,

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the team, the data team. Yep. And then lastly, on this, we'd be happy to have Kelsey meet with some, the county commissioners or come back to this meeting to do a deeper dive into into this, if you'd all like. So that is where where we are. And I'm I think are there any other questions that have come up? Any other ponderings? So did this get to what you're hoping for? Yeah, Liz. I'm just wondering about the infant toddler capacity and the significant inroads that we've made, which is incredible, and then the impact of CCAP now.

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Are we at at risk of, are there are there reporting requirements or things that we needed in order to or, you know, certain outcomes we need to be able to report in relation to the infant toddler investments that we made that we may now not meet if CCAP impacts infant toddlers being able to enroll and then classrooms closing and then the capacity going back to where it was before? And, Mary Alice, as you let I sorry. I got kind of twisted up there. Let's think of this as the last question if we can so that we can

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I'm not minutes behind right now. So Yeah. We're trying to make up a little time. Kelly, did you just put this in for us? You are amazing, Kelly. Thank you for grabbing that. I appreciate it. Yeah. And so, Steph, if everybody, please use Kelly's, Kelly's information there if that's, and then it looks a little different than what we had showed, so I'll have Kelsey added another one. So, I there's not a super straightforward answer to your question, Liz, so let's dig into that later together. Sure. I realized I was completely pulling you on the spot with a really technical question,

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but I was just curious about it. Yeah. Definitely. Thank you, Liz. Thanks everybody for your for your time, and I know Shelley is gonna bring some really important information about how we get counties WAPA freezes and how we, support, this really challenging crisis we're all trying to navigate together. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Mary Alice. Happy. Cheers. Wow. That that was an extraordinary, conversation. And, as much work as there is, I think we came away with as many questions as we have, data points, which is good because that that means our journey towards getting better is is fueled

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by by those questions. And I since we are creatures of the moment, I I do encourage people who have remaining sort of questions, comments, about the the, CCAP, presentation and from the evaluation to put them in the chat because then we can actually capture them and maybe follow-up. Obviously, follow-up emails to is great, but I know that, you know, we we all have great intentions to do that, and then we get busy and forget. So before the meeting ends,

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feel free to just, stream of consciousness, get your questions and comments in in into the chat as we move forward. As Michael said, we are well behind our agenda schedule for very good reason, because that was such a rich conversation. So we're gonna make some decisions to try to pare down each of our remaining agenda, categories a little bit so that we can try to still end on time. One of those, sadly, is going to be our break, I think. So I encourage you those of you who need to have a break,

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just take one and and hustle right back so you don't miss too much. But we're gonna move on with, I think a very timely topic in many of our minds, you know, and that is a legislative and policy update from our state and community partners and, you know, sort of where the rubber hits the road when we make changes and we're deciding to move forward. These are the vehicles that we use to get there. So we wanna hear from, those agencies. And I'll remind you that we all received in a,

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previously updates from each of our state agencies. So I encourage you to review those and and offer questions or suggestions. We're gonna focus in in the presentations today on what some of our, agencies and community partners are focusing on specifically priority pieces of legislation that have been introduced, this session because it's very timely. We we you know, the session moves, as many of you know, at breakneck pace, and so we wanna we wanna figure out what how that affects us in the

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work that we're doing and where the alignment may be. So first, I wanna start with, Anna, just a reminder to the agencies. Whatever time you, had allocated for your presentation today, you now have a few minutes less because we're gonna try to do this, in in thirty minutes instead of forty. So please be aware of that. So, Sam, I'll turn it over to you to set the pace for us. Thanks, Abby. No pressure. I'll do my best to be quick. Department of higher ed. Yeah. Absolutely. I, I will highlight two bills very quickly.

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There were there were some others I pulled out that that other agencies are gonna discuss as well. So I'm just gonna cover two real quick that that we're keeping an eye on. One is house bill twenty six one zero one six. That's a continuation of our open educational resources program. So OER, if you're not aware, those are freely available online teaching and learning materials that are accessible to students, instructors, and self learners. They they are copies of of textbooks and materials and things that are typically under a Creative Commons license, with the ability for instructors and students to freely use, retain, reuse, revise them,

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whatever they see fit, and they're no cost. So this is, this bill is trying to extend our funding for this program. This program currently funds the adoption and development of OER at institutions around the state. It started in 2018, with three years of funding, and then it was expanded with an an additional couple of years in 2021. The open educational resources that have been adapted or created or adopted in the first six cycles of this program have saved Colorado students almost $60,000,000 in textbook costs to date.

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So this has been a really effective program. The cumulative cost for the first six years of the grant program is projected to surpass 75,000,000 this spring. So the current legislation that that is up, that twenty six ten sixteen, that's meant to continue our funding. How does this connect to ECE? There are various programs that have used this, program so far to develop some materials. Arapahoe and AIMS are working on, full zero textbook cost degrees in ECE. They're built in progress, so it would need the additional funding of this bill to to have that work continue. Pikes Peak has a zero textbook cost certificate and early childhood,

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assistant teacher and an infant toddler certificate. There's a couple other institutions like Front Range and NJC who use OER for individual courses but not full degrees yet. All of that work is is funded from the state grant. So this this one is needed this bill is needed to pass to to continue that work. So we're keeping an eye on that. One, one other statistic that that our coordinator shared with me was that, when you count in average textbook costs, within CCCS, within the community college system, that increases annual full time attendance cost by anywhere between 2040%,

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give or take. So the the, the effects of this this program really can't be overstated. It's really doing some great work, so we're hoping to see that go through. The other one there is twenty six ten seventy eight. This bill has to do with differences between concurrent enrollment programs and dual enrollment programs, which are actually treated a little bit differently in statutory language, specifically with dual enrollment often referred to as, quote, off campus programs. But what that technically means is that access to different programs or different funding streams might change depending on how those programs are classified.

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So there was a previous bill that allowed for both concurrent and dual enrollment programs to be available for TREP, which is a a high school current concurrent enrollment program for early career educators. But this legislation looks to expand that to really any and all programs across the state to kind of blur that line even more. So we're keeping an eye on it just because it's possible it could free up some maneuverability, for early career, middle and high school programs and partnerships with institutions with IE sheets. So those are two I'll highlight, very quickly. Yeah. Thanks, Happy. So, Sam, before you leave, one thing I'll ask each of the presenters here to do is,

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if you don't mind to, not, indicate who the prime sponsor is, on on, the bills that you're presenting and whether there will be, a fiscal note, attached to that because, you know, that in our thinking about the process, you know, whether there's an appropriations process, etcetera. So if you'll, if you'll each do that, that would be helpful. I can find those and throw them in the chat. Happy. Okay. Great. Yep. Alright. Thank you so much, Sam. You'd set a great pace. Now I'll move it to the, to the Department of Early Childhood and,

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Shannon, take it away. And and Mary Alice. Hi. Good morning, everyone. As doctor Roy alluded, I'm coming off having the flu, so I apologize for my voice. I'm gonna skip a couple of you bills because I know some other groups are gonna be doing these as well. So I'll let the children's campaign talk about senate bill nineteen and twenty. Just know that the department is also engaged on those bills as well. For senate bill 50, this, childcare center required policy disclosure bill relates to childcare centers that offer, live video recording in their centers that they will be required to disclose any policies

