And, go over the meeting objectives. As you know, we meet every other month for a few hours. And a really important part of our work is interagency partnership when it comes to early childhood. We are really blessed in Colorado to have our own department of early childhood, but we also wanna lift up and integrate at all times the work of our sister departments. So one of the things we're gonna objective today is to hear from those agency partners. And really I'm encouraging our ECLC commissioners to think about alignment and think about when
you're hearing their reports, if it's something new to you, you know, follow-up with them. We always have a jam packed agenda, so it's difficult to get through everything. We also have a really important discussion about the state budget and legislative priorities. And this will be a discussion with commissioners to try to get input. But again, if for whatever reason you're not, you know, something doesn't come to you during the meeting, but it comes to you four hours later, please follow-up with Tammy, who will be doing that presentation. We're also gonna hear a really good update on the independent evaluation of CDEC.
We heard a good presentation at our last meeting, and we've asked, Andy and his team to come back and give us updates. So we're gonna hear that today, and they're also commissioner input. We're gonna form an ad hoc working group to recommend new members to the rack, and you'll hear more about that and hear more about the activity of the rack. We're gonna vote on reauthorization of subcommittees and work group charters. These are all, documents that commissioners have seen and reviewed. And, so now it's time to take that vote. We're also going to vote on the endorsement of the,
the early childhood mental health infant, early childhood mental health council strategic plan. Again, this is something commissioners have had a pre read on and some additional information. So we'll be voting to endorse that. Then we're going to learn about the current status of the workforce compensation innovation grant. As you guys may recall, this was a significant private grant that came into Colorado from a group of philanthropists to work on workforce compensation. We're gonna hear an update on that.
And then, we're gonna hear an update on the legislative session. We're just really close to winding that down just within a couple of weeks, so we wanna get last minute update on that. And then last but certainly not least, everything we're doing here is to advance our own strategic plan as an ECLC. And you can find the link to that in the minutes or excuse me, in the agenda, which, has been posted in the chat. Alright. Can we go through, Shannon, and do, introductions of commissioners, please? Yes. I'll call names,
and you can come on and say who you are in your organization. So starting off with Adib. Hi. Adib Khan, executive director for Denver Economic Development Opportunity. Alright. And I won't make happy come on, but next up is Angie. Good morning. Angie Sheehorn, director of Children First at Pueblo Community College. Chelsea? Heather? Good morning, Heather Craig Lowe, Head Start collaboration office director. Jake? Jake Williams. City of Buffalo, Colorado. Thank you, Jake. Jasmine texted me and said she is in traffic, so I won't oh, she's off mute, so maybe she's alright. Come on. I'm a passenger today.
Jasmine Ramirez. Buenos dias, everyone. We're in for school district vice chair and parent representative. Thank you. I don't think Mary Alice is able to join us today or may hop on off and on. So next up is Michael. Morning, everyone. Michael Cook, ECLC cochair. Minna? Good morning. Minna Castillo, deputy executive director, community partnerships at CDHS. Nicole. Good morning. Nicole Riel, president and CEO of Epic. Pamela. Good morning. Pamela Harris, president and CEO of Mile High Early Learning. Rachel Hudson's gonna join us later.
Rosemarie. Ma'am. Morning. Sam Fogelman, Colorado Department of Higher Education. Shelley. Good morning. Shelley Smith. I oversee the early child department for Eagle County Schools and serve as partner for the LCO for the Eagle River Valley. Hello. Susanna. Good morning, everyone. Susanna Snyder. I'm the child and family health Division Director at the Department of Healthcare Policy and Financing. And Vanessa. Good morning. Vanessa Fuel, Larimer County Department of Human Services. Thank you. That should be everybody, unless I miss somebody. Thank you, Shannon. And thank you, commissioners who prioritized this meeting,
participating in this meeting. We really appreciate it. Finally, before we move to today's business, we need to approve the minutes from our previous meeting. Do any commissioners do have any objections to the February 27 minutes as written? These were distributed as a pre read. If not, can I get a motion to approve the February 27? This is Angie, and I make a motion to approve the February twenty seventh of twenty twenty five minutes. Thank you, Angie. Second? This is Nicole. I second. Thank you, Nicole. All in favor, type yes in the chat.
If you oppose, type no in the chat. That's pretty modern. Okay. State agency updates. For our first agenda item today, we'll hear updates from our state agency representatives. As I mentioned, these are our interagency partners. Really, as I mentioned earlier, we're always looking for alignment. We're always looking for ways to leverage our assets and work better together. So, we've asked each one of the agency partners to do a brief report. And then also, these reports hopefully will lead right into our next discussion, which is the budget and legislative priorities.
So kind of be thinking about, ahead to that next agenda item as well. So first, we have Minna from, the Colorado Department of Human Services, Minna Castillo, who's one of our commissioners. Minna, do you have a report for us? Hey. Good morning. I'm gonna put a link here in the chat to, something that I think that would be of interest to you all is summer EBT. So, you may remember that last year, Colorado had a special session where we were able to, approve legislation that allowed Colorado to be at the forefront of the delivery of the summer nutrition services benefit,
that was newly available under the previous administration. That benefit remains under the current, federal administration. And though we were touch and go for, like, the last two weeks saying, where's the money? Where's the money? We got the money yesterday deposited into the CDHS account. So summer EBT, is on its way to families starting, this weekend, actually. Our vendor, who actually loads the cards with the money on it is going to be processing those this weekend. So we anticipate families will have that, benefit in hand. So for all of you who may know families who,
are, eligible and have the summer EBT, benefit, if they had a card from 2024, we're just loading that card with the benefits. There's nothing that they're gonna receive differently. Just new money will come on to their card. But we also know that parents probably toss the card. Right? Like, if they would thought it was done and put it in the trash even though we said, please hold on to your card. If they lost their card, it was damaged, it got lost, they can, come to our website and make a, request. There's phone, text, email ways, in this link to request a new card, and that will then come preloaded through,
through the mail for them. So we anticipate that, our goal was to make sure that the very first school district in Colorado that goes on summer break I think it goes on summer break May 15. We wanted cards in hand by that time, and we're really pleased to be able to say that we have met that, with families receiving that benefit again starting next week. It will be a rolling thing. Right? We, had more than, half a million kids signed up for summer EBT last year. This year, we have had, approximately 97,000, young people or families sign up for their young people new this year.
So, we anticipate that this is a tremendous benefit both to families who are feeding their kids over the summer, but also to our local economies because the summer EBT card can be used in all of the places that a, regular EBT card can be used, including our farmers market. So big benefit, and available to those k 12, school populations that are, eligible for free and reduced lunch. Thank you, Minna. Any questions from commissioners on that? Alright. Next, we're gonna hear from Susanna Snyder, another one of our commissioners regarding the, HCPCS, updates.
Susana. Good morning, folks. So I'm actually going to share most of my time. We're gonna take a little bit more on HCPCS, because I know there has been some interest in some changes that may be coming from our accountable care collaborative phase three, which begins in July of this year. We've been working with some national experts and stakeholders to expand what many of you are familiar with as the CANS, full name being the child and adolescent needs and strengths tool, to include a specific early childhood domain that would be ages zero through five,
which would go live under ACC phase three. So, I invited my colleague, Stacy Davis, who is our system of care section manager, and hopefully many of you know already or have interfaced with her and some other stake holder spaces to give a little bit more information about that and receive questions. Stacy, can I share the floor with you? Yes. Thank you so much, Susanna. Thanks for having me today. I'm gonna put one of the links in chat so that you all know how you can stay involved and connected in some of these spaces.
That website, is it's pretty specific, to our settlement agreement work here at the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing and building out what we're calling currently a Medicaid system of care. Though, I think we're gonna be looking at expanding that to the Colorado system of care, as other funding sources, maybe leaning into this space. So that's very exciting. There are three advisory committees there. Just to flag these for you, they are open to the public. All three have lived experience. One is a lived experience committee, and the other two have lived, experience and expertise representation.
The implementation committee and the statewide leadership committee both have representation from the Colorado Department of Early Childhood as well. I believe in on the May 15 implementation committee, I will be presenting on the CANS and the enhanced standardized assessment and the intersectionality of those two things. So I say this because, it's another opportunity for those of you, that would like to get a little more information. I know we we I don't wanna take up too much of your time today, but I wanted to share Is it possible to share my screen?
I just wanna make sure that you all are familiar with the domains and the cans. Okay. I didn't wanna go rogue. Let me see. I think this might be the best thing for me to just to show to you all. If you look at the right hand side, you'll see early childhood domain. It focuses on zero to three. These are and I don't think that the words alone give a ton of context. But this is all part of a 78 page manual related to the child and
adolescent needs and strengths tool. And that is the the entire tool. This is the section that we would be looking at specific for ages zero to five. There's no presentation showing. Oh, no. I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it too. Yeah. K. I will say it's not very exciting. So if you're looking for something with bells and whistles, I do apologize for that. I did not ring my bells or whistles. Just wanted you all to see sort of the the domain that is specific to zero to five. The cans it yeah. Go ahead, Sue.
I'm just curious. How does this tool then relate to, early intervention services? So is this a diagnostic tool? Is this no. Okay. It is not, and I appreciate you clarifying that. This tool is about service planning, and treatment planning. You do not have to be a licensed mental health professional. There is some intersectionality with a with a broader assessment, but the intent of this tool many states use this tool. We're, you know, we're we're looking at, you know, specializing some aspects of this tool for Colorado to meet the needs of our,
under the 21 population. But, yeah, to clarify, it is not a diagnostic tool, and I will also put a plug in. It should not be used as such either. It really is about treatment and service planning. It's, about it it is sort of a it's sort of the data output of, a child or youth or family's story. And then looking at that information and making treatment and service planning in partnership, with the family and a broader treatment team.
Thank you for that clarification. Absolutely. And it is that is an important one that sometimes I I miss. You do have to be certified to use this tool. There is a certification, that would be required to use this tool and training opportunities, as well. So you have to be trained and certified in the CANS, and that would include these domains. I do want to recognize in part of the development in this space, that this population is a little different in how you would get that information, versus a 14, 15, 16, 17 year old that may or may not be,
engaging, in a in a conversation and in a dialogue. But, obviously, this population, how we would approach that space is a little bit different. And that's why I would encourage you all to be you know, to sit in on these on the various committees that meet. I will be this does not feel warm and fuzzy to say. I will be transparent, though. Zero to five is not part of our initial rollout within the Medicaid system of care. So I I think it's important to name that. We are working with limited funds, and our focus is on,
the highest acuity children and youth in this space. So really transitioning from our our residential treatment settings. Our QRTP is qualified residential treatment programs, and then our PRTF psychiatric residential treatment facilities, which wouldn't serve zero to five. At least if they can, I certainly hope they're not? They can't. But, we don't wanna see, our our our our extra special littles in a in a residential treatment setting. So there is still some work to be flushed out in this space, of course,
and and how we approach and build the Medicaid system of care specific to our youngest population. Thank you, Stacy. Susana, do you have other updates? Or No. I really wanted to leave the floor for that. I felt like there might be more questions around that and didn't want to fill our time too much and go over. Are there other questions for Stacy? And if they are and you think of them later, please, send me an email. There was quite a bit of stakeholder work in this space. I'm happy to share. Stacy, could you please put your email in the chat?
That would help people follow-up. And it looks like there's an ask to, share the document link. Oh, sure. That would be great. Maybe we can maybe we can include that in our, follow-up minutes too. Happy it looks like you're back. Yes? I am. Thank you for your patience. And thank you, Sue, for stepping in. I appreciate it. Okay. Do you wanna take over, Happy, or do you want me to No. Go go ahead. I'll, I'll just switch with you, Sue. Okay. Great. Okay. Alright. Going on to our next updates, as we heard, Mary Alice is unable to join at this time. She may be joining later. And so,
we're going to hear our updates from Kendra. Thank you, Sue. Hi, everyone. CDC, we have three kind of buckets of quick updates, one around CCAP, one around early intervention, and then two around Colorado Universal Preschool. So for CCAP, we just wanted to start by thanking the commissioners for attending the ECLC CCAP work session. We are working on finding answers to some of the questions that were raised in that meeting, and we'll work to incorporate your feedback on the strategies, to communicate the need for additional funding for this program. Lastly, just wanna remind you guys to continue to communicate with Shelly Smith who serves as
your representative on the CCAP working group. So, for early intervention, we have been continuing to do input sessions with families and providers. There are two more scheduled input sessions, one on April 29 and one on May 5. During those sessions, we will be recapping and summarizing the strat the cost containment strategies that were discussed and the input we received, regarding the strategies that will go into our June RFI to the legislature. We will then take a pause, while we work on that RFI.
And then in July, we will we will restart input sessions for the strategies that we'll discuss and put it in our December RFI. So, if you are interested in kind of hearing the summaries, April 29, May fifth are important dates, and then watching, come July for new input sessions on new strategies. And then for Colorado Universal Preschool, an update around the Resource Bank. Currently, a prototype of the Universal Preschool Resource Bank is currently being reviewed by the early childhood councils and the LCOs.
