You are receiving this email
because of your interest in early childcare work in
Nebraska.

Quarterly
Newsletter - August
2020

“Nebraska’s vision is for an
Early Childhood Care and Education system where
community leaders work together to provide high-quality
early care and education starting at birth, and in
coordination with the health, mental health, and social
service supports that families may
need."

Nebraska
Receives PDG Renewal Grant

Nebraska’s early
childhood programs have taken another significant step
forward with the renewal of the National Department of
Health and Human Services, Administration for Children
and Families Preschool Development Grant.  Building
on the success of last year’s Preschool Development
Planning Grant, which supported a comprehensive needs
assessment and allowed for the creation of a statewide
strategic plan, the $8.9M Preschool Development Grant
Birth-Five (PDG) Renewal Grant will span three years to
implement Nebraska’s Early Childhood Strategic Plan.

The Preschool
Development Grant (PDG) provides Nebraska the
opportunity to continue building strong community
leadership, creating innovations in infant-toddler
services, and collaborating through private/public
partnerships to continue improving access to quality
early childhood care and education (ECCE) for families
of children from birth through 5 years.

It is designed to offer
Nebraska’s most vulnerable families access to improved
early childhood services while strengthening and
streamlining state-level infrastructure. Twenty-four
projects will address gaps and align resources within
the Early Childhood System in six targeted areas:

Statewide Needs Assessment Plan

Statewide Strategic Plan

Maximizing Parental Choice and Knowledge

Sharing Best Practices and Professional
Development for the Early Childhood Workforce

Improving Overall Quality and Service Integration,
Expanding Access and Developing New Programs,
Monitoring, Evaluation, and Data Use for Continuous
Improvement

Meaningful Governance and Stakeholder Engagement.

Management
Team Flowchart

Renewal
Grant Overview

Expected
Outcomes from PDG B-5 Renewal Grant:

Provide up-to-date
information on the status of young children in Nebraska
that can be used to inform decision-making at the state,
community, and program levels, with an emphasis on
improving capacity in rural communities;

Create stronger community-level infrastructure for
helping families learn about available early childhood
programming, and for connecting families to the
services they need;

Expand efforts to engage with families, obtain
information about their needs, inform them about chiId
development, and connect them to beneficial services
for their young children;

Strengthen the early childhood workforce through a
coherent set of professional development (PD)
initiatives and by providing meaningful incentives to
stay and grow in the field;

Improve services for infants and toddlers for
their first five years, and strengthen the transition
into kindergarten;

Build a stronger, more integrated state system
with updated governance and finance policies that
support community-level leadership;

Inform the Nebraska public about the importance of
child development, the impact of the grant, and the
state’s investment in early childhood;

Evaluate results that inform continuous quality
improvement.

Needs
Assessment

In 2019, Nebraska
conducted a statewide early childhood needs assessment
that engaged stakeholders from communities across the
state. In addition to identifying and analyzing existing
early childhood data and reports, the needs assessment
team gathered state-level, regional, and local data by
conducting surveys, focus groups, and interviews with
stakeholders across Nebraska. These data collection
efforts included the following:

Statewide surveys with families and early
childhood care and education providers;

Focus groups with families;

Interviews and surveys with key informants;

Stakeholder meetings.

These data collection
and analysis efforts focused on understanding Nebraska’s
resources, characteristics, strengths, challenges, and
needs related to all aspects of the state’s early care
and education systems. The PDG Renewal Grant will make
it possible to continue working on the Needs Assessment
to explore gaps in services and outreach to vulnerable
families.

Read
the Needs Assessment
Report

Nebraska
Early Childhood Strategic Plan

The Nebraska Early
Childhood Strategic Plan establishes a shared vision for
a more integrated early childhood care and education
(ECCE) system in which children are offered
uninterrupted quality ECCE services from birth through
the transition to school.  The Strategic Plan was
developed by asking stakeholders across Nebraska for
feedback on the key findings of the 2019 comprehensive
Needs Assessment and for recommendations for taking
action to fill gaps in meeting families’ and providers’
needs.

The resulting Strategic
Plan provides clear direction on how Nebraska will,
through systems alignment and improved collaboration,
increase the overall participation of children in
quality ECCE services.

By creating a more
integrated system of services, more families can access
quality ECCE and other essential services they need to
help their young children thrive.

The four goals of the
Strategic Plan are designed to work together so that as
progress is made toward one goal, other goals are also
advanced.

Goal 1: Access—Each
child and their family can access the quality ECCE
services and the essential services they need to support
healthy development.

Goal 2: Quality—All ECCE
settings provide quality experiences for children.

Goal 3:
Collaboration—Communities coordinate a locally designed
mixed delivery system that provides continuous care and
meets the needs of families.

Goal 4:
Alignment—Statewide systems align to support communities
in creating an integrated and comprehensive mixed
delivery system for all children.

Read
full plan
here.

My
Nebraska Story debuts

Every family, business,
and community in Nebraska has a story—full of hope,
imagination, pride, and perseverance. Most of all, these
are stories about opportunities people need to live,
learn, work, and thrive in our hometowns. Quality child
care plays a key role in how we work together to create
prosperous, successful communities.