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they have around their live recordings, retention, for parents to have access to that information. The prime sponsor on this is senators Marchman and Bright. There's no fiscal note on this bill. On house bill, ten seventy five, This is related to some child where health welfare prevention services funding that flows through the, Colorado abuse, child abuse prevention fund that we see oversee at the department. Essentially, this just says that the money that is supposed to flow to child welfare flows

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to child welfare. While there is an appropriation on it, it's just moving money between agencies. And so it has to go through the appropriations process, but we don't see this as a reduction to the department or, any sort of fiscal impact. House bill twelve fifty nine is the department's agenda bill for this year. It is the Department of Early Childhood Cleanup. And, essentially, this is a very long coming tactical bill that goes through our statutes in twenty six point five and looks for areas of where

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maybe the statute doesn't meet what we might be doing in practice, or perhaps there was something that didn't move over correctly and needs to be adjusted for language, or there's just a part of statute that doesn't include our statute title anymore. That happens sometimes when establishing new departments that things just don't translate correctly. And so this is being led by rep Serota in the house and senators, Marchman, and Bridges in the senate. There is no anticipated fiscal impact. And like I said,

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this is the department's agenda bill, so we are highly supportive of this one. And then the last one I'll mention is house bill twelve eighty two. This is coming from the school districts who are looking to eliminate what they consider to be some duplicative regulations that are required of before and after school care and preschool that, they have to do that other centers do not have to do. The department sees this a little differently. Healthcare licensing has worked really hard with

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the school districts over the years. In previous years, there's been studies on duplicative licensing that happens in the school setting versus a child care center and what CDE requires and what the department requires. Unfortunately, the department is also regulated by federal requirements from, CCDF that says that we have to provide oversight, and we have additional requirements that maybe go above and beyond what the Department of Education requires for k through 12 programming. And so eliminating department oversight and our ability to require some of those regulations,

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would essentially mean we would not have eyes on programs that sit within school center school districts. We would also, they would not be eligible for CCDF funding, and so many of the school districts would no longer be able to receive CCAP. So we have a lot of concerns on this bill. I know a lot of other groups are working on this as well, but just wanted to share that information. This is being led by representative Jackie Phillips, and that's my updates. Sorry. I'm on mute. Quick questions about, mostly for clarification for,

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the the last two presentations, and then we'll move on. Or you can drop them in the chat. Liz. I think this is a quick question. I'm not as familiar with house bill twenty six twelve eighty two. Is that related to only those preschool and before and after programs that are run by the district or for third party providers as well? This would only be for the districts. Thank you. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. Next, we have, Susana Snyder from health care policy and financing. Good morning, folks. I had to check the time. It feels like afternoon already. So for health care policy and financing,

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the big headlines right now are actually not really our legislative bills as typical. The focus continues to be on our budget. I know oh, gosh. Was it December or January? I think it was January. I spent a little time, talking about our, growth trends compared to Taber growth trends and some of the strategies the department is going to be deploying over the next, few fiscal years to try and contain that growth as best we can without cutting benefits, without cutting eligibility,

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and without cutting rates. That's really the thing. You know? You can you can do those things pretty easily. Instead, we're trying to maximize value, for the services we're receiving. I think if you haven't heard me say it here, you probably heard me say it other places. We're trying to use a scalpel instead of a hatchet. To that end, we have a series of supplementals that have been going through the supplemental budget process, to make any immediate, value adds to the program that we can. I did actually check-in with our legislative team and have not heard back yet.

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Last I heard, we did not have the final ink to paper on our supplementals, but expect it by the end of the month. The other thing is our budget requests, which are, gonna be going through the figure setting process. I think our figure setting starts on March 6. I am going to drop our legislative agenda here that kinda outlines more kind of the the relationship between our, our budget and what we're actually asking for. I'm just looking at my notes real fast to make sure I hit our highlights. Okay.

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Great. I hit my notes there. Just wanted to look again at our legislative updates. Again, you're gonna see that it's really our executive order and other spending reductions, which the JBC is still deliberating on, and we will, we'll see how those things go. There are some, there's some work, that many folks have probably heard about. We have a fair amount of information out there on, driving efficiencies in benefit service delivery through shared services, across counties, physician directed state payments, funding true up,

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some OCL services and MAT in jail, and then there's some federal compliance things. So, again, it it's it's pretty technical other than those really big budget pieces, which is our hope so that we can continue providing services to folks while we also have to get in alignment with HR one, which is going to come with increased costs and administrative burden to the state. So, no super fund bills to talk about this year, unfortunately, but, hopefully, you know, some of the work that we've done historically on health related social needs, and, maternal child health can continue to grow and expand over the next few years.

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So with that, I can turn it over to the next person and hopefully keep us moving ahead of schedule. Happy you're muted. I am. Sorry. Mary Kay, I don't know if you are on the line and have a brief update from behavioral health administration. Here we go. Hi, Happy. I am on the line. And as far as legislative items for BHA, none of them are related to early childhood, issues. We have a pretty limited legislative panel. I'm new to this talk, so please apologize or I apologize to everybody if what I'm saying doesn't make a

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lot of sense. But, really, our biggest item is that we're asking to have more of our funds, not be connected to particular statutes and rule and to have more independence in being able to decide how we route those in order to best support the behavioral health continuum, not only for children, youth, and families, but also for adults. And so we don't really have much as it relates to legislative pieces. Great. Thank you, Mary Kaye. And anybody, as time goes on, we're gonna be able to find more of the intersections between the work that you're

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doing. I mean, I I think everyone agrees that, the work your work and that area is critically important to the whole universe of early childhood, and we just need to find what those points of intersection are as time goes on. And so we appreciate appreciate, you being part of, part of, the group. Thank you so much. Yeah. We hope to have some things next year that are connected to early childhood. So Yeah. Things going I I know there are many on this call who who think in their minds of what those connections are, so I'm sure they I I encourage all of you to reach out to,

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to Mary Kay with questions or ideas about what those, what those connections might be. That would be wonderful. I'll put my email in the chat. Terrific. Thank you. Thanks, Abby. Alright. And then moving on to our, our community partners who are busy, busy, busy, in with their priorities in the legislative sees season. So, we'll turn it over first, to Martha. Hey, everybody. Oh, can you see me? Okay. So I'm Mathu. My full name is Mathangi Subramanian. I'm from the Colorado Children's Campaign,

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and I, also have the flu, so I have a cough drop in my mouth. So I'm sorry. I hope you're you're gonna be able to hear me so I don't cough on you all while I'm talking. So we have two bills that we are, gonna talk about today. The first is SB 19, which Shannon mentioned, which is early childhood local systems consolidation. So it's consolidating LCOs and, ECCs. It passed, out of the senate with an amendment that gave a longer transition time for the three LCOs that are not part of LCCs, that are not part of ECCs. And it's up for, a hearing in the house on March 11. It has no fiscal note, so that's moving around nice moving along nicely.

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S p twenty six twenty, the main provision in this bill is a, a licensing task force that's gonna start, July 1, and have representatives from providers and government and, technology experts to talk about some of the redundancies and bureaucratic hurdles in childcare licensing. There's also a provision that allows inspectors to look at, documents in PIS instead of on paper and a provision that caps fees for local, permitting and childcare related fees that are go above and beyond state standards. That just passed unanimously out of the committee tomorrow.