It the plan is for it to be available to the public through our professional development information system, PDIS, by July 1. The process for submitting resources for potential inclusion in that resource bank will be integrated into our existing training alignment process, TAP process for the PDIS. So we're trying to use existing processes that people are familiar with. The universal preschool team will communicate additional details and guidance about the resource bank submissions and then lastly, we have been getting questions from community members about the specific curricula that will be
included in the Resource Bank, And we just wanna make sure that providers know they will be empowered to demonstrate alignment of their current curricular approach with the universal preschool learning goals. So regardless of whether the specific curricula is on a list, if they can do that, demonstration of alignment, they will be good. The universal preschool learning goal goals are in final draft now, so hope to be able to to release those soon. And then lastly, I wanna talk about we have a public rule hearing.
Oh, go ahead, Pamela. Thanks, Kendra. Are the let's see. Are our current early learning guidelines being used for the universal preschool? Okay. Yes. So I'm actually gonna address that in this quality standards implementation thing, but, we can, yeah, we can, get clarification. But, yes, there's absolutely alignment between our current early childhood learning, our ELDGs, and, the learning goals that are being developed for universal preschool. So if our curriculum is aligned with the ELDG, then we're good.
I I am not speaking to any individual person's situation, but, you know, holistically, yes, that should be true. Right? There should be no surprises in the universal preschool learning goals, if you are if you are well aligned with the early learning development guidelines. So Okay. I think that is a fair statement, but I'm not speaking to any individual organization situation. Yeah. I understand. And I'm sorry. Who's who, what's the process for approving? Do do these go to the RAC? No. The the curricula,
I think you're speaking of requesting the inclusion of specific curricula. No. That is the key. No. No. The guidelines themselves. The Ah, the universal piece of learning goals. You're asking for the clearance process for that. Yeah. That is a fantastic question. I don't know if Dawn is on, but I can take that question back and get you guys the answer. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And then I see in the chat that Erin is asking for informational sessions. We can absolutely request that those be, created. So I will take that feedback back.
I think you guys know that we have a public rule making hearing today, and they will be discussing the extension of the quality standards implementation. The extension simplification of our implementation timeline for the quality standards will allow for sharing and vetting of these universal preschool learning goals with providers and for providers to finalize their curricular choices within their programs, which is why we want to, extend out this timeline. Colorado has a long history of engaging with stakeholders to support changes in the quality landscape. We wanna make sure that continues.
So this extension will allow for engaging providers and families in learning what helps them make the best decisions for choosing quality child care options and preschool options. And and I just this is a reminder. A number of quality standards were implemented immediately, and those remain unaffected by the new learning goals. So the that would include our standards related to minimum contact hours, antidiscrimination, educator to child ratios, qualifications for lead teachers, education of students with disabilities, and our policy on suspensions and expulsions. So all those things were already put in place.
They remain in place, so they are not being impacted by this extension of the quality standards implementation. Just as a reminder, the things I just listed, that work builds on a base layer of quality that is built into our licensing process. Colorado is already a leader in quality quality via our licensing standards, evaluations, and quality ratings, and this work will build on that as a base. So there's nothing coming that in the quality standards implementation that would change any of that. It builds on all of that. We just feel providers need time to adjust to an even higher level of quality
than before. And, additionally, the phased in standards, again, substance is not being affected. The standards themselves remain the same. What we're changing is the timeline. Shelley. I would just, ask or recommend, I guess, I would say that, communication stating that goes out. I have recently been in contact and discussion with people from CDE and other groups, and I don't know that that is clear that what of the quality standards are in place and need to be followed now and what are paused. I think everybody a lot of people are lumping them together.
Okay. Thank you, Shelley. That's helpful feedback. Nicole? Yeah. I wanted to confirm. I believe I saw on that rulemaking list that, the implementation of those, adult to child ratios in the preschool classrooms will be delayed, and there will be additional time for programs to look at how they might adjust to those ratios. You know, I continue to say, like, we can't implement quality at the cost of supply in our community. And so I know there are a lot of people who are concerned about having different ratios in place between licensing and the preschool standards.
Do you know, Kendra, if the department plans to do anything to look at, you know, to further look into the implications, the financial implications of that for, in particular, community based programs? That's a really great question, Nicole. I don't, but I will take that question back and get you an answer. And I will just remind everyone that the public rulemaking hearing is today at one. So, you know, if you want to listen in, but I will take all of these questions and pieces of feedback back to both Mary Alice and Don. Christina. Christina Walker, did you have a question? You're on mute. No. Sorry. That was an accident.
Okay. No worries. Okay. Alright. I think I've got them. If, let me if there's any chats, I didn't get to, I let me know. And that is the end of the CDC updates. Thank you for for your grace and some time so we could get through that all. Thank you, Kendra. Can I ask Shannon, will you please follow-up with Kendra on those questions and make sure commissioners get answers to those in a timely manner? Thank you. Alright. Thank you, Kendra. Right now, you guys, we are gonna move to that budget, discussion. And, we are gonna hear from Tammy Heiler, but it is gonna be later in the meeting.
So we're gonna have to work through some of our feedback on the budget. As you may be aware, in past years, the ECLC has written a budget priority letter that goes to the governor and his team that we talk about what early childhood, priorities we want to see elevated. Now that you've heard updates from the departments, I hope it's fresh in your mind how broad the early childhood, needs and concerns stretch across departments. This is not just CDAC's budget, but this is also health and HICCUPF and human services and education as well.
And so, what we'd like to do now is have an open discussion with commissioners on what do you see as high level priorities for the budget. You will have further opportunities for input in terms of if we do a written letter, which we are intending to do. We will be sending that out for your review and approval before we send it. So this isn't your only opportunity to add your thoughts, but we'd like to use this time together today to hear if you have some priorities, if there are things you really want to make sure that we protect in the
state budget. Let's talk about that. You can raise your hand and I'll facilitate that discussion. Or if you're more comfortable typing in the chat, please feel free to do that as well. Doctor Harris. Thanks, Sue. I have a question for Kendra related to the budget. So I, read that the pilot program for increased salaries, was extended and that there was another $2,900,000, that went to that program. Do you have any information on how they were able to do that or where
that funding came from? I don't. Obviously, we were very pleased that that wasn't cut or hurt. There is a on the agenda today here at UCLC, there is a compensation pilot presentation later. They might actually have the answer to that. So I would just say let's hold them that question for maybe a half an hour and see if they have the answer for you. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Thanks. And, is that a program that you wanna continue to prioritize? I I was interested in the process. When, the governor asked for additional money,
10,000,000, for CCAP, to support CCAP, he was turned down. So I'm just curious sort of are we, competing against each other. And I would I would just say, based on the information from, Department of Early Childhood, we serve close to 30,000 children in CCAP with, the decrease and the freeze on enrollment, we will serve 18,500 fewer children. I mean, I think people should be up in arms, outraged. So I think we have to do something
for those families that need that to, to be able to work. So that would be a priority for me. Thanks. Thank you. Adeep. Well, I was gonna say something different, but after Pamela's comment, I just wanna second what she's saying. So priority list, Pamela goes first, from a CCAP standpoint. But one thing that I am just involved in more conversations about and I see a lot of opportunity around is with our k through 12 declining enrollment, school closures that we're seeing,
and the opportunity to convert those schools into early childcare hubs. Sue, I know you've been, sharing some of these thoughts in the past. And in more in-depth conversations, what I'm finding is that if there's a little bit of capital available for the retrofitting process, it makes the conversations go a lot smoother. And rather than having to try and maybe find some philanthropic dollars, you know, if there were some dollars available from the state, I think it's a great pilot. I think it's a great way to get more slots. It's a great way. The way we're trying to develop them is by creating them as small business hubs
so we can essentially get new providers up and off the ground so they can start in a shared service environment, and also use them as workforce development hubs. So just a lot around that that could be accrued and could be capitalized on if we just had a little bit of that seed money, for those opportunities. Thank you, Adeep. That is an important discussion and certainly links, supply with demand when it comes to CCAP as well. I'm sorry. I don't know the order, but, let's go with Shelly and then Nicole. That's great. Because I was gonna add,
to that. We actually did that in Eagle County and through Bond. So if there's anybody want resources in it, it has been extremely helpful for our community. That's awesome, Shelley. Thank you. I yeah. I would love just on that. Any information you have on that bond initiative, that would be super helpful. Thank you, Shelley. I will send it your way. Great. Nicole. So I'm gonna pile on with the capital and financing conversation here because, I would say at Epic, we are getting probably two to three phone calls a week from partners across the state looking for capital,
to really help catalyze and make these projects possible. I think capital funding is definitely in high demand for childcare supply building right now. And it also, you know, I think in terms of financing mechanisms, anytime, you know, either free or low cost real estate can come into the picture, that's certainly helpful for more sustainable childcare business models. And this industry really doesn't have access to, many of the kind of more unique impact investing and or kind of financial backstop
mechanisms that are also common in other industries. So would love to talk to state partners about how those types of solutions could be thought about in the coming years. There are lots of other states who have implemented not just capital programs, but really innovative financing programs. And I would say that's one area where Colorado is, lagging behind and where we really haven't done very much relative to this industry. And, you know, school buildings, right, all these kinds of examples, that I think could be really great in communities,
you know, it's it's a lot more possible and people willing to come to the table a lot faster if there's at least some capital funding available to really spur that, from the very onset. Thank you, Nicole. We were just having this discussion the other day when you think about bonding authorities like school districts and how we don't have a similar structure for early childhood. So Yeah. We need to keep on our agenda, keep thinking about. Other budget priorities, in particular, maybe some of the other agencies. Let's see. How can we consider Head Start? Oh, interesting.
Okay. So the Head Start Association has posted a question about the federal potential changes in Head Start, and is there any opportunity to do anything at the state level? There was some of that. I am aware of a program that was started, with COVID funding, for the early Head Start childcare partnerships. I don't know if there's any commissioners that have information about that, but we have some history with doing that at the state. Others have that as a priority. Yes. So this is Heather Craiglo. I would say that for from, with the funds from ARPA funding through COVID,
yes, we were able to, do a discovery on what a, state investment would look like for early head start childcare partnerships in the state of Colorado. So we had three, partnerships that participated in that. Outlook was good, but we just didn't have enough time to really, evaluate the impact of that. So, small state funds, had some preliminary height impacts. Pamela is also on. She could probably speak a little bit more to that as a recipient. Yes. It was we were able to work with, providers, to increase their level of quality,
and then just provided us with lots of opportunities to do additional professional development, to assure that our classroom quality we had the materials, supplies, equipment that we needed. I you know, I'm a strong believer in the Head Start program performance standards, and this again, they are the framework for our Colorado SHINE, as well as for the early learning, development guidelines. Thank you, Pamela. There was a question earlier in the chat about the number, Pamela, that you talked about regarding CCAP.
Can you just talk about that reduction number, or is there someone else on, in the meeting today that has the specifics on the projected reduction of CCAP related to the new rules that are going into effect? This was the information that, actually, Sarah Dawson shared with us in the work session that, again, close to 30,000, that it's a 64% reduction, which just doing the math is 18,000 children fewer children.
Okay. That was the number that she gave. So, Shannon, I'm wondering, did the did Sarah's presentation go out to all our all the commissioners or just those who participated in that meeting? Everyone. Everyone did receive it. Awesome. Okay. So go to that presentation, you guys, because the numbers are all in there. And, the Denver posted an excellent, article or a couple articles on it, a week or so ago. And it looked like the numbers the Denver Post was was reporting were right out of Sarah's presentation. And just at a top level, those reductions are coming from a intersection of new federal requirements and our
state, interest in improving reimbursements to providers who care for children, under the CCAP program. And so, there's a lot of intersections with that that are now, making the per child cost significantly increase, and that's why we're seeing this reduction in service. So I'm gonna kind of put a Sue, can I just I just I just wanted to add that, the reimbursement rate, that was something that the ECL say we put in as part of the plan in setting up the new department, and Colorado was,
out of compliance with the feds? So they were required to do that. And the significant increases are infants and toddlers, not not preschoolers. So as we are frozen, right, we're not enrolling more infants and toddlers. So, just wanted to clarify that. Thank you, for that clarification. And it was mentioned earlier by Kendra that we we did have a series of questions that we presented to the department after that presentation, and, hopefully, we'll be getting that information. So please look for that, from Shannon in the next couple of weeks.
I'm not hearing any disagreement to putting CCAP state funding as a priority. If Anyone disagrees with that, put it in the chat. But that, to me, it sounds like it's such a high priority and such a urgent need. Now keep in mind, this is not till twenty twenty twenty six, twenty seven budget, But there's no reason why we can't continue to elevate this with the governor and with our legislators in the meantime. So if anybody disagrees to that, let us know. Okay.
