Child Care Resource Center, San Bernardino Regional Director James Moses

Today we have James Moses, The Regional Director for Child Care Resource Center. James has 35 years of experience working specifically with children and families in in San Bernardino County in Social Service Programs .

Early Education and Development webpage:
https://www.sbcss.k12.ca.us/index.php/en/ess-2019/early-education-and-development

Music by lemonmusicstudio from Pixabay - Where the Light Is

Transcript

EED - James Moses

SPEAKERS

Nancy Sherod, James Moses, Ana Garcia

Nancy  00:07

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. Tomorrow's readiness starts today, a space where we share with you how the early education and development team is working alongside programs and initiatives that are shaping the future of childhood education. I'm Nancy Sherod. 

Ana  00:21

And I'm Anna Garcia. And today we have an episode that is jam packed with great information. Joining us today is James Moses, the Regional Director for Child Care Resource Center. Thanks for coming out to chat with us today. James, 

James M.  00:33

thank you for having me.

Nancy  00:34

 First, I need to jump in before we even get you starting on the second James, because I've been looking forward to this episode. I feel like I've been in this department for almost 20 months now. So a good chunk of time. And I always hear CCRC which acronyms, get yourselves ready again, guys. CCRC is Child Care Resource Center. I hear it and hear it and hear it. And I know we're doing amazing things alongside you. And I know you're doing bigger and more throughout all of the county. So I'm looking forward to how much learning I'm going to have today alongside all of our listeners.

Ana  01:04

 Yes. Thanks, Nancy. So James, let's dive right in. Can you share a little bit about your path and your role at Child Care Resource Center? 

James M.  01:12

Sure. You know, I have about 35 years of experience overall in the field working specifically with children and families in in San Bernardino County. My journey started with the County of San Bernardino where I worked in social service programs. And I worked there for nearly 17 years in all of the social services programs are many of them. And then I made a shift and came over to San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools. And I spent seven years with the superintendents office. And in that role, I spent a lot of time shifting into early care and education running the local Child Care Planning Council, operating our financial assistance programs, as well as programs we had at the time that are that are no longer here. My transition into the role that I currently have with CCRC really began  11 years ago this month, CCRC began operating these contracts that we'll talk more about today, I'm sure in San Bernardino County. So that's really what brought me here. I think just I have a passion to serve people and to help people. And I think that comes through my faith and how I try to live my life. And so it's no surprise that all the programs I've been involved with are programs that serve children and families in our community.

Nancy  03:26

Okay, so let's, focus now on ChildCare Resource Center CCRC, we can shift to CCRC going forward. Talk to us about the heart and the mission is CCRC. Give us a brief overview, for someone who's just now hearing about CCRC. And they haven't heard of it before.

James M.  03:44

CCRC is a as nonprofits go we're a large nonprofit, we serve northern LA County, all of San Bernardino County. And then through collaboration and partnership. We do a lot of statewide and national advocacy work, some research and evaluation projects as well. You know, our mission is really to cultivate child, family and community well being. And we do that through a myriad of programs that we offer. Some of them are programs that we operate ourselves solely but many of these programs are programs we offer in concert in partnership with many other organizations, and even the ones that you operate solo, really, you're connecting and partnering with many other organizations to really provide the full breadth of services you'd like to give children and families. So I don't think we do anything in a silo. Really, but some programs or programs that are ours to operate in some are programs that are really intended to be operated in, in a true partnership collaboration.

Ana  04:56

So James, can you talk a little bit about the role that you play at CCRC currently,

James M.  05:01

Sure I, I work in the Government Relations Division for CCRC. And we're part of the Office of Strategic engagement. So, my role, much of my role involves the work around policy and advocacy in the work I do with our government relations team. There's certainly in my role and emphasis in the Inland Empire in San Bernardino County, specifically working with our legislators, building relationships and partnerships with them. So we can really look at some of the issues that are facing children and families in our community. And think about what kind of policy ideas we have that may make adjustments or changes to how we provide services to children and families. So a big part of my role is that policy and advocacy work, and we work with a number of partners. Through this role, I work with national groups like in a EYCS policy team prog STS National Advisory Board, but also a statewide programs like the California Association for the Education of Young Children, every child California, where we work on policy and advocacy. But that gets kind of brought down more into our local level. And I chair the ECE region 10. It's called the EC voices network. And our region is Riverside, INYO, MONO in San Bernardino, San Bernardino County. So I lead the advocacy work for that region, as well as in partnership with others, the Inland Empire children's cabinet policy and advocacy work, where we really look to focus more on the needs of our communities, and how do we advocate for those needs. But how do we also build an advocacy network and help others learn how to advocate for the needs we have in our community? On outside of policy, my role is really to build relationships and look toward collaborative and partnership opportunities that might allow CCRC and others to expand the programs we operate, realizing that working together and leveraging our expertise, we're going to better serve children and families. So that's a big part of my role to look at what kind of collaborations and partnerships we can build locally, to maximize what we offer to children and families. 

