Nearly 37% of Pennsylvania's certified child care and after school programs have responded to OCDEL's 2022 Market Rate Survey (MRS) to evaluate future child care related programming and policy decisions, ​including Child Care Works rate setting.

Surveys completed & postmarked by Sept. 1, 2022, will be entered three times into the drawing to receive one of 100 $100 Amazon e-gift cards. If you can't make the Sept. 1 date, you can still send your survey by the Oct. 11, 2022, deadline. If you have not yet responded to the survey, expect to receive a phone call in the next few weeks to gather your updated tuition rates.

Do you have questions about the 2022 Child Care Market Rate Survey, didn't receive one, or need help submitting the survey? Contact the Institute of State and Regional Affairs at [email protected] or leave a toll-free voicemail at (866) 982-6433. Learn more.

Families should apply today! Participation is limited and applications are due by September 9, 2022. Applicants will be notified by September 16, 2022, if they are accepted. Lodging, meals, mileage, and child care reimbursement will be provided to participants. For more information, contact Sarah Holland at [email protected].

The Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) has provided updated information for Pediatric First Aid and Pediatric CPR from the Health and Safety Institute (HSI). The information, updated from September 2022, contains details about discontinued courses, as well as information for the new HSI course. For full details, please visit the Pennsylvania Key website.

On Aug. 30, 2022, the Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL), Bureau of Early Learning Policy and Professional Development released the Announcement ELRC 22-06, Required Professional Development Training for DHS Certified Child Care Providers Participating in Child Care Works (CCW). The Announcement shares that required professional development training for DHS certified child care providers who participate in Child Care Works (CCW), and adds an additional appendix to the existing CCW provider agreement. This announcement only applies to certified child care providers who have a CCW Provider Agreement with the Early Learning Resource Center (ELRC). This announcement does not apply to providers without a CCW Provider Agreement.

Information on how to create a personal profile in the PD Registry can be found here.

Share with the families you serve the opportunity to provide their back to school tip and be entered to win a copy of the 2022 PA One Book, Saturday, written and illustrated by Oge Mora. Or share your own back to school tip to be entered to win a copy for your early learning or after school program!

Entries must be received by 11:59 pm, Sept. 23, 2022. Forty winners will be selected at random to receive a copy of Saturday, estimated value $16.99. One entry per person. Click here to enter!

Choose a session and register below or print the flyer and share with staff! Each webinar is 45 minutes long.

The Office of Child Development and Early Learning in coordination with the Pennsylvania Key are offering 2-years of free access to the Healthy Minds@Work app to all early childhood professionals! The Healthy Minds app teaches simple skills to develop personal well-being that crosses over all aspects of your life, creating a more focused, compassionate culture at work and beyond.

To access the free app and for more information, visit the Healthy Minds page on the Pennsylvania Key website and follow the steps provided. To participate in your Regional ELRC CoP, please reach out to your ELRC for more information.

Now available at no cost are resources and materials to support Pennsylvania's early learning professionals and families.

Supplies are limited and requests will be fulfilled in order as received. Materials are for Pennsylvania programs and partners only. Click here to learn more and submit a request.

2023

The Aug. 19, 2022, release of The Impact from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services provides resources to help families start the school year right. The start of a new school year is an exciting time for both students and families. Since starting or returning to school is a big change for children and everyone in the household, available is a list of resources to lay the groundwork for a successful school year. Get important resources to ease the back-to-school transition.

On Friday, Aug. 19, 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released two new resources for educators related to monkeypox. The first is a set of frequently asked questions from Schools, Early Care and Education Programs, and Other Settings Serving Children or Adolescents about monkeypox. The second is a factsheet about What You Need to Know about Monkeypox if You are a Teen or Young Adult.

At this time, Pennsylvania Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) is not issuing any specific guidance to early learning programs related to MPX. Child care providers should continue to follow best practices related to hygiene and sanitation and follow their established policies and procedures for staff and children who show signs of being sick.

Questions about Monkeypox can be referred to the MPX information available on Pennsylvania's Department of Health's (DOH) website:

For additional information, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has MPX resources. If an entity cannot find the information they need at these sites, they can contact DOH using 877-PA-HEALTH.