Minna. Yeah. Not for a disagreement at all. I, just wanted to make sure that you all were aware of conversations that are happening across, our, collective agencies around the shortfall, budget shortfalls, and, specifically, the use of TANF resources to help pay for child care. So while we're talking about elevating a priority here around CCAP funding, that is wonderful. There is a group, of folks that, Annabelle moving through right now around from the children's campaign around the use of the, understanding better the use of TANF resources. And many count counties have utilized TANF resources to help pay for child care in
these cases as well. So while I'm not, derailing the conversation here around the prioritization of of CCAP, I do wanna make sure that you all are aware if you're interested in conversations around how TANF, is used currently and how we might think about how to use it in a variety of ways while still meeting the four, statutorily required, like, national, reasons or, you know, allowable, cost for this. PANT is like a golden dollar. It's used for so many different things. And, unfortunately, counties, in their letter to, to HCPCS, to CDC, and to CDHS, they're noting,
approximately $133,000,000 under allocation, in these three state agencies funding that is creating this additional stress. And so, the, what we're all really working on is how do we best use the dollars that we have knowing that there isn't additional resources necessarily coming in the twenty six, twenty seven year and, really think about how we efficiently and effectively spend the money on the things that are most important to us. So the priority here is really helpful as we make those, conversations with our commissioners,
through CCI as well as our, human services directors across the state. Linda, that's a really important clarification and detail. So, thank you for giving us that information. And as we proceed in drafting this letter, we'll definitely circle back with you and make sure that we're appropriately highlighting TMS. We do have a oh, go ahead. Sorry. I just, minute you said there's a a hundred something million shortfall in the budget? What counties have shared with us in their budget priority letter because they also,
draft one, as well. CCI, County, Colorado, Commissioners Incorporated, shared with us that they, have shortfalls in these three areas, and it collectively rises to the amount of a hundred and 33,000,000, that they believe that they are under allocated because they are actually overspending in this, current climate to be able to meet the needs of people in their communities, which, again, when we have very broad spending, this is going to create lots of reductions either in, in the the broadness or the variety of things that we spend money on or
or really just focusing more on core areas for a period of time until the budget, perhaps bounces back. We also are tracking at the federal level. If we have any reduction in our national TANF, block funds that are brought down. That could additionally change something or eligibility guidelines that could change something. And, of course, there's TANF childcare, in there. We also, use TANF to help support families so that they don't get involved in the child welfare system if that is their important thing. So people are also thinking not only about prioritization, of program investment, but prioritization of population if we're having to make choices.
So I would say within the CCAP realm, if there are also populations of families that you're very, very interested in, either the the tier of socioeconomic, or something, you know, a teen parent or, you know, wherever you might wanna put some prioritization around that, I think that would be helpful as well. Thanks, Minette. So am I also hearing that CCAP wasn't necessarily a prioritization of the county? No. It was. Absolutely was. It's Okay. There is. I mean, I think that, because of the two the federal and the state changes to CCAP, and the resulting freezes that are paired with a reduction well,
an over spend in Tannus. Like, we're just going through county reserves, and it's going to soon trigger the state reserve, which will then quickly deplete, because of people trying to meet the needs of their community, but not having enough in their state allocation to meet those needs, if that makes sense. It does. Thank you. Thank you, Minim. We're going to wrap up this conversation, but as I said, there's gonna be future opportunity for you to, provide us with your thoughts on a prioritization letter that we'll be sending to the governor.
I do wanna call out that Shelley Smith said in the chat, she wanted to make sure that we, highlight the reduction quality initiatives, including basic health and safety monitoring. So, Shelly, we will, we will most definitely do that. Alright. So we are now, gonna transition to, the next part of our agenda, which is the evaluation, and I am going to hand it off to Happy to facilitate. Hi, everyone. We're thrilled to be joining you today. So Allison Compourt, for those of you that I didn't get a chance to meet, last time,
I am, the project adviser on the independent evaluation, and I'm also joined here with my colleague, Andy Gomm. Andy, do you wanna just say a quick hello? Yeah. Hi. I hopefully met most of you last time we were together. Andy Gom, I'm the project manager, your neighbor to the south calling in from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Well, thank you. We, you can go to the next slide, Shannon. So this is what I have for our agenda today. We wanna, there's been a lot happening behind the scenes. We've also had a steering committee, actually, I think since we met, a couple of steering committee meetings. And so we wanted to circle back with you around,
what we've learned from our colleagues there, how that's informed the progress of our, moving forward on the evaluation. And then, we have a few pieces that we'd like to talk with you about and get your feedback on specifically related to some work that we've been doing around definitions, so that it's clear who's filling out what survey and participating in what engagement as well as to talk about our kind of master plan for engagement as well as, kind of the number of of events that we're gonna be holding coming up. So, let's see. We can go to the next slide. And so first, we'll begin with updates.
So, first and foremost, we still have the evaluation plan, at the governor's office for approval. I wanted to share that the fact that it's still there being, reviewed and waiting for sign off has not held us up on any of the plans that we're moving forward. Our process has been to essentially align all of the protocols of the survey focus groups and interview tools that we've developed to the overarching high level research questions within that evaluation plan. And so we are moving forward, basically with the assumption that that,
you know, it's near final or final, and will be signed off on. And so we're just waiting for updates, from the governor's office and CDC around, around that evaluation plan. So just wanted to give an update about that. I had briefly mentioned tool development. So our team has been very, very busy developing a whole series of, surveys, focus group protocols, and interview protocols that are differentiated essentially to each audience. And, when we talk about engagements, I'll I'll revisit this a little bit and kind of explain what,
all of the breakouts for the different groups are. But, essentially, we've developed, informed by the research questions, a whole series of questions for the workforce, so early educators, early interventionists, for families, for those that are working in agencies, and, really, thought about what would be the best format for asking certain questions. Is it in a survey? Is it in a focus group where we can have more conversation? And then, also the interview protocols. And all of those tools have been, shared with the steering committee that's guiding our work. People signed up for an opportunity to review different tools based on their interest and
expertise in the field, and we've gotten some really amazing feedback around, just, again, terminology, areas where they felt like maybe we weren't kind of digging deeply enough into questions that the steering committee, felt that the evaluation should address. And so our team has been going through and incorporating all of those, edits and revisions and then and, additionally, developing a document that notes the changes that were made informed by that feedback. And so we're very near, to the point of having, kind of a second set or revised version of tools that will be going forward,
and to actually building out these in our survey, platform, and kicking off these different events very soon. Now, the next piece that and we're gonna spend a little bit of time talking about this today is, we've had a couple of meetings with, the, teams at the non CDEC departments who we're also including in this evaluation to make a determination about should they stay where they are, so within the Colorado Department of Education and the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, or should they move over? So CACFP, the, WIC program,
and then six nineteen early childhood special education. So we, have, not only had a couple of meetings with them to talk about their structure, resources, and documents that they have available for us to review. We've also submitted, formal data requests because part of our evaluation is to not only look at documents, but to also look at any outcomes data evaluations that they've had done. And so, we've set up a file sharing system with all of those entities, and they sent over quite a bit of documents for us to, take a look at and to review. So we're just digging into those.
And, some of those, teams have also been kind enough to introduce us to some of their constituent partners in the community, so folks that are really engaged as advocates, parents, leaders in this space. And, we've had some some really good initial conversations around involvement and coordination, with the thinking that there'll be, again, some differentiated protocols, for them to complete as it relates to, the core questions that we wanna ask around, meeting children and families' needs where these programs are housed within the agencies.
So we will have a lot more to share with you coming up, around the data requests, because we're, obviously, we're gonna be having tons of data as the survey responses and focus group, product excuse me, focus group events are coded and then, as we really get into this analysis. The last kind of update, that we wanted to share with you guys is that we have, made our selection informed by the steering committee of, peer states that were selected. We, presented four different peer states that we, wanted to have some discussions around that had, kind of developmentally some considerations around how long that they had been in operation.
They had some similar programs or structures in terms of the ways in which they operated, in coordination with counties or the way, that family support programs were implemented. And so, we engaged in some conversations with the steering committee and ended up landing on Connecticut, New Mexico, and Washington as the states that, were chosen for part of that review. And, we've also engaged with the steering committee around, of course, the questions that we ask those, state teams will be informed by the evaluation plan. But, additionally, what else did they wanna know and learn from these states?
And, so, so we've been busy as you guys can see. Let me take a moment to pause and just see if any call Yeah. I was just gonna say, Allison, if we could take a moment and see if anybody has any questions. That that's an ambitious, update plan, and I wanna encourage our representatives who serve on the steering committee to chime in as as needed to amplify any of these points. But let's let's stop and see if we have any, initial questions or feedback. Okay. Seeing none, and please feel free to drop stuff in the chat,
if you do. And, Allison and Andy, please, proceed. Definitely. Well, let me see. Andy, is Anything that you wanted to add to what I've shared before we, move on? Only to say I was gonna say this as part of the next section, but I can say it now is that the steering committee have been working hard. We have short meetings, and I think, we have four commissioners who are part of the steering committees. They could probably testify to this. We've kept them busy, and we're trying to use their time, as efficiently as possible. And while we have short meetings, they get a lot of homework in between. So we send them drafts.
They get to provide input. We've done that in different ways on the Google Drive, using different facilitation techniques, Padlet, and and others. So, it's been a great way to get input. I I I can't imagine how people are finding the time to do it on their busy schedules, but it's been a a very robust, process of getting input. Thank you, Andy. Okay. You can go to the next slide. And, while Shannon's pulling that up, I've also, dropped into the chat our CDEC, evaluation email address. So, we'll throughout the time that we're giving some updates and having a discussion today,
we'll definitely encourage you all, to put in comments in the chat box. But then, also, if there's anything that you wanna connect with us around, after this meeting, that's our project email address. And, and so we we definitely welcome feedback. So I'm gonna hand it over to Andy now who's gonna, help us walk through, a discussion around definitions. Okay. Shannon, you can move to the next slide. So this is an area we have been getting a lot of input from the steering committee members, again, including four of the commissioners. It seems like it shouldn't be that hard to come up with these definitions, but it's really,
really important, especially as Allison said, we're just about to, in the next couple of weeks, be sending out, materials that will invite people to sign up for, focus groups and to take surveys. And so we I mean, there's a number of reasons why we need to have good definitions for the reports and the findings, but but very immediately as we're sending things out, people have to see you know, we because we have multiple surveys, because there are multiple, focus groups, people need to be able to see where do they fit in.
And we know that the CDC has such a wide variety of folks that they, work with and then partners that are outside of the CDC. So, these have gone through I think, this is probably the third, draft, Allison. And so you're actually getting to see this because, the steering committee gave a lot of input, and this incorporates their input. But, you're getting to see it and, really open to to getting your input on these, as we craft them. Eventually or in the next few days, we will be finalizing them.
So in terms of, the the groups that we're gonna be engaging with, and we'll show you that in a little bit, but we are defining early childhood agency leaders as, directors, administrators, and owners of and this is one where we got some feedback. Again, we know that there's school districts and individuals and owners and local nonprofits and for profit. So, so owners of, public, private, for profit, or nonprofit organizations or businesses that provide, this isn't a keyword, direct early childhood
and or family support services for young children and or families that are funded and or regulated by the CDC. So really trying to help people understand the universe of people, but we're using the term leaders to say anyone who's in who's interacting with the CDC, therefore, will probably understand a lot more about how those interactions work. Then in a minute, you'll get to see the workforce folks actually working directly with children and families. So that's the first definition.
We're really again, it's been through a good number of iterations, and we're we're hopeful that that really will help those folks see the focus groups and surveys that they would be responding to. And, Andy, there's a question in the chat about that if you Is it okay if I just get through the three definitions and then we could, Sure. We'll go back and Yeah. Talk through all of that. Absolutely. Community partners is the biggest, umbrella for, a whole bunch of folks who aren't actually providing or managing those direct early,
childhood and family support services and aren't the workforce, aren't actually working directly with, children and families. And I know probably that there's a few here groups that probably well, we do work directly, but then maybe not providing, direct, early childhood services. So these were defining community partners as intermediary organizations that otherwise support and connect the early childhood system. And examples of those, it's always hard if you give some examples and you it's not an exhaustive list, but we've we got feedback that some examples would be helpful.