First Five Nebraska
recently launched My Nebraska Story, a statewide
campaign inviting business leaders, economic developers,
and others to become involved in increasing the
availability of quality child care in their
communities.

My Nebraska Story
features more than 30 employers, economic developers,
child care professionals, working parents, and others
from Broken Bow, Gothenburg, Lincoln, McCook, Norfolk,
North Platte, Ogallala, Oshkosh, Schuyler, Stuart, and
York. Public awareness efforts and other materials
encourage Nebraskans to reflect on their own roles in
making quality child care a key element of improving
economic opportunity and quality of life throughout the
state.

www.myNEstory.org

Nebraska
Survey Finds Child Care Providers Need Help During
Pandemic

According to a new
survey, Nebraska's early care and education providers
are under extraordinary stress and need more support to
stay in business. In addition to other stressors, if the
COVID-19 pandemic continues or worsens, Nebraska could
lose many of its licensed child care providers unless
financial assistance is made available.

The Buffett Early
Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska
recently released initial findings from The
Nebraska COVID-19 Early Care and Education Provider
Survey II,
a statewide survey that examined how more than 1,000
licensed family home-based and center-based child care
providers have been impacted by COVID-19. The survey
assessed how financial supports are accessed, how
providers are coping in the midst of an ongoing
pandemic, and what providers still need to deliver the
essential service of early care and education.

Findings show an urgent
need among “essential” employees who operate in an
environment that poses risks to health and disrupts
revenue stability in industries already operating at
poverty-level wages. A report from the Nebraska Early
Childhood Workforce Commission released earlier this
year underscored, before the pandemic, that Nebraska's
early care and education workforce is a profession
already chronically undervalued and underpaid. Economic,
health, and personal stressors reported from the
Institute's first provider survey in March 2020 continue
and are increasing.

"Professional providers
are experiencing profound economic effects of the
pandemic, and they will need assistance to continue to
provide the backbone early care and education essential
for Nebraska's economy," said the survey's co-directors,
Kate Gallagher, director of research and evaluation at
the Buffett Institute, and Alexandra Daro, research
specialist at the Buffett Institute. "Many providers
reported experiencing physical, cognitive, and emotional
stress over the last few months, yet they remain
resilient."

For additional detail
and key findings reflecting the impact of COVID-19 since
its onset visit:

buffettinstitute.nebraska.edu/covid-19-resources.

CARES
Act Funded Covid-19 Responses

We would like to
recognize the following PDG-informed partner activities
funded by the CARES Act in response to the
pandemic.

Funding
Available for Licensed Child Care Providers

Nebraska received a
federally funded Preschool Development Grant Birth-5 to
assess child care needs and develop a strategic plan
focused on the first five years. The purpose of this
grant afforded Nebraska a huge opportunity to identify
and begin to address gaps for meeting the needs of young
children and their families. It also provided a year for
key stakeholders focused on the education, care, and
healthy development of young children to get to know one
another, understand the many moving parts of a complex
system, and work together. When the COVID-19 pandemic
hit, these connections became vital to effectively
galvanizing a collective response. When Nebraska
received its share of CARES Act funding, these
collaborative efforts supported the needs of child care
providers and sourced funding to this vital
workforce.

As part of the
CARES Act funding that Nebraska received from the
federal government, Nebraska Children and Families
Foundation, under an agreement with Nebraska Department
of Health and Human Services, is managing the
distribution of relief funding for child care providers.
One is the Stabilization Fund for licensed child care
providers who have stayed open during the pandemic and
the other is an Incentive to Reopen Child Care Program
Fund for providers who were forced to close
temporarily.

To find out if they are
eligible and how to apply. All licensed child care
providers should visit:

https://u3654913.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=TeaiJ5U-2FAnpVhXvhVTyw9THrc-2FD27vIKYnrpcVwlqBM5QpVC-2Fb-2B4CrcK6YzO1RxasBfP-2BwilI0vR-2FfBP-2FQ3JSUoSLsZq3W5xftQn91Sp914-3DCiCu_xZt-2FO-2BCuH9wm8w0RJfjkHmLwnkTdxsKRxQv8R5idKCdpjSyvLSGtoRSGRzJurhmuH1iD6exJbQXDCCYXNEK1Ijn-2BjiWXgDll-2Fz0Fvnu4FujlbjYr4aZPUJHAi8pSxQZTAmc1hn-2FmSX9wgxcqOberlU47TuJgIg6VMX7Zw62Y4t7GLcsDNw-2BLb1YaQrXQOblyStuKlQTvjYAFKAHWwNR1Za-2BGCcFWtUTsVbZRcyC5qphA1e5Kwpi1LUVFRZ0LxhEuUJxq4ZmFWE3K0m9C6omrgwa7k-2FL-2Bo4S04USlxaIuJY1XBOZao20FFO7BtC0Vv9fpEioSetLgYhC9p4unz-2BOcpUXL3xM6KUVI0eVB1kHpFgpRY5bdRWdDkVmihNl1iEuJu6gSTlGkNGIRR0dwu1dMBiyFo4Ix9is66oWFQcoYTQ8-3D

The application
(available in both English and Spanish) will be open
until September 30, 2020. For questions about the funds
or the application process, call 1-844-340-7002 or
email:

[email-masked].