Nancy  07:29

 Oh, that's perfect. So then let's go into that. Can you share a little bit about some of the work that's happening in San Bernardino County area with CCRC? What are the partnerships you're finding here? What kind of work is supporting the families around here and the needs that are out there? 

James M.  07:44

Sure, I think I'll start with kind of the programs that CCRC offers, and then I'll kind of go into a lot of the things we do collaboratively. And

Nancy  07:53

like I said, it's big work, you got a lot going on.

James M.  07:56

 We do and it you know, it's a blessing. It's a responsibility that we don't take lightly. So the biggest part of of the work we do and the funding we receive is around our childcare financial assistance program. So probably used to be less but it's with recent investments. This funding in this area has increased and it's probably 80%, or a little more of our total funding is to provide financial assistance to families who need help paying for childcare. So that's one of our programs. In addition, we provide resource a referral services, which is to ensure one that families know what their childcare options are in the community. Whether they're looking for state funded programs like CSPP, general childcare, Headstart programs, or they're looking for family childcare programs, family, friend and neighbor programs. So we really educate them on what's available in the community, that they're looking for their care and what might best meet their needs. In addition to the childcare resources, we provide resources just to meet their family needs. So we may you know, we provide a lot of diapers wipes, we provide connections to food, we provide connection to other services, through our resource, a referral program. On the Early Care and Learning side of things, we provide a lot of workforce development in the in the field. So this is we do this through a number of programs that I'll highlight later than those are really partnerships. But we've had workforce development programs in those partnerships, and in all of them are geared to increase the quality of the programs that are providing services to children and families. So examples of those are working quality start San Bernardino early headstart, childcare partnerships FCHEN programs which FCHEN is family childcare, home education networks, early headstart, childcare partnerships and the FCHEN programs, we work with family childcare providers, they provide the direct service to children and families. We work with them to ensure that the quality remains at a level the highest levels that that we can provide that if they need additional supports to continue providing quality services, we help them with those supports. In many cases, we have opportunity to provide additional services to the families. And so that's part of the support for some of those programs. We also have an Early Care and Learning Division. And so they operate state preschool classrooms, they operate Headstart classrooms, They also operate in it works a little different in LA in San Bernardino County because of some of our partnerships. So they offer the early headstart, childcare partnerships and the FCHEN. But it's just operated a little differently. And we can talk a little bit about that as well. We have a family wellbeing division that really looks at ensuring that the family has all the supports, they need to be well equipped to thrive, you know, that's the goal is that all families are going to thrive. So some of the programs they offer their home visitation, they offer early childhood mental health consultation, they run child abuse prevention programs, we have within the child abuse prevention programs, we have programs that are focused on maternal health, helping moms have a positive and quality pregnancy, but then ensuring that we work with them to help them create the best start in life for their children and their families as a whole.

Nancy  11:54

That's fantastic. So, when you say support, I just want to kind of clarify, you're giving supports with financial support with childcare if they need it, but also necessities, diapers, food. And then when you talk about supporting the programs, you're helping with coaching, but what else are you helping? When you say support or family childcare? What does that look like?

James M.  12:17

So, we provide a variety of supports for family childcare, right, some of that we provide directly or a lot of training, a lot of coaching through quality starts San Bernardino early headstart, childcare partnerships, but the FCHEN program also has coaching elements to it. We also do that in partnership, we do that in partnership with the county superintendent of schools, we've done that in partnership with the County of San Bernardino preschool services department. First Five is a big part of that partnership, because they often provide a lot of the funding and the backbone, infrastructure that helps us do those things. But in addition to those resources, so we provide, you know, in the financial assistance for helping families pay for care, but yeah, families can also access a lot of the resources, we provide the community at large. So we do large events, like our family play day events. But we also have other distribution events where families can get clothing, they can get food, they can get other household necessities, cleaning products, things of that nature, diapers is a big item that we help families with a lot of families. So those many of those supports go directly to families, they can come directly to us and get them. But we also work with the childcare providers and sometimes the products go to them and they help us get those out. And not just childcare providers, but we work with some of the medical clinics, and some of them. We have a trauma clinic here in town. And so, they work with the trauma clinic as well.