So the LCOs, local coordinating organizations, the early childhood councils, family resource centers, counties, philanthropic and advocacy organizations, associations, professional preparation organizations, etcetera. So the etcetera is doing a lot of work there. This includes both organizations that receive funding, from the CDC as well as partner organizations not funded. So you can see it's a huge and we actually, for the demographics, in the survey, have a big long list. These are probably only 40% of the types of organizations,
but we couldn't make this be a huge long list. And then the final one, Shannon, is the workforce, and this went through also a number of iterations. We used the early childhood, Colorado framework around workforce. And so we we moved away from calling it just the workforce just because that term may may not be used. So early childhood professionals includes members of the workforce, such as home visitors, mental health providers, classroom teachers. We have a specific question that's why it's highlighted. The family childcare home providers,
early interventionist, and others who deliver and that's that same word again, direct services to young children, and or families. The question we have for you and interested to hear your feedback is we've gone back and forth, that family, childcare providers, I mean, that is their business. So in some ways, they are the early childhood leaders, early childhood agency leaders because they do have that direct connection to the ECECD in terms of regulations and support that they receive. So,
they can definitely answer those questions, but they, of course, are part of the workforce too. They're, you know, around compensation, around professional development supports, and other workforce supports. So we obviously don't want folks to have to be and there's a lot of crossover between the two surveys. So interested to hear your feedback as to where where we should put those folks. They can, as I've pointed out, could be in both and, would be interested in your feedback. Again, with the idea that everyone needs to be able to see,
oh, this is a survey that's directed at me. I see myself there, or this is a focus group that I could attend because I see myself there. So I'll pause there, and, it sounded like there was a chat. We we do have, why don't we, Shelley has her hand raised and why don't we go to the two questions in the chat or one I think is just a suggestion, but there was a question about whether the Early Childhood Workforce Development Subcommittee weighed in on the definition on the EC leaders? Not specifically. I don't know if anyone knows if anyone from that committee is part of the
steering committee. Does anyone know that? Not not directly. But the looking at the early, the looking at the framework, that was the intent at capturing that input for that information. Okay. Yes. That was feedback that we got, at the last student committee that that would be a good resource. And and a lot of this is actually lifted directly from there. Yep. And I think Christina had a I I think, Christina, that was a suggestion about what that term should be. You wanna pop on and clarify? Yes.
I would like, to see FFM providers in that definition of what is a retired professional because FFM providers is part of the workforce. I'm part of the of the retired professional. So it's a science team. So just to confirm, you're saying here where we have it, seems the best location for family childcare providers as as part of that early childhood professional section? Well, I think maybe the addition of family, friend, and neighbor as a distinct, group of the workforce.
Ah, okay. At least that's how I hear it, Christina. So let me know if that's, incorrect. Yes. Thank you, Alyssa. Shelley. And that was exactly the point I was gonna speak to, but I just wanna, I guess, add a, nuance is I would, work with those two groups individually because I don't think these questions would be relevant to both because they do have different experiences and connections with government agencies. That's what's the group. One one of our challenges. So, is The licensed home provider and then the FFNN, I think the conversations would be very different.
And I would worry that one may not, feel that they belong there if we started focusing on the licensed family provider perspective. Mhmm. Thanks for that input. I think that's our challenge across the whole, evaluation is how much do we have specific questions for specific groups and how much are we, talking to providers across the system or workforce across the system about their experiences and which are very different. Right? If you're a home visitor or a family home care provider or a Head Start provide you know,
it's it's gonna be very different. I think we have, Jasmine and then Heather. Yeah. And to that point, I wonder if there's a way for us to add this group to the leaders, you know, to put license or to put because I do think that they they do belong in that section. Mhmm. But I think we need to be really specific with the distinction that we're seeking, because, like Shelly said, like, it's two different lived experiences on how they're interacting. Yep. We're also playing with, potentially, Allison, I don't know if you wanna speak to this, but,
having them respond to one survey, but have branching in the survey that captures both of their experiences both as, early childhood professionals and their experience there and also as leaders or owners of their own service that they provide. And and so we're we're thinking about how we might be able to do that. So they're not answering two surveys, but we're capturing their experiences in both capacities. Heather? Yeah. Thank you, Andy and team for this. I think it goes back to, maybe this is about process. Right? That is it Pamela and Sue and maybe someone else who are the ECLC reps
on this group that are, providing the the input and, sort of the flow of the evaluation. Right? Yeah. So if there was anything that we could do from the ECLC perspective, I mean, I I'm not sure what your processes are, but, like, getting the feedback from ECLC in a way also, like, to keep this moving forward as far as, like, I knew we're reviewing definitions. And, again, we have a variety of groups that already have a lot of this that we've spent years on developing. So wanting just to make sure that we're not, recreating these spaces.
Yeah. I mean, I I see this the full ECLC as sort of charging the commissioners that are part of the steering committee to make sure you push this forward. I mean, of course, these updates where we come to you are limited in our time. So in some ways, the commissioners can spend more time engaging with us in in terms of those. So if you have if any of the other commissioners have thoughts, I would imagine the the commissioners that are on the steering committee can take those those forward. Any other thing before we move into engagement?
If you if you have some feedback or want me to to move forward with, I'm happy to do that. Thank you, Andy. I was just gonna say, since the commissioners have not seen the final version of the plan, can you just at a very top level remind folks what the timeline is? So what are you gonna be doing through the summer and presenting it to the legislature? Can you just let people know that commissioners know that, please? Yeah. Allison, while I give an overview, maybe you can make sure that the timelines I'm speaking to.
So, generally, we're gonna be moving into the, what we're calling engagement where we'll be doing the surveys and focus groups and interviews, including with the the other departments. So, Colorado Department of Education, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. And all of that will wrap up in June, so that's not that far away. And then we'll be moving in the new fiscal year from July onwards in terms of, working with the steering committee in terms of analyzing the data, looking at where we're making findings,
and then moving into the recommendations as we move into the fall. Yeah. And I would just add, we do have to have a report, by November, as it relates to what the the findings and the recommendations are. So that's, a firm deadline that we're, kind of, you know, arcing towards. Yeah. Indra. Mhmm. Thanks, Happy. Yeah. I and I put it in the chat, but just want to remind everyone that we did lift a web page on the CDC website. That is where information on the timeline, the steering committee members are. That is where the we're close to hopefully getting through the final clearance process.
That's where the evaluation plan will go. As we get to the point where we're actually doing focus groups and and things like that, the dates of and the ability to have people sign up for those will be through this web page. So you might just wanna pull it up and bookmark it, because definitely from now through June of twenty twenty six, this will be where we continue to add additional information for the public about what's happening. Thanks, Kendra. That's really helpful. And we're just, in the process of a redesign for that to have exactly what you were speaking
to, the more detailed, engagement, and that's a good segue into this next section. Yeah. Thank you. Allison? Sure. Yeah. So you can go to the next slide. So as Kendra just led us into, we are very, quickly planning for engagements. And so that means, posting the different survey options on the website as well as having a form to be able to register for a variety of different focus groups. Interviews are gonna be a bit more, personally scheduled. You can just see given the audiences here. We've got kind of a list of different attendees that were,
have brainstorms that would be participating in these, but we wanted to outline for you all. So we're going to be doing, just as a reminder, a series of surveys, and, the surveys are going to be for, so, CDC staff, community partners, or we're gonna be kind of, of, based on the new definitions updating that, but essentially kind of anybody who works, as, as Andy had mentioned in the previous definition, within an agency as advocates, as in philanthropy organizations, etcetera. There's gonna be a survey for families, a survey for, local agency leaders,
and then also for early childhood professionals as we just talked about. And then, as we mentioned too, we're thinking thoughtfully about questions, the the kind of the branching. So, like, if you indicate that you're in a certain role, then it would also roll in a couple of different questions. For example, as we just talked about, family child care providers would ask things about, doing direct service, doing direct care with children and families as well as some as some of the business and fiscal components and the ways in which they might engage with the department. And so there's gonna be that logic kind of built into those surveys. And so this is kind of our map of the number of focus groups that
we, are planning on. You can see that it's a Casa wide array of different audiences in terms of, all of those different constituent groups that we had mentioned. So, focus groups with folks from, families, and service professionals from the other state department programs, families, that interact, with CDC, members of the workforce. These are gonna be available in, English and Spanish as well. Let me see. And regional representation. I can answer that very quickly. So these are, so all focus groups and interviews are going to be virtually conducted. That is per our,
contract. So we're gonna have, lots of, different times of day. We've, done a mapping that, and and gone out to get a lot of feedback around what are the times that generally work for different, different audiences. And so, for example, families will be having, focus group opportunities that will be, you know, accommodating to folks that work second and third shift care, you know, that might work full time jobs. You know? So there's kind of a whole myriad of different times that we're we're looking to hold these events. And so, Shannon, you can go to that next slide, as well. Oh, so these are the the survey,
constituent groups that we're gonna be, as I mentioned, engaging. And then the next slide. So you can see that there's a, a whole lot of events that are gonna be going on. We also wanted to get your thoughts. This is our plan as we've been gearing up for how are we gonna advertise the opportunity to engage in these events. And we, this we wanted so let me back up. We had done a an event with our steering committee over a series of a couple of meetings, one where we were face to face where we kind of got from them different ideas around where we could advertise. So what and we had asked this group too what conferences are going on,
what newsletters are in existence. And so this is essentially kind of our shortlisted plan for how we're gonna get the word out, and we wanted to ask for your thoughts around what are we missing here. But we're essentially thinking CDEC social media platforms and their newsletter because that's gonna engage a very wide audience across the state, of diverse, constituents. We're also thinking, that we would do, distribution through the family resource centers, LCOs, early childhood councils, the myriad of different advisory bodies that are in existence. So this is just an example of,
some of them, that we, have mapped here. And then, there's also CDEC, email list as well for, any and and I should say too just for, clarification, we won't be directly sending out these emails in in just respect for confidentiality of contact information. We would be working with CDEC's leadership and communications team to be able to get these out, especially, like, those, lists for families and whatnot. And then, also through you all and the steering committee as well. And so what we're thinking is, as Kendra mentioned, that we're gonna be, building out the website.
It looks like with the structure that they have that there would be kind of an accordion structure. So a blue banner that might say, surveys, a blue banner that would say focus groups. And underneath that would be some explanatory text and then the link and a QR code to all of those. We are also, I think you all have seen our postcard and our flyer before that's in English and in Spanish. We are going to be, that would point directly to the CDC website using, a link and a QR code, again, to connect back to those surveys. We're also planning on some, draft newsletter communications that we'd like,
kinda be a, you know, a call call to action. You know, we need your help. Please, you know, share the word, respond to these surveys, sign up for focus groups, and, that newsletter language would be differentiated across different audiences. And let me see. I see some comments. So we have some suggestions in the chat to try to save time, I think, because we're you still have a couple of topics, and we're Mhmm. Getting close. Perfect. I just wanted to respond, Allison, to to let folks know we did meet with the folks at PEAK, Parent Center this week, and it was really helpful.
One interesting piece of feedback is they found a sweet spot of the noon to one, time slots. It's always hard to find times that work for families, but not that that would be the only time, but they found the working families that that, lunchtime slot has has helped. And they, of course, do a lot of, parent engagement and parent training. Yeah. Thank you, Andy. So keep those suggestions coming in. We definitely wanna make sure that we're you know, no one feels surprised that this is going on and everybody has an opportunity to engage. And we're envisioning that the survey,
would be open for about a month as well as the focus groups. Similarly, we'll be going for about a a period of a month as well. And thank you. I see comments coming in. So I'm gonna actually hand it back over to Andy. There's just one last, kinda kinda discussion point, that we'll do very quickly here, given our time, but that we wanted to, get your feedback on when we have time together. So, you could go to the next slide, Shannon. Yeah. We know that, the commissioners as part part of the transition planning will be familiar that these are three programs, that were considered for transition to,
the new department, when that transition work was happening. And so the statute I think we didn't mention that today just to remind folks that we are charged both through the statute and then the contract to, respond to a certain number of things. And one of them is to look at programs that potentially that didn't move over to the, CDC but potentially could. And so, the three that we're honing in on are the Colorado food program, which is the newish term for the CACFP, and, WIC.
And then sorry. We probably should have said, six nineteen preschool special education. Six nineteen is the section of IDEA, the preschool special education. So, Allison said that we've been engaging with them, but I know we don't really have the time to do to do this today, but maybe thinking through how we might get some feedback from commissioners around, what would we we're we're seeing this as sort of laying out the advantages and disadvantages of why those programs would move, what what the challenges would be, particularly in terms of some of their federal
accountability and reporting, and requirements. And so would be interested to see how we might think about engaging commissioners in what what do we want to know that would help us with that, advantages and disadvantages, recommendations list, and what would it be particularly helpful for us to be able to ask state staff, the vendors under all of those, those three programs, and potentially struggling not struggling, but sort of really thinking through at what in what way can we engage with
families that are receiving services, under those three programs. And we're we're leaning away from asking families about the the food program just because it's so abstract. They wouldn't really be able to give us information about how that's going. Just they just know their child gets, food at at school at the center, where they attend. So I don't know if you have thoughts about how we might, get some feedback from commissioners around this area. Allison, did you put the, we have a question come in. Go ahead, Nicole.
Awesome. Thank you. I was gonna say, you know, around the IDEA Part b six nineteen conversation for supporting children with special needs, I feel like that's a really important conversation and, frankly, probably a separate focus group and discussion on that alone. I do feel like there are friction points in how families and children experience those services, right, friction points between departments and administrative entities trying to comply with certain requirements and meet the needs of families that could,
you know, really be, I think, surfaced in that kind of conversation and really could inform decisions down the road in in how how those things are done. And I it would probably also tie into a lot of, you know, question marks that come up around, the implementation of universal preschool, for example. Yeah. Great. Thanks for that, Nicole. And just to clarify, we are planning on having the we're calling them reviews as opposed to evaluations, but they're almost reviews within the overall evaluation. And so we will be having separate, focus groups with,
so that we can focus in on these particular programs. Okay. That's helpful. Other, feedback, other thoughts and places where we need to get feedback. Heather. Yeah. Andy, I believe on your steering committee, you have, representation from the Head Start community, but also just noting that that community utilizes the food program, the Colorado food program along with WIC. So there's some, crossover in those spaces. So when you are meeting with that community, like, the this specific, discussion point should be integrated in with that group.