Nebraska
Child Care Referral Network

As the COVID-19 pandemic
crept into the State of Nebraska, a large group of
stakeholders across agencies and systems that serve
young children became aware of the unforeseen challenges
of coping with the virus.

One clear challenge was
to find ways to connect child care providers whose
enrollments were plummeting due to parents staying home,
with parents who had lost child care due to facility
closures or who needed child care because they were
essential employees.

While systems exist in
Nebraska to connect parents to child care, there was not
a system available that provided parents with up-to-date
information about the number of openings a facility had
available or whether the facility was currently
open.

The stakeholder group
connected with Student1, a trusted nonprofit
organization, to create a website that would allow
providers to indicate if they were open and what spots
they had available so that parents could easily search
for openings. The result of this collaboration is the
Nebraska Child Care Referral Network. We are thankful to
the many partners who helped bring the vision of this
site to life by committing their time, resources, and
knowledge. The site would not be available to parents
without the tireless efforts of Student1 and of all the
partners that helped make it possible.

Are you a provider
looking for an opportunity to promote your visibility to
potential families?  https://u3654913.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=TeaiJ5U-2FAnpVhXvhVTyw9QefzLT76EA82orfE33fl5dws9PXHUJ6xAgXK0oDit9GimKj5Qn1RjdT7o-2F-2BmdkNvIYKw306DC5ZaJYDtUMy-2FDU-3DjO6B_xZt-2FO-2BCuH9wm8w0RJfjkHmLwnkTdxsKRxQv8R5idKCdpjSyvLSGtoRSGRzJurhmuH1iD6exJbQXDCCYXNEK1Ijn-2BjiWXgDll-2Fz0Fvnu4FujlbjYr4aZPUJHAi8pSxQZTAmc1hn-2FmSX9wgxcqOberlU47TuJgIg6VMX7Zw62Y4t7GLcsDNw-2BLb1YaQrXQOblyStuKlQTvjYAFKAHWwNR1Za-2BGCcFWtUTsVbZRcyC5qphA1e5Kwpi1LUVFRZ0LxhEuUJxq4ZmFWE3K0m9C6omrg0iIo-2FxB-2FCL9jA9MAsNs2kHdf0rYflAg7nUFSHPoU84x39OJ43j03gYjCvGQOv3pPxSkPOMfynVCe20-2FvdD5XVQErcR-2B1pQcUU-2B72jRzZ3MTFcgvXaY36hZ0O8xJjg-2BbrhD-2FOidx1J9mhzjLkUmwBKs-3D

Are you a parent
currently looking for quality childcare?

https://u3654913.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=TeaiJ5U-2FAnpVhXvhVTyw9dmbp1bEol45dv2TiLGnLanqW6rif7AlIKOAnCBWWT3Itn6iEnHzkEcEw51fcBc3QA-3D-3DrFrU_xZt-2FO-2BCuH9wm8w0RJfjkHmLwnkTdxsKRxQv8R5idKCdpjSyvLSGtoRSGRzJurhmuH1iD6exJbQXDCCYXNEK1Ijn-2BjiWXgDll-2Fz0Fvnu4FujlbjYr4aZPUJHAi8pSxQZTAmc1hn-2FmSX9wgxcqOberlU47TuJgIg6VMX7Zw62Y4t7GLcsDNw-2BLb1YaQrXQOblyStuKlQTvjYAFKAHWwNR1Za-2BGCcFWtUTsVbZRcyC5qphA1e5Kwpi1LUVFRZ0LxhEuUJxq4ZmFWE3K0m9C6omrg10AnJBwKu2n-2F3VC3ZzZQC1Alm33MkfTdGhVUtNKOaeskub4XpyK1rwka739GT7LgFu84dxUuq-2B4QDH0sAUSkYt7xcdnMwuY-2BPRUdnRH1EF1Oo6Ina-2FXnOUT-2BDJ1VwRgbqJxf7OboElhlfP-2FWCXxUuc-3D

For questions or
comments regarding the Preschool Development Grant,
please contact:

Shannon
Mitchell-Boekstal, Assistant Vice President Preschool
Development

mailto:[email-masked]

PDG
Partners

Nebraska’s PDG work is led by
Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (NDHHS)
under the authority of Governor Pete Ricketts, in
partnership with the Nebraska Department of Education
(NDE), Nebraska Children and Families Foundation, the
University of Nebraska system, and many other
partners.

This
project is made possible by funding received through
Grant Number 90TP0079-01, of the USDHHS-Administration
for Children and Families, Office of Early Childhood;
Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services;
Nebraska Department of Education; and Nebraska Children
and Families Foundation, following grant requirements of
70% federal funding with 30% match from state and
private resources. Its contents are solely the
responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily
represent the official views of the Office of Child
Care, the Administration for Children and Families, or
the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services.

Our
Contact Information
Nebraska Children & Families
Foundation
215 Centennial
Mall South
Suite 200
Lincoln, NE 68508
402-476-9401
www.NebraskaChildren.org

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