The PA NAPSACC Wellness Grant is accepting applications for the 2022-2023 year. All licensed child care programs are eligible to apply. The grant provides an opportunity to engage in a continuous quality improvement process focused on obesity prevention practices and policies within an early care and education setting, and utilizes Go NAPSACC, an on-line, evidence-based tool. Programs will also be linked with a Child Care Health Consultant at no cost to the site to support policy development and enhancement, and those who participate and complete grant requirements will receive up to $500 in grant funding to support staff time and/or any materials and resources needed. Application deadline is Sept. 16, 2022. To read complete details, preview the application, and apply, visit www.keystonekidsgo.org

Do you know an individual or organization that displays outstanding commitment to the out-of-school time field? Nominate them to be an Afterschool Champion!

Afterschool Champions should demonstrate outstanding work in developing, supporting and promoting meaningful high quality afterschool/out-of-school time programs to benefit children, youth and families across Pennsylvania. Deadline to submit an application is Sept. 26, 2022. Learn more.

Early care and education settings and K-12 schools are preparing for this school year during a period of transition: communities across the U.S. are seeing high COVID-19 transmission rates, while at the same time, rising population immunity through vaccination and previous infection is protecting most against severe disease. This leaves leaders of schools and early childhood programs to develop health and safety plans within the context of variable local health department requirements across communities. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and PolicyLab have five recommendations to help these leaders navigate this process, with an eye toward simplicity and flexibility.

An estimated 4 million families across the country who are eligible for and have not yet received the Child Tax Credit; it is estimated that at least 75,000 children in PA could miss out on at least $3,000 each. Many of these individuals receive other government benefits and do not think filing taxes are for them. 

Code For America has created a tool, GetCTC.org, for people who do not have a filing requirement to file a simplified tax return. This tool enables people to claim the Child Tax Credit and third stimulus payment (up to $5,000 per eligible child), and people can sign up in 15 minutes or less on their mobile devices in English or Spanish. This tool reduces barriers to typical full tax filing. 

The Biden-Harris Administration's Loan Forgiveness plan was announced in August. The announcement and latest implementation information can be found here. This is a federal program. Please review Federal Student Aid’s website for their contact information if you have any questions, or contact your federal loan servicer.

How do we as a community come together to be a support to one another? The power of traumatic events over our lives is largely determined by how we respond to them. If we feel safe and secure in our support systems, we are better able to recover from a traumatic experience – these systems of support come from resilience within ourselves and acceptance, security, and safety from our family and community. This no cost lecture series, available from Resilient PA and Heal PA, aims to examine trauma at a foundational level and discuss its consequences to consider how we, as a community, can help our members be resilient against and recover from the overwhelming experiences we all encounter.

On Aug. 11, 2022, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) began advising people to perform repeat, or serial, testing following a negative result on any at-home COVID-19 antigen test, to reduce the risk an infection may be missed (false negative result) and to help prevent people from unknowingly spreading the SARS-CoV-2 virus to others. The FDA recommends repeat testing following a negative result whether or not you have COVID-19 symptoms. Read more.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Human Services (DHS) is changing which Physical Health Managed Care Organizations (PH Plans) are available for Medical Assistance (MA) consumers. This is an opportunity for DHS to be sure that the program and partners are continuing to strive towards improved access to care and superior quality of care and support provided by the PH Plans to MA consumers. Share the information about HealthChoices and view the latest information about Physical Health Managed Care Organizations Special Needs Units.

If you are registered to vote, you do not have to register again in Pennsylvania unless you change your address, name, or political party. If you are not registered in Pennsylvania to vote, there's still time! Oct. 24, 2022, is the last day to register before the Nov. 8, 2022, election.

Would you like to do a mail-in or absentee ballot? Applications for a mail-in or absentee ballot must be received by your county election board by Nov. 1, 2022.

A new report, Hidden Pain: Children Who Lost a Parent or Caregiver to COVID-19 and What the Nation Can Do to Help Them, provides guidance to leaders in the public and private sectors. America’s COVID-19 crisis has not ended, but we have begun to count the staggering size of our loss. Some of the cruelest pain has come to a group with the least capacity to understand and cope with it. More than 167,000 children—roughly one in 450 of all children in the United States—have lost at least one of their caretakers to COVID. More than 70,000 children have been deprived of a parent. Nearly the same number have lost a grandparent who lived in the home. At the extreme of this need, more than 13,000 children have lost their only in-home caregiver.

Children who have lost a co-residing parent, grandparent, or other caregiver are presently facing personal tragedies occurring in a period of national and international uncertainty, stress, and turmoil, and policymakers and other leaders face a responsibility to minimize the clinical, social, and economic impacts these children face.