That's a really good point. And, Allison, let's think about how we can weave questions into the current surveys for programs that are getting these services and and think about that way. I think that's a a really good point, Heather. I I was gonna ask the same question about whether any of this can be integrated into the focus groups and surveys that you're already doing. Yeah. That's a a great point. Mhmm. We'll take that back. Okay. Any any other thoughts about the on this discussion? I don't see anything else in the
chat. Thank you very much. And and, did did we get to all of it, Allison and and, Andy, I I know we we always spend more time on the first one. I and those definitions, I think, were very extremely important because it's the foundation for getting all the right feedback, through this process. But anything any last thoughts or comments before we switch? We did get through everything. We know it was a, you know, tight time, with the agenda that you had. We we were hoping we might have more time with you today,
but, what you have shared has been great. And, Allison, maybe you could put our email back in the, chat again so that, and then, of course, remembering that you have commissioners that are on the steering committee. So if things come up later in the meeting or between meetings, they can be your voice to come back. Yeah. And and perhaps before before we leave to that point, let let's do a quick review. The commissioners, if you don't mind chiming in those who are serving on the steering committee. Or, Shannon, you may have that Yeah. I can share in the group.
Yep. Pamela, Sue, Rosemarie, Allen, and Rachel Hudson. I think I'm right. Somebody told me if I'm wrong. Something. Okay. Terrific. Well, thank you very much, and you you did an an amazing job at keeping to that time frame with with such a, a a robust report. So we really appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks. And, yeah, look out for, lots of stuff hitting your inbox in the next few weeks. Yeah. It's gonna be very busy. If you've got if you if you're starting to pull things together in July,
that's, the it it's gonna be a busy spring. It it certainly will. Posted. Yes. Thank you. Thanks, everyone. Yeah, everyone. So we'll shift now to the rules advisory council, update and member selection. This this is a responsibility of the ECLC to provide a list of recommendations for appoint appointment to the RAC. It's a process that we do every year, and we we think we should start with just an update about the rules advisory
council and then to talk a little bit about the process that we use to select, new advisers. It starts with the ECLC with the recommendations and an ad hoc group that we've put together to, you know, look at potential, members and, just vet the the the vet the list of potential members and so on. So, today, we have, Elena Kemp here to give us some context and an update on what's happening with the RAC and the process for selecting members.
Thank you, Happy. And good morning, everyone. My name is is Ashley Elena Fitchnow, recently married. So and this is Congratulations. No. Thanks. Thanks. So, yes, thank you for this opportunity to present with you guys today. I'm just here to provide, like Kathy said, an update on the Rules Advisory Council or the RAC, and hopefully this presentation serves to begin that recruitment and nomination process for the 2025 RAC appointment cycle. It is a critical annual effort to ensure that RACC remains representative, engaged and aligned with the values of Colorado's early childhood system.
So just to kind of give you guys a brief overview, especially for commissioners that maybe are new to this process or or new to the commission, and this is your first time kind of hearing about this information, the RAC is a 15 member advisory, council that's created by statute, more specifically, section 25. I'm sorry, 26.51105 of the Colorado revised statutes. Its purpose is to review every proposed rule by the Colorado Department of Early Childhood and provide formal recommendations to the executive director before adoption.
This group is intentionally diverse reflecting the geographic, racial, cultural, and professional perspectives, as well as lived experience with early childhood, programs. So the purpose, the main purpose of the RAC, and their statutory charge is to support quality, equity, and transparency in the rulemaking process. The RAC does ensure that the department's rules reflect broad input from rural providers to urban caregivers, and from county partners to families before a rule is promulgated. The RAC is consulted before advice,
or for advice that is grounded, in the community's voice and policy impact. And then that's later shared with the executive director. Alright. Next slide, Shannon. So just a quick overview on some of the RAC's deliverables. So the RAC provides detailed measurable recommendations that consider the real world impacts of proposed rules. It is important to note that, that even if or when, members disagree with the majority vote on a recommendation, those members do have the opportunity to submit dissenting opinions to the executive director.
And that really does, preserve the transparency and accountability in our decision making process. So I also added on this slide a quick just, flowchart to show some of the key points within our rulemaking process, and and how the RACC kind of sits within that process. So the RACC, within the part department's broader rulemaking process, the RACC receives feedback from the RAC County Subcommittee on how certain rules will impact county departments and their communities.
So that the RAC is then able to consider and incorporate that feedback into their recommendation to the executive director. All recommendations from the rack are, gathered before we get to the public rulemaking hearing phase, and they're formally considered by our executive director before she adopts any of our proposed rules. And you'll see that sometimes our our we do have it posted also on the recs web page, our our rulemaking process. If there is an emergency and a permanent rulemaking, there's slightly slight variations to how we do the public rule making hearings.
But we always have, two different, hearings where doctor Roy can consider the rules, talk about them, or document an emergency basis, and then they come back for permanent consideration. So there's a lot of different touch points where, public members can engage. Next slide. So here are, some examples of the discussions that the RACC has had recently. And it was tremendously helpful to have those subject matter experts for various from various sectors of the early childhood community. So since April of last year, I believe that's the last time I presented to this group,
on this topic. But the RAC has engaged in robust discussions across several programs. In UPK, they reviewed funding structures and the repeal of the congressional preference in alignment with court decisions. In the childcare licensing division, they examined, rules for school age childcare programs, children's resident camps, and special activities. And all of those are actually comprehensive role reviews where they looked at the entire role set, not just a very, small subset to make, you know, really targeted changes. In the CCAP program,
they evaluated updates to the parent fee formula and implemented changes regarding, house bill twenty four twelve twenty three and the federal child, childcare development fund. So lots of requirements and changes there that you'll also see coming up, over the next year. And so they already started that process of implementation. Next slide. So just a quick snapshot of some of the or preview of some of the rules that the RAC is gonna be looking at ahead. So they'll be looking at some proposed,
revisions to the UPK quality standards, and that is actually, going to be considered by our executive director today, later on today, at the public rulemaking hearing at one, to consider adoption on emergency basis. And then they also will be looking at the fund stacking for children dually enrolled in the UPK and CCAP programs. So you hopefully will have signed up to receive rulemaking updates or are on our newsletter, but we'll be sending that out, as soon as those rules, develop a little bit further,
and so stay tuned. Also, they'll be looking at some neat the nature based, outdoor programming and revisions to the general childcare licensing rules. For the CCAP program, there's gonna be further, alignment with the state and federal regulations. So you'll see more updates to further implement, that House Bill 24, 12, 20 three and CCDF, changes as well. So these are some of those substantial and and complex changes that we'll be reviewing in the in the coming months. And so that's really why we,
it's it's important for us to have thoughtful and representative voices at the table. Why don't we, why don't we take just a moment to see if there's any, any, questions on the update on the rack itself? It it sounds like they're really sloughing off and not doing much work. What a what a busy agenda they have. Any questions on, Elena's update for the rack and what they do? Okay. Seeing none, please proceed. Okay. Thank you. Alright. So now that we've kind of provided that update on the RAC, and if you do have questions later on that you think of,
please feel free to to email me directly or reach out to Shannon and Shannon will contact me and and we'd be happy to to get those answers for you. But in terms of the statutory criteria for RAC membership, so the RAC is composed of members who represent a wide range of perspectives and roles. These include family childcare providers, county departments, health and mental health professionals, representatives of higher education, and community advocates. And, also, another thing to note is that over half of the RACC must also have lived
experience as caregivers, members of the early childhood workforce, or individuals from historically underrepresented or underserved communities as well. Next slide. Thank you, Shannon. So, excuse me. This is the current makeup of the rep. All of the individuals that you see on the screen, everywhere that that the member has, it's highlighted in yellow. Those are the members that have expiring terms on 06/30/2025. So as you can see, one third of the RACC's membership,
so five members total, have expiring terms this year. All members with expiring terms are eligible to reapply, but they must complete the application process and go through that full selection process, again, just as they would if they were new applicants to to the group. So following this introduction, more detailed information will be provided regarding the racks current membership composition versus the composition without those, or with those open seats. And that'll be shared with Shannon and commissioners that plan to lead this work, just to really elevate the recruitment needs.
So it's easy to identify. So I'll pause here, see if we have any questions, just for a second before we turn it over to Shannon. Any questions? Okay. Oh, thank you so much, Elena. This has been very helpful. And, Shannon, we'll we'll call upon you. As as you can see, this, body is very important. Just from the conversation we were having at the very beginning of the meeting about the new rules, this the the rack is a very important body, and having the right to balance and representation on it is critical. And, therefore, the work of the ad hoc working group,
and I I know from having served on it before, it's it's it's a it's a lot of work, and we take it seriously to make sure that we have a rack, that really is truly representative. So, Shannon, would you pop on and explain a little bit about the the representation and the needs that we the people that we need for this working group. And then we'll we'll put the squeeze on everybody. We'll start leaning on those, that we'd like to have serve and and say thank you to those who are
are are available and willing to do this work. Thanks, Happy. Yeah. So, the ECLC is statutorily required to support this process. Our role is to conduct outreach to a wide range of partners to solicit applications. Then we review those applications and submit a list of nominees, for consideration by the executive director. So we don't have final power to appoint. We just review and give a short list, for review and appointment. As we're looking at it,
we will be looking to make sure we're meeting those statutory requirements of membership that Elena went over, including making sure we're getting, diverse voices both regionally, as well as different perspectives on the rack. And this year, we will be reviewing for those five open seats. However, those folks, can reapply. So we'll also look at anyone that reapplied, and whether we wanna recommend them to continue on the rack. The process, is as follows. So the wrap the application is opening today.
It's actually it's always open, but we'll start pushing it out and recruiting people to, apply. And we will send that out in a variety of places, newsletters, big kind of wide net recruitment as well as targeting specific groups, such as the FFN advisory council because we know we're gonna need an FFN member to join. So we'll be all targeted and wide ranging recruitment. The deadline to apply is May 20. And then right after that, it'll be a pretty quick process that we're needing our ad hoc group for.
So late May, early June, we will convene a working group, to review those applications and develop the list of recommendations for the executive director. After we give that list of recommendations, the governor's office and the, executive director do an interview process and do final selection for appointments starting July 1. So as Happy said, we're looking for folks, that can put in work in a really kind of concentrated amount of time. So you're you're serving on a committee, but you kinda get it over with pretty quickly.
So that said, what we need today is, one, an ask of everyone, is to share that application. If you have people in mind that you think would make a great RACC, nominee, encourage them to apply, send them the application, the, there's an overview that I will send out that links to the application, and that's available in both English and Spanish. So we'd love for all commissioners and everyone else on the call to help with recruitment there. And then we are looking for volunteers. I think we would love to have three to five folks serve on that ad
hoc committee. You can see that kind of timeline is really tight, and it is the week after Memorial Day. So if you know you are traveling that week, probably don't volunteer. But if you are available, that is when we will review applications and, submit those recommendations. So I'm gonna pause there and and have Happy help me, you know, and people. You know? I I I will. I will, Shannon, because, it it is a tight time frame, but it is truly a wonderful opportunity to learn about,
the people in this field from across the state. When we get those applications, you know, people really pour their passions in their heart and, you know, the work that they do really comes through, all across the state. And so makes the makes the job of winnowing it down to the recommendations tough because there are so many good people. But I I really recommend it and, particularly if there are any ECLC, commissioners, maybe who are new, and this is a great opportunity to begin to learn, you know, who these fellow EC folks are across the state and and,
you know, who who who want to be part of the process for moving the industry forward. So, you don't have to say it today, But if you do have an interest right away, please let Shannon know, and then we we will continue to send some, invitations and reminders out. And, do expect a a call from us if we don't if we don't have volunteers. We will, we'll do the personal calls to lean on a few of you, for this very important work. Anything else, Shannon? Nope. Anybody wanna volunteer right now?
You can put your name in the chat or raise your hand or email me afterwards. Yeah. Well, here's this. We're gonna take a a five minute break. And while you're getting your coffee renewed and a a nice sweet or pastry or something, hope hopefully, that'll that'll motivate you to come back and say, I wanna be part of that committee. So we'll take a five minute break. Shannon, what what time do you have? Let's say what Let's return at 10:53. Okay. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.
