August 2023 Community Newsletter

Local Child Care Resource and Referral agencies build awareness of their services and the importance of early childhood education within the communities they serve and develop partnerships with coalitions and task forces to ensure the needs of families and early childhood programs are considered in planning efforts.

This quarterly newsletter shares what we are doing in the community, what we have coming up, and how community members can advocate for early care and education.

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Early care and education is a community-wide issue. Investments in early childhood education create sustainable, thriving communities. By bringing community leaders, organizations and businesses to the table, communities can create scalable, sustainable solutions that benefit them for years to come.

Here are some ways community leaders and organizations can get involved to advocate for affordable and accessible high-quality early care and education.

- Understand your community needs

- Engage local stakeholders and leaders

- Assist in the development of community based plans of action

We support businesses in developing work-life policies and programs related to child care needs of employees. Our staff can consult with employers one-on-one to better understand how your company can support family-friendly benefits related to child care. work-life policies, and parent employee resource groups and activities.

Your employees can never truly turn off being a parent. If they are having trouble finding child care or struggling with a child with special needs or various other challenges, it can be difficult to focus on the job. We can help to support your families in finding child care or connect them with resources and education opportunities.

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In most Indiana communities, child care demand far outweighs the supply. Four out of 10 Hoosier children live in a child care desert, where there is only one child care seat, or less, for every three children. Only 40% of known early childhood education programs qualify as high quality in Indiana. As part of the Child Care Resource and Referral Network (CCRR), Chances And Services for Youth, works to not only expand access to early learning care and education opportunities, but is a trusted and knowledgeable resource for families, providers, and community leaders that helps connect them to early care and education services, support and information.

Chances And Services for Youth CCRR works with families in our community to provide child care and community resource referrals. When families need child care or need connected to resources within the community, they have the opportunity to connect with a Family Engagement Specialist to receive the support they need. We also work to recruit new programs in high need areas, facilitate networking among programs, and promote high-quality care among programs.

Our work continues in supporting local communities in understanding the landscape of care

and increasing awareness of high-quality child care’s importance and impact within our

communities and regions. We offer workshops for community members, employers and

employee groups to share the data related to child care in their area. We also work with

employers to help build work-life policies and programs related to employees’ child care needs.

Chances And Services for Youth CCRR provides this support to 24 counties across South-Central Indiana: Bartholomew, Brown, Clay, Delaware, Fayette, Greene, Hancock, Henry, Johnson, Madison, Montgomery, Monroe, Morgan, Owen, Parke, Putnam, Randolph, Rush, Shelby, Sullivan, Union, Vermillion, Vigo, and Wayne Counties. While our central office is located in Vigo County, we have specialists stationed in remote offices throughout South-Central Indiana.

If you're interested in learning more about the work of your Child Care Resource and Referral, you can contact us at 800-886-3952, select option 2.

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Effective July 1, 2023, initial family income eligibility for CCDF and On My Way PreK (OMWPK) will increase from 127% of the federal poverty level to 150%.

Your employees, clients, etc. that were denied before might be eligible for assistance now.

Learn more here https://www.in.gov/fssa/carefinder/system-updates-2023/

We are sending out a survey during the week of August 21st through survey monkey to make sure we are meeting the community's needs. It is a brief survey that will only take a few moments to complete. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions you may have or to have further conversations about child care within your community.

We appreciate your responses, thank you!

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This gives you a glance of what our team is doing in local communities!

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Early Learning Coalitions are groups of people with members from different organizations that put their resources together to better early learning in their community.

Coalitions can make an impact in the community in many different ways. They are encouraging parent engagement in young children with text programs, creating non-formal CDA programs to help providers get the credentials they need, launching programs to make child care more affordable, bringing child care centers to their area to increase capacity and more.

Click on the image below for contact information for existing coalitions, or reach out to us to learn more!

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Reach out to us to discuss this Parke County case study where the Executive Director for Partnership Parke County (the Economic Development Office) brought community leaders together to create an early learning coalition and work with a consulting firm to create a strategic plan to address the local child care issue!

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Below you can see some of the places our team has been in the last 3 months!

We were at the: Henry County Career fair, Greene County Babies! Babies! Babies! event, Hendricks Region 9 Provider Fair, Greene County Book Swap, Sullivan County Economic Summit on Early Learning, and Vermillion County Clinton Public Library Summer Reading Kickoff Event.

We were at: Local Government's Opportunity to Learn More About Parke County's Early Care and Education Strategic Plan, Sullivan County Summer Reading Kickoff Event, Delaware County Eastern Indiana Works Summer Job Fair, Ball State's PBS's Be My Neighbor Day, Putnam County Health Fair, Terre Haute Housing Authority’s Strong Families Event, Muncie Out of the Darkness Walk, and Henry County Citizens Bank 150th Birthday Community Appreciation.

We attended Back to School events in Rush, Parke-Vermillion, Madison, and Vigo Counties.

We were also at: Fayette Community Baby Shower, hosted a Child Care Provider Fair in Wayne County, Shelby County Community Day, Hancock Community Night, Sullivan County Health Fair, and Rushville Baby Palooza!

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September

Sept. 22-23, 2023

The weekend events include an evening "glow" of balloons on Friday and Saturday night. Come out to enjoy live music, food trucks, view the balloons and baskets, and watch the balloon ascension at dusk! Balloon flights and displays are weather dependent, taking place only at dusk when conditions permit.

Buy tickets here

Click here to see updates

October

October 6th, 2023

More information coming soon!

Click here to see updates

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Keep a look out for future grants that businesses can apply for to increase child care capacity!

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The Brighter Futures Indiana Data Center offers data related to population, economics, supply and demand. These data points are relevant to many aspects of early childhood education. Whether you are a family trying to learn more about care options in your area, a provider looking to open a new business, or a community member that supports the local early childhood education market in your area – the data center is a tool for you.

Check out local, updated data at the Brighter Futures Data Dashboard

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Use this form to schedule a meeting with someone from our team!

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Allissa has a Bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences with a concentration in Health Administration, and a Master’s degree in Public Health. Before joining CASY her focus was on health education programs and researching ways to better the lives of the community. Her public health experience is put to use when she is presenting data on the importance of early child care and education to community leaders. Allissa is moved by the impact health disparities have on child care accessibility, quality, and affordability.

Email: atheisz@casyonline.org
Website: https://casyonline.org/ccrr_services/
Phone: 812-231-8905

Ben has a Bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice from IUPUI. He has devoted most of his life serving Country and Community through the military, and social work. His work includes advocacy, child abuse and neglect response/prevention, community outreach and referrals. He strives to connect families to quality early care and education through referral services, webinars, and more. Ben is also looking forward to building positive relationships and sharing the importance of early childhood development and education with families and communities.

Email: bflick@casyonline.org
Website: http://casyonline.org/ccrr-staff-services/
Phone: 812-231-8906

Jennifer has experience as a business owner, childcare teacher, preschool director, and case manager. While living in Georgia, Jennifer created an Early Childhood and Parenting Program and worked with teen moms helping them to learn essential parenting and life skills. She has three degrees from Indiana Wesleyan University, including a Master’s Degree in Organizational Leadership. Jennifer enjoys building positive relationships and sharing the importance of early childhood development and education with families and communities.

Email: jlee@casyonline.org
Website: http://casyonline.org/ccrr-staff-services/
Phone: 812-231-8916