Family child care providers have the highest participation in farm to ECE settings, according to the 2021 National Farm to School Network and Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems study, which surveyed early care and education (ECE) providers across the country to better understand current initiatives, motivations and challenges in applying farm to ECE activities in early care and education settings. More than 2,900 providers in 26 states, including Pennsylvania, responded and shared the benefits and challenges of connecting young children to healthy, local foods, gardening, and food and agriculture education through farm to ECE. Check out the Farm to Early Care and Education Continues to Foster Bright Futures for Children and Communities Fact Sheet and Infographic.

The complete 2021 State of Preschool Yearbook Appendix is now available! This means you can find answers to every question in the State of Preschool Yearbook survey from all 64 state-funded preschool programs. For example: How many state programs dedicated federal COVID-19 relief funding specifically to assist state-funded preschool programs? (Spoiler alert: The answer is 31!) How many states support compensation parity for state preschool teachers and how many states provide incentives to recruit and retain preschool teachers? You can also use Appendix data from multiple years to answer more complex questions. For example, did the pandemic differentially affect preschool enrollment by race? Comparing 2017-18 to 2020-21, there was a much larger decline in enrollment for Black children than others (in states that report enrollment by race). To access the 2021 Appendix, visit the 2021 State of Preschool Yearbook home page and click the link for 2021 Survey Data. 

The start of kindergarten is a major milestone for young children and their families. Child Trends’ new blog summarizes a report from the Understanding Children’s Transitions from Head Start to Kindergarten (HS2K) Project—funded by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation—on how early childhood and K-12 systems can support children’s successful transitions to kindergarten. The report and blog each highlight how early childhood and K-12 leaders can improve kindergarten transition experiences by designing transition policies, professional supports, and practices that are coordinated both within and across the two systems. Researchers from NORC at the University of Chicago, St. John’s University, Child Trends, and the National P-3 Center contributed to the project. 

Early learning has the potential to support all children’s learning and development, particularly for children from families with low incomes and children who are multilingual learners. But can different early learning experiences make a difference in closing gaps prior to kindergarten entry? A new study, Preschool Quality and Child Development: How Are Learning Gains Related to Program Ratings?, from LPI, WestEd, and the Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research (BEAR) Center sheds light on the relationships between preschool quality and child outcomes, suggesting that program quality matters and that access to high-quality programs may be inequitable.

These family-friendly printable Vroom materials help to remind ECE professionals and families that brain building moments are all around you in the things you already do. Use printable Vroom tips to boost brain-building skills in children. Select tips and materials are available in 16+ languages! The print-at-home Tip sheets include a mix of Vroom Brain Building Activities™ for children from ages 0-5 years.

This family-friendly resource from Colorín Colorado shares How to Support Your Child’s Social-Emotional Health, a printable tip sheet, in 16 languages.

September is National Childhood Obesity Month (available in Spanish). Sponsored by the CDC's Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity, this observance provides an opportunity to learn more about this major public health problem. Learn more.

In a continued effort to provide the public with information about the science, safety and importance of vaccines, the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (VEC) recently updated its popular, award-winning mobile app, called Vaccines on the Go: What You Should Know, so anyone can access vaccine information wherever and whenever they need it.

Share these Healthy Habits for Happy Smiles handouts after individual meetings or group trainings with families to provide information about the timing of the first dental visit and what to expect:  Visiting the Dentist by Age 1 and Visiting the Dental Clinic with Your Child. Although these resources are promoted via Head Start, they are appropriate for all child care programs.

September is National Food Safety Education Month, a great time to explore ways to promote safe food handling and prevent foodborne illnesses. And while there is no evidence that food is associated with spreading the virus that causes COVID-19, safe practices for handling, preparing, eating, and storing food are always recommended (see more about Food and COVID-19). Use this opportunity to emphasize the importance of food safety principles to staff, families and children in your program.

Learn the basics from Reading Rockets about inclusion, characteristics of inclusive classrooms that work, and things you can do to implement inclusion principles right away — including setting up your classroom, creating effective learning groups, and adapting your curriculum.

The August resources from Camille Catlett are now available. The August edition of Natural Resources features information about Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health and Early Intervention, Resources on Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health, and more. The August edition of Baby Talk features information about How-to: 5 Steps for Brain-Building Serve and Return; A National Framework for Children with Special Health Care Needs; and more.