Okay. I think we, hopefully, everyone is back. And we can, continue. I think that break helped helped us. Thank you to the folks who have chimed in and in indicated their interest in, working on the working group. We really appreciate that. Yes. Just wanna say thank you to Angie and Sam for volunteering and a couple of people we might do a little bit more recruitment as well. Thanks. Yeah. It's like Heather as well. So good good start. Good start. So now is the time in our agenda where we will turn inward,
and get some internal updates on the work that ECLC subcommittees are doing. And, we we do have a couple of votes coming up, and so keep those in mind as, hopefully, you saw on the agenda. We received written updates from all of the subcommittees and working groups before the meeting. So, hopefully, you had a chance to review that so that, we just have highlights, from those updates. The first highlight, I think, is the data subcommittee, which held an in person meeting,
rare these days it seems still, to discuss and to share resources that focused on responsible data practices that will address community concerns and build trust within the current political climate. So, kudos to them for, you know, being aware of our environment and and making sure that we, we looked at the implications for our early childhood work. So they've developed a list of resources to support organizations around this topic,
and and so we'll continue at their May meeting if you wanna learn more and, again, about resources to help people think through our current, you know, environment and how how we're affected and how we how we can respond and learn from one another. Secondly, the home visiting investment task force has released a home visiting messaging toolkit and, some messaging videos to help build public awareness around home visiting services. So the this is wonderful. We encourage you to take a look at these resources,
to share them, and, and to highlight the fact that particularly now, this is National Home Visitor Appreciation Week, and so we wanna give a shout out to all of the organizations and the individuals who are involved in this really, really important work that's on the ground. So are there any questions, about these updates or any of the other, updates that were sent out in written form before the meeting? Okay. We will we will move on to the CCAP rule rewrite,
committee. This is not a working group of the ECLC, but a a a very important one nonetheless. And one of our commissioners, Shelley Smith, represents ECLC. So I wanna turn it over, to Shelley for, a brief update. Shelley. Great. Thank you so much. So the last meeting was pretty, concise. They put the enrollment based pay, which had been part of the presentation that they came to us on hold. They're needing to do some more research and looking at other states and how they're coming into compliance with that enrollment based option because it is,
the cost is significant, so they really wanna do more in-depth research. So it will be coming back up. The link here is in, that I have attached is just the, the timeline for taking, CCAP related items to the rack so everybody can, have access to when those timelines are. And the first one is really a procedural one, not as, they have to update the income, the poverty, and the medium income each year as part of their eligibility process. So that's kind of a a routine one. The other two are related to all the changes.
So that is there. The one that is the next one to be voted on, and that's really my role, is to bring this back to you and make sure that the vote that I cast is representative of the leadership team, the commissioners, is what many people spoke to is the need, and it's linked here, the need to have, parent consumer education. So they there's an understanding, and they really need to enhance the systems around that because families don't understand where their parent fee comes from or if they're eligible. So if you click on that link,
it actually has the exact document that we will be voting yes or no for. So I wanted to give everybody a chance to give feedback and if there's any questions. Let's take a moment and let everybody pull that link up and see if we've got some feedback for you. K. Pamela, what was go ahead. Yeah. Hey. I, actually, I had two questions. The first one is enrollment base pay, what I have heard or what the department has said is that that will begin August 2026. Are they saying that that may not start then?
Or what? I don't know what they're investigating. Yeah. So they're just looking at models across the state and how they navigated that with the county. So I think they are required to move that forward because that's one of the add items that was a compliance issue. I think they're just wanting to figure out how how to, implement it and not have it so dramatically impact enrollment. You know, those those those those competing factors and how people and, what they've done. So, no, the timeline has not changed. Just trying to look at as many states as possible to make the system,
most benefit children and families. Okay. Thank you. And and then the consumer education rules, if, is there will also there be information that currently enrollment is frozen in CCAP? So this if you look at the clink the link, it's really more about understanding the families that are applying and eligible. So that was not included, but I could if that's the recommendation you want me to have in there or if it's not in there, how they're doing it, I could take that back. Yeah.
I think that would be great. Either a wait list or freezing to be able to explain to them. Part of that. K. Yeah. Got it. Good good feedback. Any any others? Any other feedback, for Shelley on this important committee? Alright. Well, you all know, Shelley is our representative on there. And after you've had a little bit more time to look at the consumer education rules, you have a couple of weeks to perhaps give some feedback to Shelley before the the, rewrite committee takes that issue up again.
Great. And, Shelley, if you wouldn't mind popping your, email address into the chat just so that if anybody wants to follow-up, they'll know how to reach you directly. Will do. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. We really appreciate that. And next, we have two items of business, to vote on relating to our subcommittees and working our hardworking subcommittees and working groups that are bringing back, some items for us. First, we have, two charters that are up for reauthorization. And as as you may recall,
the charters for each of these committees and work groups are reviewed annually just to make sure that we're keeping up with the times and the changes that are needed. So hopefully, you had a chance to review those charters that were sent out prior to the meeting. And so we have charters from the early childhood workforce development subcommittee and, the home visiting investment task force working group. So, they have reviewed their charters and have recommended reauthorization, for each of them.
So are there any questions for, either of these groups, or about either of these charters? I did have a question, and it was more like a technical question. For membership for I think is it both of them? I'm trying to look really quick. No. Just for the the workforce development subcommittee. Mhmm. I noticed that there was a section which I appreciate the family, friend, and neighbor care provider or representative. And I kinda had a question just if we should add bilingual representative because I'm not
sure how representative like, I don't know how that's chosen. But I feel like there should at least be some clarification that they're able to provide, like, true representation of family, friend, and neighbor care providers. And it's more of a technical thing, but I just figured I would bring it up. Okay. So can some somebody from, the workforce development subcommittee talk about the membership and, the opportunity to have a bilingual, FNN representation on it? I can jump in. Sam, maybe if you have, thoughts on this as well. I know just I'll just say in general,
in all of the groups, there is an effort to make sure we have diverse voices, including regional, linguistic, ethnic, all kinds of different perspectives of diversity. So it doesn't specifically say bilingual, but I think it's I could pass it on to them. If we want to I could pass it on to them. If we want to try to put an amendment into the charter, we could, or I could pass it on and Sam's on here too as a cochair to prioritize recruitment of bilingual even if it's not explicitly in the charter. Yeah. I I think that's the intent of the the language in the charters is to
have broad representation. Mhmm. And, so that's one area where we we should have some focus, in in the actual, subcommittee membership. We could we could certainly ask that committee to take a look at it. It's not easy to find bilingual FFM providers because most of them or speak Spanish as second language learner or speak English. But bilingual bilingual, not so many had that criteria. Thank you. That's that's helpful. And I I know, Christina, as they as they take this up,
they may follow-up with you to to get some ideas and some suggestions. Thank you very much for raising that. Thank you, team. And I think that's why, you know, a representative for the FFMs that would be like, I'm not sure how that would fit in, but I just wanted to flag it for the team for there to be follow-up conversation on that. Thanks. Thanks. So happy if I could just jump in as one of the co chairs. I think that the challenge is getting an FFN rep into data all by itself is a really challenging thing because they don't feel comfortable in that space.
So really, we really do wanna encourage that. And I think I would go back to what Shannon says with an emphasis on perhaps all of the people on the group, if there would be some representation around bilingual or language justice, as Ketira would say. I think that's an important thing, but it is a recruitment limitation. If we put too many requirements on that particular position or that representative. Yeah. Yeah. And and just keeping in mind that we also have, you know, organizations like Christina's to help
help, you know, with with a member who who may need some additional help to to to, you know, to be an effective member of the group. Thank you. Good discussion. Any other comments or changes or questions about the charters for both our workforce development and our home visiting working group? If not, I would, entertain a motion, for, reauthorization of these two revised charters. Shannon, do we need to do them separately,
or can we do them in a single motion? We can do them together. Okay. I'll make a motion to reauthorize the revised charters as presented. Great. Thank you, Jasmine. Now second? I second. Alright. Pamela has seconded. Any other comments or questions? If not, if we can if you can just, pop a yes into the chat or no if you're against it. Give it a minute. Has everyone had a chance to register the vote? Okay. Looks like
looks like a unanimous yes. So those charters are, reauthorization is approved. Yay. So finally, we have a vote on whether to endorse the strategic plan that was created by the infant and early childhood mental health working group. Their their acronym is a mouthful, but they are a hardworking group that is, a working group that's part of the program quality, subcommittee. And, the the PQAA has provided input, throughout the development, and so they're bringing,
today this strategic plan endorsement request with a recommendation for endorsement from the QAA subcommittee. All the plan was provided prior to the meeting, so we'll have before we vote, just a quick, update and highlights about the plan from, doctor, Lisa Schluter. So Lisa. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you. I'm excited to be here today on behalf of the Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Council of Colorado. Thank you for your time. As you just mentioned, we have been working the council diligently.
It's about a table of 50 partners, seated members from a variety of disciplines that really intersect to make up this important field. We have multiple state departments at the table as well as providers, family voice, community voice, higher ed, and the work of the council last calendar year to arrive at this five year strategic plan for infant early childhood mental health in Colorado, was a great discussion, a lot of feedback. We did stop by PQAA more than once to get some feedback, held some public listening sessions. The resulting plan really builds on the past infant early childhood mental health progress in
Colorado. We are a leader in the nation, and it also aligns to key frameworks in Colorado. In addition to having those five key goals, thinking about awareness, financing, data, policy, it also, outlines a plan for impact in year one. We recognize to realize a robust and equitable infant early childhood ecosystem that we have envisioned, we will need many partners, and the council is committed to advancing this important work in their role as seated members. We plan to come back to ECLC and PQAA at any time and on a
regular cadence to provide updates, ask for support, and advocacy. This plan is also aligned to the Early Childhood Colorado Framework and the Statewide Early Childhood Strategic Plan. And as mentioned at the March, members voted to recommend the plan for full endorsement. So thank you, commissioner, for reviewing the plan and considering it for endorsement today. Great. Thank thank you so much, Lisa. Are there any questions or observations that anyone wants to make on having reviewed the,
the plan, which represents a lot of work. Thank you to the working group. I don't yes, Jake. Thank you. Thank you, and thanks for this plan. I just had a question about, goal one, objective two, which is on page 13, which is focused on developing outreach strategies focused on building family and caregiver understanding. How would you assess the the current infrastructure and ability to do this? Can you say a little more? On us. Yeah. Of course. Thank you for the question, Jake. Do you wanna say a little more?
Are you wondering if there's infrastructure available to communicate with families? Yeah. Yeah. Great question. As I mentioned, the the council itself has about 50 folks seated. Christina Walker is one of them, who's on the call today as well as Megan Lochteff, Heather Craig Lowe. And so not only as part of Colorado Department of Early Childhood, BHA, HCPCOF, CDPHE who sit there and leverage their networks, we also plan to make use of council members and their networks and connections and listservs to think about our councils and family resource centers and a variety of other
communication channels. There is some work outlined in there to think about how we continue to, evaluate and engage trusted partners, and I think that's work that still needs to happen in that five year plan. Thank you. Of course. Yeah. It was a great question. Thank you. Any other, questions, observations, comments? Heather, thank you. Yes. Thank you. IECMH, Council of Colorado, does not roll off the tongue that quickly. Happy you're right. But really, being part of of this evolution and like Lisa had mentioned, I just wanted to acknowledge that, you know, starting out years ago and these,
you know, these dreams of what Colorado could look like, and now we're a national leader. States are definitely reaching out to Colorado for, like, hey. How did you do this? And, it it it's just really it's amazing. And there are these subtle nuances. I'm not sure if you all, commissioners had a chance to identify, but the color scheme throughout is aligned with ECLC. Right? So there is this alignment piece within that I hope just popped out as you were, referencing the the plan.
Lots of great work also went into it. So, yeah, just very excited to make a motion. Yeah. Thank you for that. Hold on to that motion for just one second. I wanna get another comment in, and then I'll come back to you, Heather. Go ahead, Jasmine. Yeah. I was just gonna basically echo what Heather just said. I wanted to just name and appreciate the graphics. I think that was really important. Like, I just it seemed aligned to a lot of the work we've done, and it seemed aligned to a lot of the work that, we've pushed forward when it comes to early childhood and,
like, UPK and just, like it it just seemed like it was part of the work, part of the bulk of the work, and I really appreciated that. So thank you. Thank you for that. And if there are no others, Heather and Jasmine, I'll accept your comments as a motion and a second for, endorsing the plan. Are you comfortable with that? Yes. I definitely make a motion. Yes. Okay. We have a motion and a second to endorse the plan, and and I heartily support their comments. And and Lisa, thank you. You pointed out right at the outset about the alignment,
throughout, and it it's, it it's really heartwarming to see that kind of work and making sure that we're bringing it all back to full circle to, you know, what what we're all about here. So if there are no further comments or questions, please register your votes either yes or no in the chat. Okay. Has everyone had a chance to vote? Awesome. It looks like a unanimous endorsement of the endorsement. So thank you very much, Lisa, and for, the PQAA, subcommittee for a lot of hard work and and elevating an important part
of our work that often in so many places across the country is hidden and not discussed and really proud of the fact that in Colorado, we lift up the the mental health of our earliest, earliest residents. So thank you. With that, we I will turn it over to my, cochair, Michael, and we'll shift the conversation to workforce. Great. Thanks. Happy. And thanks all of you for the presentations thus far and the great dialogue and discussion on on the work that we've been discussing.
We're running a little behind schedule, so we'll see if we can catch up a bit. But we've really been looking forward to this next presentation on some amazing work that's being done by the Early Childhood Workforce Development subcommittee, specifically related to the workforce compensation innovation grant. We used to call that the EEIC grant. And we're also going to hear about two new working groups that are being formed under, workforce development to guide this work.