Nancy  13:58

Alright, James, so we've talked about the supports, let's rewind a little bit, let's kind of dial down to specifically who you're supporting and how they might get supports they might need. So I'll start with a family. A family is in need of childcare support a family is in need of diapers, where do they begin to try and get that support through CCRC?

James M.  14:16

So I think two of the easiest ways are for them to go to our website, which is www.ccrcca.org. Another way that they can reach us by phone is 1(866)674-KIDS. And either one of those ways they can get connected to our resources and what's available. I know sometimes folks have a harder time that way. And so, you know, often I tell them, they can call our San Bernardino offices directly if they call our San Bernardino offices, that numbers (909)384-8000 They can ask for myself or they can ask for my assistant, Amanda Gray. And we'll make sure that we communicate and understand what their needs are and get them connected to the appropriate services and the appropriate department.

Nancy  15:15

Now, what if we have a parent that says, I'm just going to make too much money? They're going to tell me I make too much money. I keep getting told I make too much money. Is it okay for them to call and just talk through? Is there layers of economic need that you guys navigate? 

James M.  15:28

Yeah, I think it's important for families to call instead of making an assumption of whether they're eligible, or they're not to call, and let our team really gather information from them and make that determination. What we've seen, and this is through a lot of the advocacy work that we along with many partners have done is we've seen the income eligibility limits increase for these programs. So a lot of families are eligible, but don't think they're eligible. 

Nancy  15:55

That's why I said that, 

James M.  15:57

you know, now, a family of four can make nearly $93,000 A year still be eligible a family of two, I believe it's right around 72,000. So we've seen a significant increase in that area. So it's always best for families to call us and let our team determine what they might have eligibility for with our programs. But there's also other financial assistance programs out there that they may qualify for. And to know that for sure, they should give us a call 

Nancy  16:26

CCRC. Give them those names, as they call if they don't qualify for work with you guys. Are suggestions 

James M.  16:32

Correct? Yes. So you know, our role, many families are eligible to the financial aid we offer, which allows them to pick the provider of their choice. But our job as a resource and referral agency is to really talk with the parents and determine what best meets the parents and the families needs. So sometimes it's a program, it's our CCRC program, it's picking the provider of their choice, but sometimes they want services in a state preschool or a headstart program, or another state funded, direct contracted program. So our job is to really communicate with them really understand what their needs are, and let them know what's available to them, and then make the connection and provide those resources to them to

Ana  17:16

parent choice program. So we want to make sure that we serve their families the way they need. Sorry,

Nancy  17:23

 I love that. That's perfect. That's what we should be doing. And that's what I wanted to hear. So let's shift to a new hat instead of the family's. I'm a childcare provider, I have my home with my small group of kids, and I would like to grow it or I'd like to maximize what I'm able to do. How do I get in contact with CCRC to do those supports, or get on your list to connect people because you're connecting families that call to schools.

James M.  17:46

So childcare providers or any providers in the you know, in the Early Care and Learning field would reach out to us the same way, as the parents do it that same information I provided so they can reach out and get connected to the resources we provide. When you think specifically about family childcare providers. You know, we've talked a little bit about the supports we provide to them. But we also support provide a lot of supports to what we call family, friend and neighbor programs. And one of the things we're really spend some time and energy focusing on is helping family friend and neighbor programs that want to become a small business owner and open a family childcare program. So we help them become a family childcare operator if they qualify. So we have a program that we everything's acronyms right, then we have a program that we call CCIP. It's CCIP. And it's the Child Care Initiative Project. And that program focuses on helping family friend and neighbor providers become licensed family childcare operators, that are resource or referral team, that department that I talked about, they also help providers if they want to go from a small family childcare to a large or a large family childcare to a center based provider and open a center. They help with those kinds of things. They'll also help existing centers who may want to open a second or expand or if they need help getting classrooms licensed, our resource referral team can help with those kinds of things. 

Nancy  19:23

And are they going to go into contact CCIP? Did I get the acronym right? How would they go about getting connected there?

James M.  19:30

So they would connect the same way through the website. The reality is that many of them are connected already either through us because they're providing care for a family on our program many times. There are times that our family friend and neighbor programs could be providing care for the Transitional Assistance department who operates what we call stage one child care. They could be providing care for a transitional assistance department child but We're still connected to those providers, they have an opportunity. You know, in a perfect world, every provider in the county of San Bernardino, especially every licensed provider would be registered with our resource or referral program, I think we have somewhere between 90 and 95% registered with us now,

Nancy  20:19

 that's very good. 