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That does have a fiscal note because it shows savings. And so, we're waiting for that to get out, appropes, and the sponsors on both bills are, Bright and Ball. And in the house, SB 19 is being sponsored by Sirona and Gonzales. So that's my update. Oh, happy you're muted. I'm muted again. I'm sorry. I'm I I'll just stay on and be quiet. First of all, the, apologies for, messing up your name. Oh, it's so fine. Your name. Any, and and thank you for your, brevity. There's a whole lot more there. So please, please, reach out to the, children's campaign. I know you've been having a number of webinars and sessions for people to,

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engage and learn about these priority bills and how they might be affecting, all of the various, stakeholders. So, any quick questions for Matthew? We also have another webinar March 19, so I can put that in the in the chat as well. Yeah. Would you? That would be terrific. Yep. Alright. Thank you very much. Thank you. And we'll turn turn it over to our fellow commissioner, Nicole and Alethia, to talk about, from executives partnering to invest in children. Thank you, Happy. I'll make this quick because I know that we are running short on time. The one bill I wanted to make sure we covered today was house bill twenty

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six ten o four, which is the continuation of the child care contribution tax credit here in Colorado. I know many of you are familiar with this tax credit. It, allows, donors, both corporate and individual donors to contribute to over 6,000 different child care organizations across the state of Colorado and offers a 50% income tax credit as a result of that. Our latest financial forecasts indicate that this tax credit is likely to bring in over $70,000,000 in donations, to our child care industry and partners over the next,

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over the coming years, and so it's incredibly important. So we are reauthorizing this tax credit. Of course, we know it's a tough budget year, and so with such a big tax credit, big fiscal note, I'm also thrilled to have really great support from, leadership in both of our chambers in the general assembly. So, speaker of the house, Julie McCluskey has really taken this on as, as her bill and has been a great, amazing leader on, really leading the way in getting this tax credit, reauthorized. And then, of course, we also have, president, president Coleman on the bill too along with minority leadership in both the House and

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the Senate as well. So, excited to have the support for this bill. It did pass out of its first committee with unanimous support. It's sitting in appropriations now too. Hopefully, many of you are receiving the emails already around the coalition efforts for this bill. We have been sending out those updates to partners. So I'll stick I'll put our policy email in the chat here. If you'd like to get involved and you're not getting those emails, please let us know. We can add you to the list so that you're getting updates, as we are sending out information on committee hearings, and any updates on the bill.

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I'll also note that currently the bill sits with a ten year, renewal timeline as well. So we'll share any updates, but, definitely very important for our state and a huge mechanism that we know many of our child care organizations rely on for funding. Yes. Thank you, Nicole. That's a big one. Appreciate it. Any, questions, comments for Nicole? Alright. So we'll move on to Healthier Colorado and turn it over to Christina. Thank you, Happy. And welcome. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Christina Walker from Healthier. Just wanted to quickly share about,

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House Bill twelve sixty, which is being sponsored by Representatives Garcia and Wilford and, senators Cutter and Bright. It was introduced this past Friday. As we heard, at the beginning of this meeting from Mary Alice, and as we know, the Child Care Assistance Program is currently on freezes and waitlist and, 19 freezes in 19 counties, five waitlist counties. And we believe, that many of the provisions that we had passed back in 2024 in, House Bill twelve twenty three are still best practice for not only for families to

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have equitable access to childcare and for providers to be, made whole as they, offer care through the childcare assistance program. But really it's what's best for the childcare infrastructure, writ large. However, given our state's, budget challenges, we recognize, as well as the fact that the department got a hardship waiver on four provisions, that were from the Biden rules as we heard earlier. We are planning to utilize this bill to push back the implementation dates for, four provisions, from 12/23. One of which was supposed to go live this July,

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this August, but we are pushing it back given the the fiscal situation. The other three, were not planning on going live this year given that it was subject to federal appropriations within the bill. So those four pieces are paying based on contracts and, or grants, paying based on enrollment instead of attendance, paying providers prospectively instead of retroactively. And the last one, which was the one that was supposed to go, into effect this August is paying, capping co payments for families at 7% of their income.

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So those four provisions will be moved out through this bill, hopefully, to 08/01/2028 to align with the federal hardship waiver, that the federal government gave to, CDEC. Last, there is a provision in the bill where we were hoping to get some clarity around administrative spending by the counties. We are currently discussing, this provision with many of the advocates as well as with the CDEC. And we are hoping that that provision will end up being a reporting requirement around, how much money is being spent on administrative costs,

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or non direct service costs versus what costs are being spent on direct services, both at the state level and by county. So more to come on that. I'm still, very much in conversations with folks and, wanna ensure that, our sponsors are very clear around what's being asked before we include anything in the bill. But, thank you so much for having me today. It's a very tough time for the for the state. And so while these I'm very sad that we have to push these provisions back, but I think it's what's best given right now to not exacerbate the existing freeze and wait list challenges that we have in the state.

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Happy to answer questions, and I can put my email in the chat. Wow. That's that's a big one. Lots there and lots of implications for many folks. So any questions or thoughts for Christina? Okay. So these, presenters have done an extraordinary job of helping us to, to catch up on on time. We will, we were originally going to, take a break, but I I think just to stay on target because we're a little still a little behind. Again, please take a break. If you need one,

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we'll move right on, to the, to the next category, and I'll turn it over to Sue if we have audio. Hi, Happy. Sorry. My computer keeps cutting in and out. Did you transition to me? Yes. Yes. I was just saying, and I'll turn it over to see if we have audio. People here happy. Can you hear? Yes. Oh, shoot. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm having computer issues. Can't hear. I don't know what to say. Happy, can you continue a little bit longer? Just because Michael, can you talk? Let me see if I can hear you. Is it just happy that you can? I'm talking to you now.

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Turning. Okay. Let me log off and I'll log on my iPad and see if I can get a better connection. If, Happy, you could just start the next section, the public comment, that would be awesome. And then I'll log back on. Sounds great. Thank you. Technical difficulties. We all we've gotta love our technology. Right? So we did have a few people signed up ahead of the meeting to give public comment. And if you do want to add yourself to public comment, please indicate that in the chat. In the meantime, we'll move first to,

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two commissioner celebrations. First of all, Heather Craiglow, who was selected to participate in the 2026, National Association of State Leaders in early, early education leadership. And it she was one of nine across the country, and we heard that it was a stellar performance. So, Heather, get on the screen and let us, celebrate, you representing, the state of Colorado so well. Unfortunately, Heather wasn't able to join. Heather wasn't able to I'll I'll pass on to We'll share all the kudos and

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and hand claps, for Heather, but she was she was remarkable. And next, Liz, who I know is, is on the call. So please, Liz, get get yourself on on the, on the screen. Liz was invited to testify in congress about the early child early childhood care and education sector and also did a phenomenal job representing Colorado and what we're facing and, making sure that at the federal level, they're hearing from those of us out in the trenches. So, just a big shout out to Liz.

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Where are you, Liz? I'm here. Thank you so much. Thank you. I really appreciate that. It was an honor to to represent this. Yeah. I was hearing I was hearing about it from a whole bunch of different, sources. So fantastic job. Thank you. Thank you. And, I would like to turn it over to, Lisa, Schluter for from the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Advisory updates. Good morning, commissioners, and guests. My name is Nikki Adams. I am not doctor Lisa Schluter, but I am representing the Infant Early Childhood Mental Health Advisory Council.