So at the end of the presentation, we're gonna have another vote on whether to authorize these two new working groups. So listen to the information about the two groups in this next presentation. We're super excited to welcome Michelle Stilwell Parvinsky to our meeting today. You all remember Michelle as the legislative liaison with, CDEC, and she now sits as the early childhood workforce compensation administrator for the department. So super excited to have Michelle here to present on this important work.
So, Michelle, pass it to you. Great. Thank you, Michael. I'm glad to be here. If we can go to the next, next slide or two slides forward, I'm happy to hear be here to give an update of our on our compensation innovation grant, which just as a reminder is a, $3,850,000 capacity building grant that we received from the early educator investment collaborative. That's where that EEIC came comes from, but we're framing it now as our compensation innovation grant. So it's clear what we're doing.
It's a three year grant. So, started, last fall and is going through summer of twenty twenty seven. And, really, the goal is how do we move from all of the great work, that happened in creating the comprehensive early childhood workforce plan in the compensation and benefits task force and benefits task force that happened in the past, to some concrete implementation activities, to achieve long term sustained increases for salaries and to salaries and benefits for early childhood professionals, particularly kind of focused, at least at the at the start on our early educators.
So if we go to the next slide, I wanna go through a a few of the key pieces of this this capacity building grant. And just as a reminder, the the funding from this grant can't support, direct investments in increasing compensation and, benefits. It really is how do we build, towards those innovative financing solutions, for durable long term, increases in salaries and benefits. So one of the strategies, in the grant that we're funding is some funded liaison positions, at some of our,
our other departments, just to really build the capacity. We've been having those partnerships, but, recognize that there's often a lack of capacity to really, dive in more deeply. So we're really excited about having, these funded positions, at, at these departments. And so just as an update here, and then I'll I'll dive in a little bit, more deeply. So at the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, we do have, liaison Kendall, Einhorn, who's who's joined us and has been there for several months, at the Department of Higher Education. Our friend, commissioner, Sam Fogelman has,
shifted into being in that role, which we're really excited about. And then upcoming, we have a Department of Human Services liaison that, I think it it hasn't actually yet been posted, but it will be posted soon. And one at the office of economic development and international or economic development and international trade. Sorry. For a little typo there. At OEDIT. And though that that last one is really focused on how do we leverage supports for small businesses, and then the Department of Human Services, position will be really thinking about both the benefits cliff,
how we mitigate the benefits cliff, and how we take advantage of opportunities to, make sure we're connecting with existing, benefits within the human services space. So really excited about that position. So if we go to the next slide, for the positions those liaison positions that have already started, I just copied over here two slides that, were shared at the, ECWD subcommittee meeting that lays out some of the project goals, for those two positions. So on the CDLE side,
it really is how do we leverage, the workforce funding, to support the early childhood childhood field. So taking advantage of opportunities to align with apprenticeship funding, with some of the WIOA funding, to leverage that to support the early childhood field and really getting to the point where we're having, you know, jobs that, can pay, pay livable wages. So there's some really exciting opportunities going going on there and work with Kendall, as she's diving into, into this area,
and, again, helping the the field grow to support the demand within Colorado, so that people can make those livable wages and recognizing that, of course, child care and early education is the core to, supporting the rest of our workforce throughout, throughout the state. So if we go to the next slide, this is actually, Sam's Sam's slide, here from the the subcommittee. But, in terms of what CDHE is working on, I just wanted to make sure that this was here. So really looking at supporting, access to, higher ed scholarship pathways for early childhood educators,
loan forgiveness, and really looking at alignment within those workforce qualification pathways. So some great information there, and there's more, if if anybody wants to look at the slides from our ECWD subcommittee hearing. But just in the interest of time, I will, in catching us up, I will move on. A next really important piece of this grant is that we have an evidence building hub, funded with, the, Colorado evaluation and action lab at the University of Denver. Really recognizing that if we are going to move towards this innovative and long term,
changes to to support compensation and benefits, we're gonna need, some really strong research. So this is a table that that, Cardo Lab put together on the current thinking of the focus areas for the evidence building, some of which has has already started to happen and then will go through the next two years. There these are continuing to evolve. So if there are if there is feedback, feel free to ask a question or touch base with me after the meeting. But, really, one of it is really understanding what that problem space is for the early childhood
workforce compensation. I mean, we all know deeply in our hearts the the the challenge, of the low pay, but trying to quantify that, what are where are we right now? And then what is that gap to where we need to be? So we have our salary scales that were in a compensation and benefits task for re report, several years ago, but also looking at what are the wage thresholds, that might be helpful, to actually what might we might be able to know from looking at, the research and at, some of the evidence that already exists that will help increase retention,
recruitment and retention in the in the field. And so what is that gap so that we can then move to these next, set focus areas of how do you generate new funding, for the early childhood field to guide or to implement salary and benefit increases? How do you how are those structured is a really key question. How do you redirect, existing early childhood money, into the field or leverage funding from some of the other existing funding streams? So we talked about, briefly about,
the workforce funding that may be kind of flowing through, CDLE and other places, the workforce centers. What about small business investments? So thinking about how we leverage some of that existing funding. And then a final bucket around thinking about how we generate more disposable income, through noncompensation policy levers. So looking at health benefits as a really key piece. We know that a lot of money goes both for people to be, for educators spending on their premiums, but also for other health costs if they don't have health insurance that is,
covering as much as it should. So looking at that as well as housing, retirement, child care, all of those areas. So if we go to the next slide, then I wanna talk about the work groups, and I working groups. So we have two working groups he that we've, we have started, and we want them to be officially authorized under the, under ECLEC and the, and the ECWD subcommittee. One is focused on compensation and benefits, one on recruitment, retention, and pathways. So I have a little bit more detail on the next slide.
We'll just jump right to that. So if we start with compensation and benefits, this is a little bit of this what I just mentioned, but in a in a different format of figuring out what is that challenge, what's the compensation challenges, what is the, scope of it, and the gap. Particularly, I like this this chart because it's the girl showing how big the gap is between what we are paying and, what we know we need to pay for early childhood educators. Then how do we what is the, way to to get the revenue? Because we know we can't it can't be I think everybody here knows it can't
be parent fees. We can't raise prices for parents. It's it's gonna need to be public investment. How do we get the funding for that? And then how can we leverage those existing funding streams? And then policy design, how do we, use those resources effectively to increase compensation and benefits? So really there, there's an opportunity. We're having a policy analysis done by, pillars, research, looking at what's happening both in Colorado, and what's happening across the country in terms of other efforts to increase, salaries and benefits. What can we learn from that?
How do we apply that to the Colorado, context? So really deep work going on on that, and then that's gonna be something that our compensation and benefits working group is gonna dive in deeply. We have an in person meeting, coming up in June, to really think about that. And I'll just mention, you know, this is in that revenue generation category, but also recognizing, okay, as there's conversations about potential ballot measures on childcare, how how can we make sure that we know what what kind of policy design, would be helpful or could could be possible for,
directing additional resources into it and thinking about, you know, what is the savings on the on the end? We know that again, I mentioned retention, but if you are paying more, if you're providing benefits, you are, you know, going to reduce the cost of turnover, and, you know, increase the quality of a lot of these programs. So if we go to the next slide, these I just wanted to give a snapshot of one of the kind of research things that is coming out of the evidence building work related to the compensation and
benefits work. This was analysis done by, University of Chicago's, NORC, where they were able to look at data from CDLE and the unemployment insurance, link that with data from PDIS, our workforce registry, to really see what where are we in terms of by job roles, where where are the, the salaries. And so you see that here. It is kind of similar to what we've seen in other spaces, but we're it's really great to be able to know this at a a more granular level, and we even will have data then on by PDIS level,
by location. So we can then see, okay, how far are we from those aspirational salary scales that we've laid out? And, again, you know, the the, underlying, conclusion here is, you know, pay is is much lower than it needs to be, and so thinking about how do we strategically move that up. And then if we go to the next slide, the other working group is recruitment, retention, and pathways. So this, working group is really recognizing there is, you know, a deep interconnection between compensation and benefits and the work that we know we need
to do for recruitment and retention and pathways. And so this work group is really diving in, on that comprehensive workforce plan and how we can move from the goals set out in that plan towards, towards some recommendations and implement implementation steps, to increase, recruitment retention and career pathways. So you see here, and I won't, dive in too much, but happy to chat more offline, the identified priorities from, the working group as we did an exercise. So some of the places where more work is needed to be done or there's
gaps in terms of, existing, focus and and efforts in this area. So we are gonna we had a great presentation from the Rocky Mountain, prevention, center on wellness, will be and then we'll be diving in, again in a June in person meeting on where are there opportunities to really, even in this budget and political climate, move the needle, in some of these areas. So then if we go to our next slide, this is and I think I did catch this up, but I will leave time for for questions. Well, maybe first, I will stop for questions,
and then, we'll kind of circle back to a vote or to authorize the working group. So let me let me pause here and see if there are any questions. And, again, happy to talk offline, and I may be reaching out to some of you as well to get some gut checks on some of these, policy pieces as we're moving forward. Any questions for Michelle? Pamela. Thank you. Thanks, Michelle. It's of course, I you know. It's very exciting. My question is is do, what's the advantage of a working group as opposed to just having this be the
work of the subcommittee? Yeah. I think that the the intention is how do we, you know, make sure we have the time to dive in on a more deep a a deeper level, than has been, than there's been the time for in in this in the subcommittee. And so the opportunity, for example, to have, an in person, you know, all all day meeting, to really dive in, more deeply. And then I will mention that we even though there's this there is a specific working group, we're definitely going to be thinking about what are the opportunities to,
get engagement both from the subcommittee, from the the, ECLC as well as other members of the EC community. But I think that was the the thought of just you know, we saw earlier today on some of the pieces, you know, you you don't have enough, time to give give feedback and really think about these, you know, potential trade offs and how you move towards implementation. So that that was the, that was the thought in having these working groups. Okay. Thank you. Apologies for not knowing the the order of the next couple. But let's go with Jasmine and then Nicole.
Thanks. I did have a question on the charters. I was wondering, how the if the decision to just put early childhood providers across the mixed delivery system, if there was a reason why we didn't want to list who that could potentially include. That particular question didn't come up. I I think that, certainly, we could, I think, list them, if we if we wanted to. I think it was just a little bit of a shorthand for that, but, you know, referring back to some of the earlier discussions in terms of who is included,
that's, certainly something we we could add, but I think we're trying to encompass, especially here, the, you know, center based, you know, family home, childcare. And then I think, you know, through our work on the care worker tax credit, I think the FFN population is is also included. And then, we did have a discussion about, you know, the the starting with early educators, but that there is particularly through the the conversations about pathways, and wanting to inter, intersect with some of the other working groups and,
task force that we have thinking about the early childhood, professional field overall and thinking about, you know, recognizing there are compensation, and benefits challenges throughout for our home visitors, for our early childhood mental health consultants, for our early interventionists. So, that as a secondary, or not secondary, but a kind of let's let's start with early educators, but that is a key piece of this landscape. I I appreciate that explanation. I think for me personally, I would love to see you guys, like, actually list who that would include just for your intentionality piece.
And I, you know, I think one of the reasons why I asked for that on both of these is when I think of, like, the pipeline that we're creating in our FFM providers, like, for me personally, my hope is that they would feel welcome in the ECE space that they feel like they want to then pursue and, like, do you know, seek spaces that are other, spaces. And so, like, for me, it just makes more sense for us to list how those conversations could how we
can help those conversations start taking place. And I I just think they would be important for you guys to have a little bit of, like, intentionality on who you guys want in those conversations. So I just wanted to make sure I brought that up as a commissioner. Thanks. Thanks, Jasmine. Nicole. Yeah. Super excited to see this work. You know, one comment I wanted to make around the recruitment retention pathways working group is to really, this is really to your point as well, Jasmine, Jasmine. Like, you know, what are the touch points that professionals have that could be utilized to really reinforce
their feeling of being valued in this industry and being seen as a professional. And, you know, I just think about my my days being an early childhood teacher in a classroom. It it's stressful. There's a lot going on, and it's, like, 10 times more stressful when licensing is showing up, and and, you know, that's a really, I think, you know, stress inducing high anxiety interaction and thinking about, you know, like, for example, if licensing specialists are in classrooms. Right? What are the things they could do to really help, you know,
like, I think build and reinforce that retention for the field. Right? They have touch points, obviously, with their directors and their peers and early childhood council coaches or others. But I think really thinking about those, like, very specific touch points in their lives as professionals too that can help be, like, reinforced, and we can do some some thoughtful, maybe innovating around that too. Thanks, Nicole. Shelley? Yeah. And I don't know how to do it, but I think that the pathways to success really specifically defined all those entities.