James M.  20:20

We'd like to see all of them registered. If they're not registered, then we don't have their information to be able to provide a referral to families. So we're engaged with most of the family friend and neighbor providers already. So they're already kind of connected in generally hear about the information that we provide related to becoming a provider, a licensed provider.

Nancy  20:42

So I'm going to put on one of my old hats, because I'm going to ask another layer that I think is definitely missing. And you and I've had this conversation before, because I was a principal before this gig. And as a principal, I wish I had known because I know I had moms in front of me crying that they couldn't get their three-year-old to where they needed to go while their kindergartner was in one place in their fifth grader was in one place. So if I have an LEA a local learning, you know, local education agency at school district that wants to get more information or wants to understand how to possibly do a referral to get supports and get their families connected to your resources, what would a school district do? 

James M.  21:18

You know, I think a school district could contact me directly. They also can get connected to things we're offering through the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools, the UPK mixed delivery meetings where many of our early childhood providers are at that table, along with our state preschool and some of our TK programs. So we connected there. But if a school district wants to learn more about how they might connect with the early childhood field, the childcare field, I would just encourage them to reach out to me, they can email me at jmoses@ccrcca.org  And I'd be happy to have a conversation with them to look at how we better collaborate and create partnerships that might provide better services to all the children and families in their in their community. But I know they're often looking really, how do I support those students that are in my classrooms or in my local elementary school, and so we'd be happy to have those conversations? 

Nancy  22:19

Well, I know that some of our schools are turning into community schools. And when you have a community school, you're going beyond what's on your site, you're going to the family's entire foods. So we have an episode of that coming up soon. But I do think that community school partnership is a whole new layer that might be able to partner which again, my rainbows and unicorns, it's all going to happen. And everybody's going to be magically getting into all these pieces is faster at a pace, much more than we can keep up with. I'm hoping

James M.  22:45

CCRC really is interested in seeing how we grow the community school model in the community school services, you know, we see, we kind of feel that Headstart 's are a good example of a community service model. But you know, for the zero to five population, and we're excited about some of the opportunities that may exist. I know that CCRC going to be meeting with folks at SBCSS to really talk about how we connect the early childhood field in the work done in the early childhood field with Community Schools programs.

Nancy  23:23

That's awesome. That's good to hear. 

Ana  23:25

James, what do you believe are the most pressing challenges facing early education today? And how are you addressing them through your work?

James M.  23:33

I think there are several challenges where we're facing and I think we think about challenges. One of the things I just want to share is that every challenge presents opportunities. So you know, while we look at it as challenges, I want us to think about what opportunities might exist for us to grow the field grow the services to children and families. So there are several that are that are the field as a whole are concerned about I think one is UPK and the transition of a lot of our four year olds to transitional kindergarten. So we have a situation where we're providing this opportunity for all four year olds to get a year of preschool education before they go to kindergarten. But for many families, they're left out of have choices in that right. So if a family's low income, they're able to access not only Transitional Kindergarten, but often state preschool, other state funded programs, perhaps even our Headstart program, so there's they have a lot of choices within the UPK mixed delivery system. For families who aren't income eligible, their choices diminish. And so that that creates a challenge in the field because many of our private providers were serving those four year olds, and now they've lost them and so they're having to transition into serving the birth through three population, which is a lot more costly to provide those services, we need more children because the teacher child ratio is greater so many four year olds that were being served in private pay programs are now having eligibility to transitional kindergarten programs. And they're able to receive full day services Monday through Friday. So where private providers were providing this, in many cases, they've now lost these four-year-olds and they're having to shift to keep their businesses open, they're having to shift to serving the birth to three year old population. And this comes with many challenges for those providers we have the ratios are greater. So if you're serving preschool children, you only need one child, I mean, one adult for every eight children, but for infant toddler programs, you need one adult for every four children. So you're Yeah, that creates a situation where your staffing needs nearly double, if not more than than double in some cases. So learning is a challenge for many providers losing four-year-olds to transitional kindergarten programs, that's a challenge. where the opportunity lies is if we can figure out how to collaborate and partner, especially with all the resources that are coming down to support the broader UPK system, if we can utilize those to really build the infrastructure for all providers to create a situation where four year olds have opportunities throughout the mix delivery system TK included, but providers have an opportunity to really get some funding and enhance what they offer to the Birth to Three population, if they can really make that shift. And they're going to need help with things like licensing, they're going to need staff help. They're going to need staff training, perhaps they may need more different materials, different supplies to meet the needs of children that are infant toddler ages. So it's an opportunity for us to serve more children. But it does come with a lot of hurdles that we need to figure out how to overcome together. Another challenge I think we're facing in the field is around the reimbursement rates. We have traditionally paid providers based on what I really want, there was one or two systems. So private providers that are serving Alternative Payment children or private pay children. They were paid rates that were built off a regional market rate. And then direct funded programs were paid a standard reimbursement rate, these rates came out of two different systems, they varied widely in many cases, and they were insufficient, they do not keep up with the cost of quality care. So we've recently had a lot of success with our state legislature and our governor to to begin to shift to the cost of quality care model which will pay providers based on what it costs to provide quality care for children. And the challenge with this is it that's extremely costly. And so ensuring that we have funding in the budget each year to support that requires a lot of advocacy and a lot of even some additional policy work. And so advocates, and many at CCRC in our Sacramento office are working tirelessly, to ensure that we we make sure those rates get increased each year. And we really move towards this cost of quality care model. So that's a big challenge to ensure that that we're increasing those rates in a way that providers can afford to provide quality care, kind of going hand in hand with that is a teacher shortage, which largely, I think is due to teacher compensation, especially in the Early Care and Learning field, where many of our staff the teachers in those classrooms are eligible for financial aid for the programs they're operating. Many of them are making minimum wage or just over minimum wage. They now that we have a wage increase for fast food staff and a wage increase for you know, the medical field regardless of what role you have in the medical field. I think we may even see more of our staff move that direction and so right in that creates challenge and you can blame folks for wanting to make more money and thinking about that. That's human nature and something we all really wrestle with to ensure that we're meeting the needs of our own families. But we are seeing, we are seeing our field impacted greatly as a result of that. So we're also going to need to create opportunities to ensure that teachers can be in the field longer. We have some bills out there, specifically AB1930, which is going to allow associate teacher permitted teachers to renew that permit more than one time, which will keep many of our associate teachers in the field longer if that bill passes. So we have like, so we have challenges, but it does create opportunity, there is the opportunity to serve more children, there's the opportunity for teachers to be in the field longer if we make proper adjustments. And so it's a matter of how do we take on these challenges. 