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I'm a representative from the department as the equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility director. I wanted to share I'm not sure. Shannon, do you have our slide or if I'm able to share my slide? You can share. I do not have a slide for you. Okay. I will be quick. I know that we are behind schedule. But just wanted to share from the Infant Early Childhood Mental Health Council that we have better together mini grants that have been awarded. The funds are intended to drive collaboration among council members and really advance workforce goals.

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This is part of our strategic plan of 2025 to 2030. We have awarded five project groups, and they're representing, cross sector, cross discipline teams. This award and timeline will extend from January 2026 through December 2020. Six is the deadline. And just to share a little bit about some of the projects that are happening, we have infant early childhood mental health ambassador model that will be developed, also developing a workforce pathway and expanding the prenatal to five fiscal map and then

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developing a comprehensive screening and referral model toolkit of resources. We're looking forward to share more about these five different projects as the work progresses throughout the year. In the chat, I will put our infant and early childhood mental health ecosystem strategic plan if you're interested in learning more about our priorities and the work that has happened. Thank you so much. Awesome. Well, I can certainly see some potential intersections there with the behavioral health, but

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thank thank you for that presentation. Sue, are you back with us? Or shall I move on? I am back. I am back. Thank goodness for, multiple devices. So, yes, happy. I'm happy to keep going here. It looks like our next update is, someone that signed up, Mary Houlihan from ECCS update. Mary, are you available to join us? Yes. Good morning, all. And I apologize for my bird clock, signaling the end of the hour in the background. Thank you all so much for the time this morning. I'll keep it brief. But just building off of the IACMH updates,

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I'm very happy to share that the prenatal to three fiscal map developed through the early childhood comprehensive systems grant project is now formally complete and available for download. We have some information that will be shared in follow-up for today's meeting that kind of gives the the breakdown of how you can access the fiscal map. There's a really short survey we're asking folks to complete that will help us kind of understand how the map is, used and how folks are intending to use it. I know that we have, this has been a while in the building,

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and we're we're really excited to finally have that complete version of the fiscal map. Just as a brief reminder for everybody, this fiscal map is looking at prenatal to three state and federal funding going into Colorado, and it's currently for fiscal year 2324 because that was the timing of when we were initially developing it. We are in the process of having a an updated version of the prenatal to three fiscal map by July 2026, so this year, July. That will include last year's data as well.

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And as was alluded to, we are also working on expanding the prenatal to three fiscal map to be prenatal to five through the IECMH mini grants. And within this mini grant, we're hoping to also build a little bit of a deeper understanding of what funding is going into expanding the infant and early childhood workforce. That's all. Wanted to keep it brief, but more will be coming in our follow-up email. But thank you all so much. If you have any questions, Thank you, Mary. We appreciate that update. The next is Alex Helrunge. Am I pronouncing that correctly, Alex? Who's gonna give us an update on the Rocky Mountain Early Childhood Conference.

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Thank you, Sue. And, yes, it is hell rung, just like it down below. We have to we spell it often when we say it. There is a new I'm Alex Hell rung. For those of you who I don't know, I work with Denver's Early Childhood Council on the Rocky Mountain Early Childhood Conference. We are working on expanding the conference from being traditionally just for child care providers to also including more of a community leader, aspect to it. And so that starts this year with the policy Pathways is kind of the session we had last year,

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and this year, we've expanded it to be pathways in excuse me, influence and action. And so it is a full track of sessions. So wanted to reach out and invite you all on this call to join us. I'm gonna put, a link to the PDF handout we have in the chat. In order to join, you'd register for Thursday, and then you'll receive instructions for how to add these specific sessions to your schedule. But it's intended to be a really good opportunity for community leaders throughout the state to come together,

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talk about a lot of the issues you're talking about on these calls and the Colorado children's campaign calls and things like that, in one place and really be able to kinda roll up our sleeves and dive into these issues together. Thank you, Sue, for the opportunity to talk about it on this call, and we hope to see a lot of you there. Thank you, Alex. Yeah. It's always an amazing event. For those that can attend, I encourage that for sure. Has anyone else signed up for public comment? My dive or I'm not seeing anybody. Yeah. I'm not seeing anybody else that signed up, but raise your hand if I missed you somehow.

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There's a lot in the chat. Yeah. And particularly with commissioners, if there's any updates, things you want folks to know, we we really want to use this time to be able to do that. Okay. And we can always come back maybe a little bit later. Moving on though, now we've got our subcommittee and workers updates. And I just want to call your attention to the fact that these materials did go out ahead of the meeting and that was really intentional and that we're wanting our time together today to be spent more about giving feedback on the subcommittee and work

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groups and discussing the subcommittee and work groups and not simply just disseminating updates. So, please, if you haven't looked at those, updates prior to the meeting, do so. And then next time, kind of watch for them. Again, we're trying to make sure that we are spending time here together. Not to say that reading updates is not valuable, but we wanna be able to use your time to, and your expertise to its highest value. So our first report is gonna be the CCAP rule right committee,

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subcommittee update from Shelly Smith, one of our commissioners. And, Shelly, you specifically want to ask for some feedback. Correct? Yep. Exactly. Yep. Thank you so much. If you wanna go to the first slide or the next slide. So we on March 13, when the committee gets back together again, they're actually going to want to vote on some of these items. So I wanted to make sure and get everybody's, final input so I can represent, the commission in, giving feedback during that March 13 meeting.

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I'm not gonna focus, a lot on the, customer service rule because, one, there were not a lot of changes to it. It was more clarifying definitions, and we have discussed that quite a bit before. I still want to keep it in here because if there's somebody that missed prior meetings, and so it is linked there, pretty detailed. There hasn't been very many changes, just some clarifications on the training component. So if you want to, take that and you can email me feedback, right, Shannon, that's still okay as long as with the whole,

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organization? Great. So we I'm gonna go ahead and go to the next slide because the there's some the new information is the one I really wanna make sure and share. This is the the most important part of what I wanna share. So, there was a talk that now counties are wanting to move from freezes to wait lists, and a lot of the work has been about clarifying a process by which to do that because the rule there was not a lot in rule or processes around how to do that. This is the most important one, and it is saying, okay,

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to and it's a requirement that isn't part of the plan that was submitted to the federal government, so we have to take some of this action. But there's, the how we do it is where they want the impact. So if you, look at the link, basically, it says that we must, It was included in, our packet that we must, have a system to, prioritize populations, specifically ones that are federal, federally identified families, of low income, children with special needs, and, children experiencing homelessness.

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So that is something that's already, been established, and the state plan, goes above and beyond on that may also want to have prioritized populations be families receiving, that are part of the TANF system. So, again, that is just an example of what they want to do. But in order to do that, we know that just within those populations, there's going to be more that meets that prioritized population, then there's gonna be slots available on how do counties prioritize those.

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So when you go to the link, of that, you're gonna see that there is let me just make sure I know I'm not jumping ahead. When you go to the next slide, there's really two options, and this is where I really would like your feedback. I'll share my thoughts, but, again, I need to represent the commission's voice. So I copy and pasted from some of the documents that are linked to the the dig just to narrow down our focus. So the option one, really says that basically everything, homelessness, and families under a 130% of poverty,

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children with special needs, those are all equally weighted. And then the TANF would be a lower, weight. The second one actually gives a higher prioritization to homelessness and then a higher prioritization to those that are at or below a 100% of poverty. And then the next one, that would be the 130. So it it kinda separated out the families under, a 130% into two categories. And one thing I found interesting, and I made the note of data that they shared during the meeting,

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that's, on average, approximately $500 a month for a a household of four. So just to kinda give some what is that difference. And, and, again, they kept saying, you know, it's icky to have to prioritize these families they all should be able to get it. But the fact of the matter is they do have to have a system. And then I think the rest are weighted the same. So the biggest difference is making, homelessness an option two higher priority and then separating, the income into two categories.

