Child Care Advisory Committee

June 12, 2019

Members Present:

Members not Present:  

Others Present:

• Meeting Notices:
• The Agenda and Meeting Notice were posted  06/06/2019 on publisher@ecapitol.net  with a  list of all CCAC meetings for 2019 submitted to the Secretary of State on 01/09/2019
• The Meeting Notice was posted at Catholic Charities on 06/12/2019

• Call to Order:
• Jason Charles called meeting to order at 10:06 am

• Reflection:
• Brent Thackerson provided words of reflection

• Introductions

• Approval of Minutes:  
• March 13, 2019 minutes were approved  

• Standing Membership Subcommittee Report:
• Eloise Locust provided report
• Subcommittee members have not met face-to-face in the last quarter but have corresponded by email.
• The following recommendations are being submitted:
• Carrie Jacobs – Private Citizen
• Andrea Schwarz has resigned her position on the committee and recommended that Aimee Ryan be named as her replacement for the Oklahoma Adoption Coalition
• Both recommendations were approved
• There are still vacancies for the Rural Daycare Home, Early Childhood Assoc. of Oklahoma, and part-day programs positions
• Jaremy Andrews attended orientation today and he will be the designee for Amanda McClain
• Eloise put forth a vote for the committee on the number of designees for each member
• Tammy Maus motioned for two designees
• Ari Conner seconded the motion
• Motion passed - Each member can have up to two designees

• Standing Subcommittee Reports:
• Child Care Facilities (centers) Standing Subcommittee
• Tammy Maus/Gayla Ham provided report

• Working with Child Care Services to correct the multi-age grouping that has been discussed previously
• The next meeting will be today from 1:00 – 3:00 pm at Catholic Charities and invites anyone that would like to attend
• Discussion will be on multi-age grouping, background investigations and the complaint system

• Family Child Care Homes Standing Subcommittee
• Ari Conner provided report

• Subcommittee met by teleconference on March 21
• Some of the topics discussed:
• Potential revisions of Family Child Care Home requirements
• Child Care Services will consult with Legal Services about their recommendations and should go into requirements at the end of 2020
• Equipment
• Caregiver requirements
• Still working on a recommendation for rural child care homes

• QRIS Standing Subcommittee
• Rachel Proper provided report

• March meeting had to be rescheduled
• It was decided to start meeting monthly instead of quarterly
• Have been working on their recommendations to expand the STARS system
• Next meeting will be early July
  
   

• Residential Standing Subcommittee
• Brent Thackerson provided report
• Last meeting was in October 2018 at Boys Ranch Town around 15 attended
• Topics discussed:

• Reviewed and provided input on some changes for Residential standards
• Financial audits
• First aid and CPR approved programs – your licensing representative can provide information on approved programs, there is an approved list in the requirements book and there are additional ones on CECPD website

• Next meeting will be October 2019

• Legislative Update:
• Linda Whaley provided report and handout
• House bill 2212 will require some policy changes to current legislation and requirements. It makes changes to QRIS policy – then the governor will have to approve those changes. The revisions will be submitted for emergency rule because it has an effective date of 11/1/2019.

• Licensing Sanctions Report:
• Kristi Simpson provided report and handout

• Old Business:
• Medical Marijuana
• Amanda McClain - The Oklahoma Association of Youth Services would like wording for their policies and procedures; for now they are waiting until more state agencies finalize their policies.

• New Business:

• Brent Thackerson – regarding the legislation that changed the Child Care Advisory Committee – feels like the committee is not as effective the way the bill was written and that the original intent has been lost       and other members agreed - will be speaking to state representatives and asking that it be changed back.
• Mitzi Lee – the history was, unless it was legislatively driven, Child Care Advisory Committee voted to revise a set of requirements and from that vote a Revision Subcommittee, with all of the programs affected by that revision, would come together with DHS. The subcommittee would then:

• Draft the language with DHS staff;
• CCAC held a vote to move those revisions forward to public hearing and gather input;
• The subcommittee would consider every comment and revise the requirements, bring it back to CCAC for the 2^nd and final vote to then move through the administrative process.
• Since the law changed DHS continues to use this committee and the standing subcommittees to gather input, but in a different capacity.
• DHS now has a public hearing in February (for the whole agency) during legislative session. Proposed rules that move forward start their journey in July through our legal process and then moves to public hearing the following February.

• Jason Charles – agrees the change in legislation caused this committee to lose power, it's no longer a decision making body but an advisory body. DHS is still working with the subcommittees for input on licensing changes because of relationships but are not required to and if that relationship changes in the future then licensing changes could happen like they do in some other states where providers are just given a new handbook and instructed this is what you have to do, without being able to provide input.
• Debra Andersen – would like the subcommittee reports to be more specific about what is being discussed or what kinds of recommendations are being generated. She's been on this committee for a couple of years and knows there is good work going on in the subcommittees but doesn't really know what that is. If those recommendations don't come to the larger committee for a vote then she doesn't know what the purpose of this committee is; and is unclear what her role is.
• Tammy Maus – has personal knowledge of this bill and it did not end up as it was originally presented. The original intent of the bill was to separate residential and child placing agencies away from child care programs but it changed as it went through the legislative process; it didn't turn out the way it was intended. There is a bill, SB 951, that would change the committee back exactly to the way it was before.
• All subcommittee chairs report that it has been extremely hard to fill the new requirements of subcommittee members.
• Rachel Proper submitted motion to convene an ad hoc committee to review:

• Previous law, impact of the changes, what changes we would like to keep/don't keep, and what this group would like to see moving forward and present that to everyone.  If the board could come together on a really clear vision of what we hope for the future then it wouldn't be inappropriate to put this board's recommendations to DHS for next legislative session, or sooner if possible, we would like "x, y, z" changed to legislation that drives this board.
• Tammy Maus seconded motion
• All board members voted in favor of convening ad hoc committee
• Brent Thackerson and Rachel Proper will co-chair
• Other volunteers – Peggy Byerly, Tammy Maus, Ari Conner, Mitzi Lee, Gayla Ham, Sarah Albahadily

• Patrick Klein
• New Child Care Services Director – Jennifer Towell
• New DHS Director – Justin Brown
• Tammy Maus
• Would like to bring attention regarding the following issues to DHS and CCAC on behalf of child care programs and homes:

• Would like to commend CCS for working toward solutions to help with issues they've had in the past month
• Would like to recommend that DHS study the issues surrounding the application of serious designation
• When a center/home gets cited they can be cited for a non-compliance being serious, repeated, or numerous. The policy clearly states there has to be an imminent risk of harm before those can be classified as serious. When you compare policy to the application of what's happening in the state, centers are losing their licenses because of it.  
• Grievances – would like CCS to do a better job of communicating that centers/homes are eligible to file a grievance and how to do it.  
• Peer review board – knows of at least 10 overturns in one county during the last two years over issues that some of them could be considered serious. Feels like if she committed something 10 times that she would not only lose her Stars but could very likely lose her license. When a supervisor or a worker has that many things overturned then we need to know what's happening – are they understanding the policy?, are they applying the policy correctly?
• Carole Turner – programs are advised of their opportunity to request a grievance on monitoring reports and complaints findings letters. If there is a question about how to grieve they can contact the licensing specialist or supervisor and they will explain the grievance process. If the issue is not satisfied with a verbal conversation with a supervisor then the next step is a written request.
• At the point where a program has seriously violated licensing requirements to the point that we feel that negative action would be appropriate what typically happens is to have a meeting with them when we first become concerned and explain to them these are the things in your history, these are things that we're concerned about, if you continue to have serious non-compliance issues we're going to have to look at taking negative action against your license. If the program continues to have serious non-compliance issues we would meet with them again and at this point we are looking at taking negative actions to either revoke or deny your license.
• Jason Charles – suggested this topic would be appropriate work for the Child Care Facilities (Centers) subcommittee and then bring those recommendations back to the members.

• Rachel Proper – would like to reiterate how wonderful and proud she is as a state, as a parent, and as a child care provider that we were able to revise the Child Care Subsidy Eligibility Requirements. She would like to know if DHS is tracking the impact of that.
• Patrick Klein it's too early at this point to be able to determine the impact. Maybe by the September meeting we will have some initial data to look at.
• Brent Thackerson asked about Security Awareness Training. Amy Cornelson responded – anyone in your program who is considered to have access and review is required to have Security Awareness Training. Her staff has been sending out letters to get those trainings updated – this came out of the March FBI audit that we needed to make sure that anyone who is designated to have access and review needs to have this training. They can review the PowerPoint, sign the verification and send that back to OBI.  
• Amy Cornelson – OBI Update
• Working 12 days out as of today
• 2 vacancies
• Hired 6 temps and hoping to have another one hired within a week or two
• Has two of her staff that is specifically designated for child welfare temporarily helping out with child care.
• Mitzi Lee – Effective July 1, LuAnn Faulkner will be retiring

• Public Comments:
• Katie Quebedeaux – Would like to thank DHS because she feels like positive strides have been made in communication between providers and DHS and continues to get better. And hopes under the new leadership we will continue to make even greater strides. Whenever something wrong does happen their teacher's first reaction is to feel scared and want to quit because they are afraid they are going to jail.  Would like a way to work licensing to make it a training opportunity to help them get better rather than a punishment – find a way to help us get through it and find out why it's happening before it gets to the point of threatening their license being revoked.
• Shane Williams – He is Shaunda's husband and they have two centers and a private school in Guymon. They are very rural and have a lot of different problems that other people don't deal with. Katie touched on one of the most important things he sees as a business man that's outside of the childcare world. Financially, the childcare business is a disaster – there is not a business model in the world that would structure after the childcare business. He sees a couple of things that really disturbs him in this meeting - #1 is that there was no discussion about medical marijuana. This group is the people that make the decisions for a huge core industry in this state and this country – everyone needs childcare in some fashion if they have children. This is an issue with employees, parents, and kids – it has to be something that we've got to put at the top of the list on how to handle it in the childcare industry. #2 regarding the serious non-compliance issue that Tammy Maus spoke about – he believes going forward the best way to deal with that is through training. When an inspector (licensing, child welfare, federal food program, etc.)  comes through the door they have an attitude that they are doing wrong and instead of conveying "we're here to help you" it has a "policing effect".

• Meeting adjourned at 11:51 am

• Next Meetings:
• Wednesday, September 11, 2019 – Catholic Charities
• Wednesday, December 11, 2019 – TBD