So I don't know just because they I know maybe your goal is to reduce complicated wording, but maybe a link to the plan and where the groups are clearly and really well established might be a way to make sure everybody's included, but not have that list be too overwhelming. Yeah. Great comment. Thanks, Shelley. Anyone else with comments on any part of Michelle's presentation or the working groups? And if not, then we can move on to the vote if unless, Michelle,
you add anything else. Okay. So this, the charters for these two working groups were sent out to all of you as part of our preread for this meeting. So I hope you had an opportunity to look at them, but we will now entertain a motion to authorize the two working groups. Shannon, I think we can take them together. Okay. Compensation and benefits working group and the recruitment, retention, and pathways working group. Do I have a motion to authorize the new I I move to authorize, both of the working groups. Can I add an amendment?
Sorry. To the motion. Go ahead, Jeff. Make an amendment to, with the suggestion that, there's a a another follow-up conversation on membership as defined currently in hopes that, it would maybe be more intentional in providing who's represented in each membership group. Pamela, do you accept that? I I I think that amendment. Thanks, Jasmine. Okay. Thank you. Do we have a second? I'll second. Thanks, Jacqueline. So motion by Pamela, second by Jasmine. You know the drill.
All in favor, type yes in the chat. If you are opposed, you know what to do. So let's do that real quickly. Looks like resounding yeses coming through. Great. Michelle, thank you very much for the time today and the presentation. Thanks to, all of those that have volunteered to serve on these two new working groups, and we're going to look forward to hearing about the progress, made with the working groups at our upcoming meetings. So really appreciate your presentation today.
And now for our final, agenda item of the morning, we're going to hear, updates from the final can't believe it's finally the final few days of the legislative session from Tammy Heiler with the governor's office. As you listen to Tammy talk about, priority legislation, think about how we can all be supportive in these final days of session and how the results of this session can help to guide us in our work going
forward. So really appreciate you being here today, Tammy, and I will turn it over to you. Thanks, Michael, and thanks, everyone. Apologies that I wasn't able to be on for more of this meeting, but in part because, as Michael said, we're thirteen days left of the session. So it's, like, crazy time at the Capitol as everyone knows. I'm sure Michelle is grateful to not be in the thick of it the same way as she has been in past legislative sessions. But that being said, you know, even though we are really in crunch time, I will say from an early childhood sort of policy and legislative perspective,
it's it's not as crazy or crunch time right now. We've already either been able to stop bills that, at least from the governor's office perspective, we were worried about earlier in the session, and then also to pass and already sign, s b o four, which was the childcare wait list b wait list fees bill that did pass earlier in the session. You know, I will say in terms of some of the outstanding pieces that are still moving, you guys probably all saw and may have already have spoken about that the ECLC sunset bill did pass earlier this week.
And so it is now headed to the governor's desk, which is exciting and will continue to, you know, authorize the ECLC for another five years, so through 09/01/2030. There is still one other outstanding early childhood bill, s b twenty five zero seventeen, which is seeking to make some technical changes to the Healthy Steps program and potentially codify and statute the child care health consultants. That bill is still in the first chamber and is potentially going to be in appropriations starting tomorrow.
There is some back and forth in terms of how that fiscal note is going to shake out and and what that bill is actually you know, if if it's going to be able to move forward this session, and so we're just keeping an eye on that. Many of you were probably also following earlier in the session the larger tax expenditure bill, which at one point was going to contain the reauthorization of the child care contribution tax credit. That has since changed, so that credit has come out of that bill, but is still good for another year. And so there will be continued conversations about the reauthorization of that credit next session.
This bill will, however, still include a small technical fix that was needed for the care worker tax credit, and so that was really just to make sure that FFN providers can receive it even if they're providing care outside of the home. So that will still be in there, as well as the reauthorization of a smaller facilities tax credit. I will say I think the most kind of substantive conversation that is still happening this year and actually evolved earlier this week, has to do with the trigger language for the family affordability tax credit and the EITC extensions that were passed last year.
So as many of you on this call helped, to facilitate and work on last year, the FATC and that expanded EITC, were and have been big priorities for the department, for the governor's office. And the governor has worked on boosting the EITC in particular since 2020 back when it was only 10% of the federal credit. Last year in the FITC and EITC bills, we worked with legislators and others to create two triggers that would automatically phase down the credit amounts if we didn't have enough revenue to fund them.
It looks like we're now in agreement with JBC that the intent of the triggers are not necessarily being met because there is a chance that for tax year 2026 in future years, the full credit amounts will be activated even in years when we are going to be below the table cap potentially. And so yesterday or two days ago, JDC voted unanimously to draft a bill to fix the trigger to have it be more in line with that original intent, which would be to only allow those credits,
if we have enough table room. But that being said, please note that the EITC trigger only relates to the expanded portion of the credit and that neither of these credits will be affected, for amounts claimed this year or for next year. But I just wanna make sure that this is on the early childhood community's radar, that this will be a continued conversation and just something to keep an eye on. Those are pretty much the big legislative updates. As you all know, after May 7 when the session ends, that's when the governor will start his bill signing tour.
It's typically the time of the year, about thirty days where, you know, he's traveling around the state going to, you know, as many communities and corners of the state as possible. And so I will keep, you know, this community, posted as we learn more about exactly which bills he'll Be doing ceremonies for, where he'll be. But I'm just flagging it's a good time because, if there are any, you know, interesting early childhood or preschool visits or programs across the state, that anyone on this call would like to have him visit. It's a good time when he's in these communities and not just in the Front
Range area, to sort of put in those scheduling requests. So I will drop the scheduling request form for those of you who don't have it, in the chat in case there is anything interesting that you would want to flag or or have on the governor's radar, because our team I don't even know how they do it, but they just, for thirty days, like, work scheduling magic, and it's a very intense time for our office, but it's also a very fun and exciting time. So just wanted to flag that. And, of course, if there are things outside of, you know, that thirty day window that you all wanna have on the governor's radar events or
other exciting things coming up in the summer, please feel free to use that form to get any requests in the official queue. Just in terms of budget updates, I'll say from a budget perspective, probably the the key updates just to have on your radar is that, the department has been tasked with presenting an RFI to the JBC on the early intervention program and some of the sustainability strategies. That RFI, I'm sure Marielle has already covered this, is due on June 15, the first one, and then there will be another one due in December.
And I know that the department has been doing an incredible job of running listening sessions and really getting some of those strategies together to present. And so, that is something we're paying attention to. And then, believe it or not, it's already time where we are gearing up for next year's budget cycle. And so OSPB, our budget team, actually just sent guidance out, to agencies about preparing for the twenty sixth, '20 seventh cycle. The general timeline is that capital request will be due around July 15. A handful of agencies have deadlines of July 21,
and then the majority of agencies in the state will have their deadlines, to get any of their budget requests to our office by August 1, and that does include CDEC. So, just having that on your radar that, you know, this is the time of year too even though it feels like we're just getting off of a session, but this is really the time of year where you can be engaging. The agencies will be engaging, with stakeholders on sort of looking ahead, thinking through what are all the things that we need to be already putting, on our radar for next year. So I will stop there in case anyone has any questions or comments,
that I can share back with our team. Questions for Tammy? It's such a a hard process, especially the amount of time in advance of a budget year that you begin to work on these things. It always blows my mind. Pamela. Thanks. Hi, Tammy. I was curious about the, budget allocation to continue the pilot program for increased salaries and the 2,900,000.0. I just I was curious how that happened,
what the process was, where the funding's coming from since the governor had asked for additional funding for CCAP and did not get it from the general fund. So You know, I actually would love to chat more offline with you. I don't have any specifics for you on that right now, but would be happy to circle back with our team and and get some more specifics. I'm sorry. Okay. Thanks. Mhmm. Other questions for Tammy? We're goes without saying that we're super excited about Senate Bill 177 and the reauthorization of the ECLC and really wanna thank Tammy and the department for keeping us in
the loop every step of the way as this moves through the process. But, very excited, for that bill, especially. Yeah. And, Michael, if I could interject, Tammy, our next meeting might be outside of the governor's thirty day window, but we are meeting in, Colorado Springs in person, in June. So In Pueblo. Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. In Pueblo. That's right. And so, if, if if the signing for our bill hasn't occurred by then, that might be a golden opportunity. Yep. Great. Great. I hope you Please flag it in the scheduling request,
just the date and time in general because, yeah, even if it isn't about the bill signing, you know, I think the gov always loves to pop by and say hello to the ECLC, and so maybe we can make that work. And he he does love traveling to Pueblo. He goes there frequently. So, please, somebody on your team, it'd be great if you could fill that out. Yeah. Great. Thank you. Shannon can help us with that. Yeah. Thanks, Tammy. Appreciate your time today and and the update. Lots of good things happening. Thirteen days and counting. Time for public comment now.
If you have, or would like to offer a public comment, raise your hand or pop your name in the chat. Go ahead, Heather. Okay. Thank you. Thanks for the wonderful meeting today. I would like to offer a suggestion that in our letter to the governor, we include a state investment to Head Start knowing that the federal landscape is looking. Duly noted. Thanks, Heather. Rachel. Sorry. Took me a minute to get to my my name button. I am just gonna drop a link in the chat. Let me know if you are able to access that.
Just, an update on our MCH priorities that we talked about a few months back in, and apologies for being late to the meeting, and I missed the state update section. But just wanted folks to, be aware that we had a we we still have a working draft of our priorities that are not final until we see the NOFO or the notice of funding opportunity from, the feds, that it is much delayed. But we're operating off of what, the draft the earlier draft looked like. And so, in the meantime, we're moving forward with identifying the priorities.
So from the last time I came, the shift just that I wanted to call out is that we added a housing priority, as a result of combining our social emotional well-being and our reducing racial inequities priorities. They were integrated together as a result of many of the strategies being very complementary to one another and having the same subject matter experts leading those priorities. It made sense to integrate that into one, and we're required to have at least seven priorities. Housing, was definitely something that emerged from our needs assessment and was previously a strategy as
part of the, built environment priority, but this gave us the opportunity to, pull it out as its own separate priority and elevate it, to reflect the feedback that we got during the needs assessment, and are pleased to be joining CDAC and other agencies in a coalition of folks. Thank you, Kendra, for your invitation to that, and doing some cross agency innovation thinking around how to address our housing crisis in our state. So that's all I have.
And, again, sorry I missed, the beginning state agency updates. Thanks, Rachel. Glad you were able to join us and give us that update at this time. Appreciate it. Any other comments? Shannon, did you see anything in the chat? I did not. Okay. Alright. Couple, just final thoughts and and announcements before we wrap up. Excuse me. First, we wanna recognize that this is National Home Visitor Appreciation Week. Yay. And next month is Mental Health Awareness Month. So we wanna thank everyone on the call who works in home visiting or who
supports mental health of our children and families in Colorado, and we hope that you will all access and share the home visiting and mental health resources that, that you've seen today. Next, as Happy mentioned, we're going on the road for our June meeting. Our June and August meetings will be held in person, so we hope commissioners will make it, a priority to attend these meetings in person, members of the public invited to join us as well. We will have a virtual listen only option.
It will not be an interactive option, but we will have a listen in option for our June and August meetings for those that are unable to join us. Our June meeting is being hosted by commissioner Angie Sheehorn, so thank you, Angie. We'll be, hosted by Children First, Pueblo's early childhood council, and we will be at their teaching and learning centers. So Shannon will send out more details and address and directions to get us there for the June meeting.
That meeting will be on June 26, so plan on that. The August meeting will be in the Denver Metro Area, but not necessarily at CDEC. If you are willing to host in the metro area, we'd be willing to entertain that as our second in person meeting. So please let Shannon know if that's something you would like to do for our August meeting. We ask commissioners to, as always, fill out the post meeting survey. Shannon, I imagine you've got a link in the chat to that.
We can put one in the chat. And it's really important that we get that we hear from all of you about what we could do better, what worked well, what might not have, and, make these meetings more, informative for all of you. And with that, if there are no final comments from my fellow cochairs or members, commission members here, thank everyone for attending today. We had a lot of good information. This was a really robust meeting, and appreciate your time and attention.
And we will see you in Pablo on June 26. Yeah. There were, Michael, there were a couple of questions about the next meeting and, and maybe Shannon can answer. Let's see if I can get to, About whether it'll be a Zoom or Well, it'll be a Zoom. Right, Shannon? Me Google. The like, same same as format we always use, but it will be listen only for June and August. With the OWL setup. So you'll see it, but just not participate. Right. You'll see it. Yeah. Just no interaction.
So and as far as how many the room needs to accommodate, Shannon, can you help with Nicole? Angie for up to 40. I don't know if Angie's still on to answer. The room accommodate in Pueblo Accommodates Thirty Three. Okay. Okay. But I think Nicole might be asking with the thought of maybe hosting us in August. Yeah. I'm asking if you need a Denver location. Like, what's your what's your rate? I'd I'd like, 25 to 40 is what we look for there. Great. Thanks. K. Anything else I missed? I don't think
so. Okay. Thanks, Happy, for alerting me to chat. Yeah. Thanks, Skye. Yes. Thanks, everyone. Great meeting. You. Act. Yeah. Have a good afternoon. Thanks. Bye bye, everyone. Take care. Bye bye.