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I'm just gonna share the group, and I'm not gonna be offended if anybody, disagrees, and I wanna take back, the majority voice of the commission. Homelessness, having a higher ranking, I so I support that in option two. Obviously, that has a huge impact on children and families. The difference between the 130, how much that was. And these categories align with head start and how they tend to weight and rank those different categories. So that's why I,

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in discussion, you know, just would take back option two, but I wanna make sure I'm representing everybody. And so I'd love feedback now or questions, and then go ahead. Who's I'm not Vanessa. Go ahead, Vanessa. Hi. It's me. Yeah. So I I've I've sit on the CCAP allocation committee meeting, and I if anyone can clarify for me because I was under the impression that if we were moving from a freeze to a wait list and we didn't have any local prioritized populations,

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then we didn't have to have the federal, federally prioritized populations. And this reads differently from that. So I just wanna make sure that I have this right. My understanding and, Mary Alice, you can double check me. It's because it was in the plan that we submitted. Correct, Mary Alice? Yeah. In the state plan. So, Vanessa, this is newer information, based on what we have detailed in our three year CCDF state plan. And so that's why we're working between these these two. So I think the next allocation committee meeting, you'll have more updated information.

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Thanks. So with that then, if we must have prioritized populations, then I I think from the eligibility perspective, having, the option to I I agree with the feeling of prioritizing vulnerable families because they are all vulnerable, but I do I do agree with the option to option. Great. And this this question. Yeah. I I agree with you too, Shelley, about option two. And and my I I sat in on that meeting. And, I think that, when you look at option one with everyone being equally weighted,

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it I feel like it, doesn't give enough maybe clarity to well, okay. Then we go to eligibility date and now we're really just coming in. Well, how quickly did you fill out your paperwork in order to get the the system or get the services? But I wanted to point out too, one of the things I saw in the chat in that conversation, was that there was a county representative who, said that there are people who might claim homelessness in order to increase their ranking if this were shared information on a large scale. And, that still doesn't change my opinion. But I think that with,

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you know, everyone being able to, self declare, that that was a question that a particular county person raised in that conversation. And then my question or comment that I have related to the information that we had earlier this meeting with relation to infant and toddler care and our concern of that that capacity building starting to dwindle. Once these criteria are put into place, do counties under local control have ability to then prioritize infants and toddlers in alignment with these, priorities. I don't know the answer to that. I don't know if anyone on the call does.

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Well, I'm so glad that Mary Alice has her hand up because I don't have an answer to that question, and maybe she does. Yes. Yes. So Liz, accounting could then after these, priorities that are mandated in the CCDF statement could then, determine, their own priorities such as infant toddler. And then the is that was that your question, Liz? Yeah. And I was could they if a if there's a, you know, 10 families waiting at 20 experiencing homelessness Yes. Would infant toddler be able to then increase the ranking, or do they have to do all 10 and then the fifteens and then the

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tens and then the fives, and then they can do infant toddler? That's a really good question. It has to be the what is, the federally required. And I also wanna note that even though this isn't our state plan, the way we address this, these are all federally required. They're not, state, priorities. And so you have to meet the federal requirements first before then you move to your county, options. So your right list is what is weighted here, and then after that, you could bring in, infant toddler. I also wanna add just a nuance to homelessness, that I heard from some folks and that is there are some people that,

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choose, mark homelessness, because they are living with a family member and, not in their own home. So that's why the team was struggling with scoring these because a family living in poverty and not being able to meet basic needs might be in a more dire situation than a family who's living with another family member. And so that's, where that option one, nuances were were, detailed. And, of course, the team at CDEC is really open to whichever option everyone feels is best.

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There's not a priority within the department. Mary Alice, there was a question in the chat about is it possible to break down the 130% even to a greater degree? Yes. Option two has been cleared by our legal counsel as being able to, move it, it to more nuanced levels. Yes. And the one thing I wanna, be sure to state here, because I know during the meeting, some people didn't realize that, that, if you have two factors are added up, the points are added up. So they're it it it's not like you just get 20.

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If you're under income and homeless and have a child with special needs, you're gonna go right to the time because you're they're additive. So I, that was something that I was surprised because I I automatically thought, well, I guess it wasn't really stated that way, but it is that way. Any, any other questions? And then, I'll definitely I got the verbal ones. Go ahead, Liz. Sorry. Not to belabor it. So we they're additive. And and so and then would a local priority be added on top, or do we have to meet all all of the level fives identified by the

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state first before implementing any county level priorities? I don't know if I'm explaining myself very well. But how how can if a county identifies just infant toddler as an example Mhmm. A priority population after federal priorities are met, can that county level prioritization be additive to the federal? Mhmm. So, Liz, I think I need to get back to you. My understanding is what I said that you first has to address everyone. Anyone here that is a priority population bypasses the wait list.

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Mhmm. Right. And then you move to your county. Christina or others that are on the role rewrite committee and that are deeper in the weeds on this, please jump in. And Vanessa. Yeah. Vanessa, you go ahead, Henry. Go ahead. Yeah. My question is is slightly a slight pivot from this conversation. So if there's someone who can answer that, I'll wait. Unless, I'm gonna jump into the the state plan and look directly, and then I'll come back. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. My sense is that, sorry. This is Christina. I wasn't sure if you were talking about me, Christina, or many of the other Christina. Christina.

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Christina. My sense is that these would be prioritized first. The state prioritization, AKA, the federal prior station happens first, and then you can move to the county prioritization. That's my understanding. Yeah. That's the way I understood it too, but I didn't feel comfortable making that statement without double checking. Vanessa, do you yeah. Vanessa wants to ask us different question. Okay. Go ahead, Vanessa. Yes. Still in the in the home the children experiencing homelessness, but because this is one of the levers that we have within the CCAP program

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for some cost containment around how long we will support a family in stabilization, is there then a proposal to change that county lever? So for example, we have the ability to, it's a minimum of 60 for stabilization. That's our minimum requirement in the program to allow a family on the program for sixty days for their homeless stabilization period. Will this then be a driver to change that lever for counties to say,

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actually, we need to we need we had it previously, Larimer County had it at twenty six weeks that we would allow a family to be in homeless stabilization. But then when we were looking at modifying our policies for cost containment, we moved it to those sixty days, which is about eight weeks. So does this mean then that we can bring a family onto the program? And if our local policy then says they get eight weeks of homeless stabilization, and then if they haven't moved into another eligible activity, then they close. We will have more churn in the program of those families experiencing homelessness,

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and does that still make sense? And that is definitely not had not been part of our discussion, so I don't feel I have the background knowledge to answer that. How about for you, Mary Alice? This will be part of the county plan, Vanessa. And so I think this is a little bit, more in the details of how we work with the county plan. So I'm gonna have Sarah follow-up with you, Vanessa, on that question. K. Okay. Thanks. Mhmm. Any other questions? Well, I'll definitely, go back in the chat and cop look at those during the rest of the meeting and get those,

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feedback. And then if anybody if you could, if you wanna email, anytime before, I would say, March 10 just so I can have time to gather everybody's thoughts before I and, definitely, when I do share, I I might say we are going to go to option two. However, these were some of the concerns, so I'll make sure and give qualitative questions if even if you're supporting or not supporting, definitely, if you give, some qualitative questions, I'll definitely share those also. And Okay. Thank you.

