Posted: December 20, 2015 | Author: Debbie Ellis | Filed under: Administration for Children and Families, Allies for Quality Care, Business Ethics, CCPP-approved Provider, Child Care Development Fund, DECCD-MDHS, MS Department of Human Services, QRS Mississippi, SECAC Mississippi, Uncategorized | Tags: Administration for Children and Families, Allies for Quality Care, CCPP-approved Provider, child care Mississippi, child care quality rating systems Mississippi, DECCD, DECCD-MDHS, equal access, Market Survey Rates, MDHS, Mississippi CCDF State Plan, Mississippi Child Care Quality Steps, Mississippi State Early Childhood Institute, Quality Rating System, SECAC Mississippi, The Mississippi Center for Education Innovation |
Online Market Rate Survey Due January 18, 2016 (See your Email In-Box.)
The scope of the current Market Rate Survey has been increased to account for not only market rate, but also provider cost.
DECCD has added a section to the Market Rate Survey to collect information regarding costs incurred by the provider for the provision of child care.
Given provider feedback, DECCD now rightly suspects that many providers set their rates based on subsidy reimbursement rather than the actual costs of providing care. Therefore, DECCD designed the Market Rate Survey to include two very distinct sections.
The first section captures market rate information and WE FEEL SHOULD BE THE ONLY SECTION in a MARKET RATE SURVEY.
The second section is an additional optional page that captures provider costs information and one WE FEEL SHOULD BE A SEPARATE COSTS ANALYSIS SURVEY if designed to collect data other than market rates.
But for notice of a “Market Rate Survey”, DECCD has not convincingly explained its reason for wishing to conduct costs analyses, but it is not necessarily a bad thing.
In geographic areas of Extreme Poverty such as the Delta, the very low reimbursement rates paid by DECCD (the lowest in the state) may not cover the actual costs of providing proper care, let alone “high quality early learning environments”. So the Administration for Children and Families has allowed alternative “costs analysis” to be conducted to better ensure equal access and more equitable resources to all providers throughout the state. The alternative information gathered in Part II could enable DECCD to set higher rates in the Delta than the geographic Market Rate Survey (Part I) process now allows.
The Problems:
HHS Psychobabble – The Administration for Children and Families has placed DECCD in an impossible situation with this unfunded mandate: DECCD is required to increase reimbursements from current 2004 Market Rates to no less than 2014 Market Rates and serve the same number of children… without any increase in CCDBG funding…(wait for it)…“to the extent that is possible”! (LOL) Psychobabble!
History – Providers feel recent past Market Rate Survey data has been manipulated by CCDBG funded sub-grantees conducting the collection of data to reflect a much greater percentage of market rates paid to providers than was actually so.
Providers believe CCDBG Funded sub-grantees did not weight or rule out the majority of surveys, most of which were completed by low-income providers that could not even report a market rate! (The DECCD CERTIFICATE VALUE IS NOT A MARKET RATE but rather, is only a percentage of a Market Rate. The market rate (price of care) is the fee per child paid by non-subsidized families for child care services!)
Given that sub-grantee conduct, it is difficult now for providers to work so intimately (to provide personally identifiable financial data) with those same people or to have faith in their knowledge and application of valid survey processes to combine two completely different sets of data for one outcome.
Conflict of Interests -A CCDBG Quality set aside for expanded infant and toddler care (a current CCDBG Quality option) could help the lead agency to increase the rates while also helping to better maintain the current number of children served, but we do not feel we are likely to hear that recommendation from policy making sub-grantees positioned by DECCD to influence consideration of an award of a still greater percentage of CCDBG Quality funding to support their programs. (Illinois, California and Louisiana sometimes issue a RFP for an outside, private business to conduct their states’ Market Rate Surveys!)
Accountability – The CCDBG requirement to conduct a Valid Quality Needs Assessment to identify and follow the will of the people in how millions and millions of quality dollars are to be spent in Mississippi’s 2016 State Plan (which involves the Market Rate Survey and the final determination of provider rates) has not even been mentioned, whispered, disclosed or completed by DECCD.
Psychological Prompts – Due to a provider’s Constitutional Right to Privacy, Part II of the “Rate Setting Tool” is OPTIONAL. You do not have to complete Part II to submit your Market Rate Data, BUT YOU WOULDN’T INITIALLY GUESS THAT BASED ON THE LANGUAGE USED BY DECCD THAT IMMEDIATELY EXCLAIMS AT THE END OF PART I:
“THIS SURVEY IS NOT COMPLETE.”
Such a declaration may be just enough to prevent providers serving middle to upper-income families (who are the only providers who can define the going child care rates) from submitting anything.
Only those who read further will see Part II is not required for submission.
Middle and upper-income providers have no incentive to participate in this process anyway and concerned provider groups have been given no guarantee that County Extension Field Representatives will visit middle and upper-income providers (with whom Extension Field Representatives likely have a professional/training relationship) in order to personally collect the appropriate market rate data (as we have suggested they might do).
Market Rate Surveys are Due January 18, 2016.
Providers may complete the online survey by clicking here:
https://msudafvm.co1.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_bNm7Kua5xFm3ey9
Participate as you see fit.
Posted: December 15, 2015 | Author: Debbie Ellis | Filed under: Allies for Quality Care, CCPP-approved Provider, Child Care Advisory Council, Child Care Development Fund, Child Care Mississippi, Delta Licensed Providers | Tags: Allies for Quality Care, CCPP-approved Provider, child care Mississippi, Early Learning Guidelines (ELG), equal access, proposed amendments to the regulations governing child care, SECAC Mississippi |
New Name – the Childcare Directors Network Alliance, Inc.
Deloris Suel, founding member of the Childcare Directors Network Alliance, Inc., has announced the new name of the organization – not to be confused with the former CDN.
Why?
CDNA is now officially affiliated and partnered with Jackson State University in the sponsorship of the annual MECA Conference and more!
For more exciting information on how you can become a CDNA member, contact Deloris Suel at dsuel@comcast.net .
JOIN TODAY!
Posted: December 3, 2015 | Author: Debbie Ellis | Filed under: Child Care Advisory Council, Child Care Development Fund, Child Care Licensing, Child Care Mississippi, Delta Licensed Providers, MS Department of Health | Tags: child care licensing Mississippi, Mississippi child care, Mississippi Health Department |
Healthy baby dies minutes after falling asleep in car seat
Minutes after a licensed, in-home child care provider buckled 11-week-old Shepard Dodd into his car seat for a nap, the baby became unconscious and soon passed away. The young boy reportedly suffocated to death.
At 11-weeks-old, Shepard was unable to lift his head back up to open his airway. He reportedly died of asphyxiation.
“Child Care Providers should only put infants to sleep on their backs in a crib alone.”
http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/05/healthy-baby-dies-minutes-after-falling-asleep-in-car-seat/21259639/
Delta Licensed Providers 
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