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Thank you, Shelley. Mhmm. And, again, this last fiscal rule, not gonna go into a lot of detail. I think this was, really to clarify some language if counties are wanting to overspend, to make sure that the state is not responsible for those, and there is a link to that. A lot of it includes some of the stuff we've already talked about, and, again, was not something that, there's a lot of decision making to be made. So that's why I wanna focus on the previous one. And this will happen again later,

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but I just give information. Anything I should add, Mary Alice? No. That's great, Shelley. Perfect. Okay. You're welcome. Just to clarify, Shelly does sit on the, CCAP rural rewrite subcommittee. It's a big mouthful. As an ECLC representative. So her role there is to represent commissioner's thoughts and opinions. So please feel free to, reach out to Shelley on that. Okay. We're gonna move. We're gonna move to another Christina, Christina with a k, Christina Heil, and she's gonna give us an update on the RACC,

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and she has a request for commissioners. Go ahead, Christina. Thanks, Sue. Hi, everyone. I wanted just to take a little bit of time today to, remind everyone about the rules advisory council that we have set up at CDEC, and then, talk about some of the rules that the group is working on right now. And then at the end, I do have a request for volunteers from the commission members. So, know that I'll be looking for, for volunteers. So first, what is the rules advisory council? So within CDEC, our executive director, doctor Roy, has the ability to promulgate rules. But, the statute that created the department created this rules advisory council that's made up of

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15 members from all across the state, all different sectors within early childhood to, review all of the rules before they come to doctor Roy and to provide guidance around those rules. Suggestions, ask questions, really try and make sure that that as the rules are moving through the process, that they're, in the best interest of all families and kids and our providers and our workforce across the whole state. Next slide. As I mentioned, the rules advisory council or the RAC as we call it, comes up with, recommendations around each of the rules that go to doctor Roy,

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for consideration. Prior to going to the RACC, as you can see on the chart on the bottom, we also have a RACC County subcommittee that looks at a lot of the rules, particularly from a county perspective, to really understand what does it look like in implementation for some of our programs, especially things like CCAP, where we have our counties administering those. So rules will go in front of our RAC county subcommittee and then to the RAC, which makes a formal recommendation. And then rules are heard typically once at a public hearing by doctor Roy where we have more public comments, when we talk about the recommendation from the RAC.

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And then the second hearing is held where doctor Roy will promulgate the role or make any changes that she sees fit. Just a quick overview of some of the rules that are coming forward, so you can see the kinds of things that this group is looking at. Right now, we are working on a, Colorado universal preschool program. We're calling it the mega rule. It has a lot of different, updates and clarifications throughout the whole, rule set related to, Colorado preschool program here. The next set of rules we're looking at is around child care licensing. So some cleanup and some clarifications around our outdoor nature based programs,

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as well as a general rule packet review. That's something we do with all of our rule sets on a regular basis is just go through them, make any updates that we need to or clarifications, things like that. Also doing some work in early intervention around eligibility redetermination and funding hierarchy. And then our CCAP. We always have rules, it seems like, around CCAP and really appreciate Shelley sharing, from the rule rewrite committee, looking at customer service, freezes wait lists. And then soon we'll be looking at our federal poverty guidelines and state median income as well. So that's just a quick preview of some of the rules that are coming in

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front of the group, in the next couple months. So in terms of who sits on the rack, the statute is fairly prescriptive in that, it charges us to make sure we have representatives with expertise from across the entire early childhood system. So you can see that on the screen here. Higher education, expertise in funding and federal rules and programs related to children with disabilities, two county representatives, foundations business, early childhood advocacy, and then, of course, our, our providers, our families, our Head Start, our FFN providers,

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our school districts. So really a broad range of folks that sit on, the roles advisory council. And the ECLC plays a pretty significant rule, role in, nominating individuals to serve on the Rules Advisory Council. So within the statutes, again, that created the department and created the RAC, it gave the ECLC the responsibility to conduct outreach and solicit applications for individuals that meet that broad range of of, characteristics I just shared and then submit a list of nominations to doctor Roy.

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And then then doctor Roy makes the ultimate choice of, who sits on the rack and and, again, really emphasizing a a diverse and broad range of perspectives. So, we have five seats that turn over, just about every year. And, so we're coming up on the point where we'll have five seats, that will be open for, potential nominations. So all of those members are eligible to be reappointed. So I did wanna say that because we are still in the first, couple years of the RAC. But we do wanna make sure that they're open, and and that doctor Wright has the ability to consider if she wants to appoint

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new members to the RAC. So what I am going to ask for the commissioners today, is for volunteers to join us in a small working group that will look at all of the applications that come in and then, narrow that that list of, a few candidates to put forward to doctor Roy. So, everyone in, listening today, and we'll share this out, applications are open now. We have them in English and Spanish. You're able to apply at any time. But for the July 1 appointments coming up,

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the deadline for that will be May 8, 2026. Sorry about that. So, we'll be doing a big, push here. We'll be sending out emails and really encouraging people if they're interested to apply. And then mid May, early June, we'll convene that small working group of ECLC members to go through those those applications and then determine that smallest to move forward to doctor Roy. So that is my ask today. If you, jump to the next slide, we need your help. We'll be sharing these materials out very soon and asking for your help in, recruiting people to apply.

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And then I'm looking for three, four, five volunteers from the commission who are willing to review those applications in mid May, and put forward, recommendations, which the whole ECLC will get a chance to review, and then they'll go forward to doctor Roy. So I'm happy to take any questions about the Rules Advisory Council, and also would welcome some volunteers from the group. And to clarify, Christina, you're looking for commissioner volunteer sites on this committee. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. This is a responsibility of the commission outlined in statute. So we wanna have a a group coming together of commissioners,

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and then we'll make those recommendations available to the full commission. And if there's interest, they reach out to you directly. Should they go through Shannon? How do you guys wanna handle that? Either way. Definitely. Yeah. How many applications do you typically get, and what's the time commitment? Great question. It varies. I oh, I don't even have a guess at how many applications. The first time we had a lot. Those are a couple years old now, so I would I would say under a 100, probably closer to the twenty, thirty range would be my guess. But it really will depend on how many folks come in. And time commitment,

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we'll ask you to look at those, applications, and then we'll probably meet twice would be my guess just to kinda narrow them down. And then we've we've met twice in the past, I believe. Go ahead, Abby. Yep. Thank you. I I I think that's a, it's it's, it's a fair amount of reading, but it's pretty quick, Liz of, you know, look looking over the, applications. I I really encourage, participation for two reasons. One, it's a really great way to learn about the, the the folks from across the field, across sectors who are doing really powerful work all across the state.

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And so for, you know, so some for some of us who are grounded in one area or one sector, it's a really great way, you know, in in helping us to choose these folks to learn, the breadth of the work in the field that's being done across the state. But, also, we really need people to bring also their knowledge of individuals across the state and folks that you've had a chance to work with in different capacities and and in in different areas. So, it's it's really important to have people who may know some of the folks that

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apply or who encourage individuals across the state from different sectors, to apply so that we, we we have a really robust process, and it and it makes the decision difficult because we have so many great people, on on the group. It's not a a a a burdensome process. I think really just reviewing, you know, as Christina said, maybe 30 or 40 applications. And then it's really the richness is in the conversations and, you know,

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thinking about the full rack and who's already represented and how we might, you know, how we might add to the, perspectives and viewpoints and expertise that, can contribute to the process that you just heard about from, Christina. So just know that people who don't volunteer might get calls. Oh, no. Rooted. Just just saying. Thank you, Happy. Yeah. And statewide representation is also critical. Important. You represent, a community that's not in the metro area. That would be awesome. Thank you. Thank you,

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Christina. Please circle back if there are any other issues or if you have concerns we want to hear about, I'm for sure. Okay. Next on our agenda is the Home Visiting Investment Task Force, which is also a task force of ECLC. Their report was sent to you. Their annual report was sent out. Shannon sent that out. We are actually going to put this presentation on hold to our next meeting because it is very important and, something we wanna be able to hear about. We don't want it rushed. And so,

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Joyce and Heather have graciously offered to postpone it given our time constraints today. And, again, I hope you agree that the time we spent earlier talking about CCAP and talking about some other really important issues, as well as hearing from our, voices from the field was super valuable. And so we will hear about, the home visiting investment task force in more detail at our next meeting. And then moving on, we'd like to hear from the higher education policies and early childhood work Force Committee.

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And, this is a follow-up with Commissioner Sam Bogleman. Sam provided us with a really in-depth, report on some of the current opportunities and challenges with early childhood higher ed a few months ago. There's been a lot of interest from commissioners, and one of the things that we realized in Sam's presentation was how much intersection there is with our other early childhood areas. And so we just don't want this to drop off the radar. We're really happy that, Sam has agreed to,

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come back and provide us with some additional information on what their work force has been up to. So I'll turn it over to Sam. Yeah. Thanks, Sue. And I'll I will do a little bit of, backtracking in context just just to make sure folks are all on the same page, but also sort of give a where we've been and and where we are now, that sort of thing. So thanks for the time, and I'll do my best to be fairly quick as well. Yeah. So our our my purpose today is really just to share context on some some of these federal student loan changes that are coming down and what that might mean for the early childhood workforce pipeline.

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And I'm I'm gonna use some enrollment and completion data that we were able to get from from our agency, to kind of bolster a little bit of this. So, I wanna make sure I mentioned also I'm joined by my CDHE colleague, Jason Messino, who, he and I have gotten to partner on this and and, really try and understand exactly what's going on and what it might mean for all of our, sort of higher ed pathways through ECE. So, much thanks to him. He's here as well. So sort of a quick recap. So the, department of ed held some negotiated rulemaking within the last few months. The idea around this is it's called the do no harm provision.

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It was originally proposed in the Biden administration. It was meant to empower students and families with data about the true cost of college. That was the idea. And then there were some changes that were made to to that idea in the the one big beautiful bill. And it and it's worth mentioning at this moment. I'll come it it'll come around later. Originally, when the rule was proposed, we were really just talking about bachelor's degrees and master's degrees, not really undergrad certificates. But undergrad certificates are now part of this conversation. They've now been included in this rule. So I I just wanna make sure people understand that.

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The rule itself basically works like this. So the department of ed will determine median earnings for students who completed a a a program, and I'm talking broadly programs even though we are all talking early childhood. We'll determine median earnings for students who completed a program four years prior and those who aren't enrolled in higher ed anymore and are out in the workforce. So we're looking at meeting or median earnings of those groups. Depend and the the program that folks have a certificate or a degree from, if that program fails the earnings test,

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the earnings threshold test, which is gonna compare the median earnings of folks who have the degree and those who are just in the workforce, If the program fails that earnings test two out of three years, then, students in that program will no longer have access to federal student loans. And, again, they're they're looking at twenty five to thirty four year old workers. If we're talking about bachelor's degree programs or certificate programs, they're comparing it to median, earnings of people in the field who have just a high school diploma. And if we're talking about graduate or professional programs, we're comparing their median earnings to folks who have bachelor's who are in the workforce.

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The programs themselves are defined at a six digit, what we call a SIP level. I'll talk more about that in a second. So the Department of Ed is gonna calculate that earnings metric based on programs completers who received federal financial aid, and they're gonna look at a program cohort of at least 30 program completers who received that funding. If there are fewer than those 30 people who completed that program within the last few years, then they're gonna start to aggregate in those SIP categories that I just mentioned till they get there. Department of ed is also gonna use IRS data to,

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to attain program completers' wages and to make those earnings comparisons at either the state or the national level. So they're gonna use either a state median income level or a national level, and that decision is gonna be based on the percent of completers from that program who are either from in state or out of state. Department of ed is also gonna use what's called the American Community Survey to set that state or national wage comparison threshold. That is an annual, nationally representative dataset that's maintained by the US Census Bureau. These rules are set to go into effect July 1.

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And even though it's going into effect this year, we're not really gonna see the effects for another year or two. I'll talk about about that a little more here in a bit. Let's go ahead and go to the next slide. So I talked about those ZIP codes. If you're not aware what those are, this is just a a federal, or or a national coding system for college programs. It really just tells folks what field a program belongs to. The two that are important here are, code level thirteen and nineteen. 13 matters because that's where a lot of our ECE teacher prep programs live, And 19 matters because that's where a lot of,

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like, our childcare and assistant programs live in program classification. So a lot of our frontline workforce in ECE. What I what I mentioned earlier was that when they do these earnings tests, they're gonna look at programs at the six digit level, so the most specific level. And then if they can't get the 30 completers they need at that level, they're gonna start to move up to four digits and then two digits to see if they can get there to make those comparisons for folks who went through these programs. So that that's a just a quick 50,000 foot view of how these codes are used and what they mean. Next slide. So we asked our team to do a at CDHE to do a little bit

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of some internal database research to see what we currently know about the early childhood and higher education space. So maybe we can better understand what the picture is of what these changes might mean. So we start here with degrees conferred, and you can see that our two year public institutions really consistently produce the largest share of our early childhood degrees. Their their output exceeds our four year publics and our private nonprofits. So, really, our our ECE pipeline is really structurally dependent on our community and technical colleges. That's what we can see here. Next slide. We also wanted to take a look at enrollment patterns,

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and you will see the effects of the pandemic here. So statewide enrollment dropped sharply in in 2021. We did see a little bit of recovery and then a drop again in '25. So I I think what we're what we can say we see here is a bit of volatility in the workforce supply at least through our higher ed pathways. Next slide. And then we asked our team to take a look at the specific six digit ZIP codes that I talked about a moment ago that might be most impacted by these rules. So what you see here are degrees conferred by those ZIP codes, and the those ZIP codes are the ones that are most used here in Colorado

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for these programs. So that's why we picked those out. You can see completions in that that 19 level ZIP code. So so child care provider programs really haven't recovered to pre pandemic levels necessarily. There is some year to year variation, so possible instability there. This is something to keep an eye on for sure, as we as as these rules go into place and we start to think about what the implications are for what these rule changes mean. Next slide. Go one more, please. So we talked about, determinations that that these rule changes might make to to programs. And I apologize, Shannon.

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My notes might be a little off. Can we go one more? Perfect. I'm gonna start here. Okay. Thank you. So this slide is just really a visual illustration of the earnings test timeline that the department of ed's gonna use to make the annual determinations about these programs. So you can see that they're they're looking at cohorts going back four years to completers from four years previously before they look at what's the median income for those folks now, now that they're out in the workforce. So this is just this is just a visual of of how that that process really is gonna work. The next slide is sort of a more specific version of that.

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And this is a different perspective with a timeline that just had a little a little bit more information on how they're gonna roll up multiple years of earnings data. So I just wanna be clear that even though the rules are going to into effect in 2026, July 1, the test itself, the earnings test, won't be applied for the first time until 07/01/2027. So at that point, programs will have this test applied. And if they fail it, that's their first failure on this earnings test. They have to fail two out of three years before there are implications for their students to be able to to not receive student loan dollars anymore federal student loan

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dollars anymore. So there's sort of a rollout, time period here That's important to keep in mind, but the when the rules go into effect, that's when the clock starts. And then the tests come at yearly intervals after that. So I just wanna make sure that's that's understood. Next one. A little bit of this, I I wanna be honest, is maybe it's it's sort of a wait and see. The Chronicle of Higher Education did an analysis of possible levels of program failures by degree level based on the makeup of this rule as it's currently presented, and you see some of those results here.

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So a lot of the the effects may, according to this, evaluation, be felt in undergrad certificate levels by far. Nearly 6% of about 50,000 programs that have enough data on program level earnings fall below the earnings threshold. So about 6% of about 50,000 programs, based on what we know so far, fall below the earnings threshold that they're gonna use. This was an an analysis that was done, by a professor at, University of Tennessee. But as he wrote when he released this, there's a lot of variation by institution type,

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credential level, and field of study, which just means there's some question marks here. The second largest group affected by the earnings test are probably gonna be associate programs. 7% of them failed to make the the grade against that earnings test. And that's a small share, but it represents about 500 or so programs across the country. So while associate programs at for profit institutions might be affected, at about 12%, they also account for a small portion of total number of programs at those institutions. Next slide. The education department itself also did their own analysis of program areas that might be affected by the earnings threshold test,

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showing the percentage of students that or programs that might not pass. So you can see in this slide here a couple of callouts. One is human development and family studies. That lives within that ZIP code 19 that I mentioned earlier. And then teacher education, which lives within that ZIP code 13 that I talked about. And that certainly raises red flags for all of us, for the ECE preparation space as we sort of think about what are the possible implications once these rules take effect. So, all that to say, we're sort of in wait and see mode. There is a these rules are supposed to go out for public comment at any

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time. We've been waiting very, very patiently for that to happen, and we just haven't seen it yet. NAEYC and a lot of national partners have sort of public comment recommendations ready to go for when that window opens up. The federal register will publish it, and then it'll be open for thirty days for public comment. I I my understanding is that if if people are wanting to make public comment that volume is important, the number of public comments that are made is definitely important. And there there are templates for responses out there. My general understanding,

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what we've heard from some folks is that if there's a lot of the same template that is submitted, they're generally only considered to have been from singular folks. So if they're sending the same messages in the same way, they're considering that basically one public comment. So varying the comments is important as well as people think about that. But, again, that window is supposed to open at any time. It it has to open soon if they're going to establish these rules and and start them by July 1, and take all those comments into account to make any changes. So, we are still sitting and waiting for that to happen,

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but we'll see if any changes are made based on public comment once that happens. And we will do our best to keep up and provide updates to you all as we hear more and what this might mean and sort of get more analyses that come out about, the effects of this possible earning test on especially ECE programs. But here at CDAG, we're looking at this across programs broadly as well across the entire workforce. So, I will stop there. Happy to answer any questions if I possibly can, but at least wanted to share some updates there. And this slide, at once Shannon shares those out, these are a number of resources that,

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we have picked up as we've sort of learned more about, how this earning status is gonna be put in place and these rule changes. I would highly, highly recommend you look at that first one from NACI. They've done a fantastic job of cataloging all of these sources and ideas and things together. That's a really, really good one, but, definitely recommend using any of those if you wanna understand more about This. But we'll share back as much as we can, in future meetings as well. Thank you, Sam. Wow. That's a lot of information. Sam, I do have two two questions, and then if anyone any other commissioners,

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please raise your hand. That those ZIP codes, do they do they use the entire code cohort in that code salaries, or do they break down within? Because as we know, k 12 education salaries are way different than child care. So how does that work? Yeah. That's a great question, Sue. It can it can go a couple ways. It really kind of depends on how the institution itself is is categorizing their programs and what ZIP code they're assigning to them because there are for instance, the state of Indiana,

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was sort of a little ahead on this of the feds. They have their own legislation in place that really started to establish a system like this for their college programs. And the reaction from at least one of the universities there was I'm not gonna say they were protecting their program. I won't put words in their mouth. But what they did was they said, here's our early childhood ZIP code. Here's our overall education ZIP code, all of our ed programs. What they did was they just rested their early childhood program in that broader education ZIP code to maybe sort of hide it,

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maybe make sure that those, salaries were all taken into account. So it somewhat depends on how the how the institution does that. I will also say that, it's they're going to within those ZIP codes, they're gonna look at, students within that cohort, completers within that cohort who did receive federal student loans or federal dollars, like title $4. So it's it's gonna break down a little bit there. It's gonna depend program by program on who had access to those dollars, but, yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be different across programs and institutions. Okay. Thank you. And then my second question is, are Pell grants affected by this?

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They possibly tangentially, not directly by this rule specifically, but there are other Pell rules that are currently I think they're in the last few days of public comment right now that are that are also gonna go into effect. There was a different rule making session before this one in January about those Pell rules. So I think there is some connection between those two. There's a different, staffer on on at our agency who would know better than I would, about that, but I can try and find out more. Yeah. Thank you. That yeah. That's really important for early childhood right now. Any other questions for Sam?

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I don't see any hand raised, but thank you, Sam. That was super informative. And as I mentioned in the intro, I think it intersects so much with our earlier conversation on supply. Yeah. I know staffing is one of the number one challenges of running high quality ECE programs. So Yeah. We'll do our best to keep up, but it's it's I'm I'm alarmed a little bit at the wait and see and trying to just see what's gonna happen when when the rubber actually hits the road on this, but we're gonna try and stay ahead of it as much as we can. Thank you. Thank you so much.

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Alright. Any other final thoughts, questions, concerns that people, friends have? Okay. Seeing no hands raised, this was an amazing meeting, very informative. I do wanna thank Mary Alice and her team for going above and beyond on the data and, providing us with the surveillance over our child care supply. It's really, really encouraging. You need to know that the department is is doing that. And I know that our early childhood councils are also really involved with that at the local level. So thank you on that. Our next meeting will be held April 23.

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It is a fully virtual meeting, so I'm hoping all the commissioners will mark that time and, plan to be present virtually. And then lastly, we do have a post meeting survey that Shannon is gonna send. It's really important to our process as co chairs. We really care about your your insights and your thoughts on the agenda and just how the meeting, how the meeting is structured. So I really encourage you to fill out that survey. And, oh, it's there. Thanks, Janet. And then also, of course, Shannon will follow-up with, information throughout the meeting that people said,

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oh, we'll send that out. She she puts together a nice follow-up package. So be looking for that. Alright. Have a good rest of your Thursday. Take care. Bye bye. Thanks, everyone.