Nancy  30:56

And you're taking on a ton of them on your shoulders in your role right now, which we appreciate and love hearing about? 

James M.  31:03

Yeah, although like I said before, it's not, you know, you don't do any of this work in a silo. So I'm part of it. But there's a whole lot of other people that do you know, as much or more than I do to really elevate this field and really ensure that children and families have what they need.

Nancy  31:20

Looking ahead, what do you see for the future of early ed, what do you see, you know, as the next steps, what's the big thing you're looking forward to UPK mix, delivery is huge piece, shifting a lot of pieces with workforce, and qualifications and funding and all those pieces. So what do you what do you see as the next big, we're moving towards this, and I can see this happening. And this is what I'm excited about seeing come down.

James M.  31:48

 I think I'm excited for some of the opportunities that are being expanded for children and families. I think what I'm looking forward to really is the work we've been doing for many, many years. So we have staff at CCRC leadership staff that I've been working on increased reimbursement rates that I've spoken about for more than 10 years. So I'm looking forward to the time when we realize things like proper reimbursement rates that pay providers on the cost of quality care, when we realize have field and a system that pays our early learning teachers, a livable wage. So those are things I'm looking forward to, I think there's a lot of work to get there. But without those things, we're not going to see, we're not going to see children and families served the way we want to see them served. So we need to take care of the field to ensure that they can take care of the families. So I really look forward to a time where we have fully funded the field fully funded the staff who work in the field in terms of a compensation so that they can be as equipped as they can be to go out and provide services to our communities.

Ana  33:11

So James, is there anything else you'd like to share with our audience about, you know, your passions, your work, or just anything in general that you'd like to share with our listeners?

James M.  33:20

You know, I think I just like to share that we can't do this work alone. I've mentioned that and we've talked about the partnerships, you know, and I you know, I didn't cover all the partnerships. But you know, we're blessed to work with many departments at the County of San Bernardino. We work with the County Superintendent, First Five, San Bernardino, as well as many school districts individually. And most of those partnerships are in the in the program world, right, how we're going to provide services, children, families. One of the things I'd really like to see as more individuals and organizations come to the advocacy table with us, really help us to talk with legislators, the governor, departments about how important the work they're doing is really share from their perspective what the needs are. It's one thing for me as an advocate, to go and advocate for them and talk about the work they do and what the needs of their programs are. When our legislators have a chance to hear specifically from the teachers from the providers and understand and even the parents and understand from their perspectives, what they're going through and what we need. That's powerful. So I think you know, if I had a request it would be that as if you have an interest in, in advocating for our field for children and families. We'd love to speak with you we'd love to talk about the opportunities that exist in many of our local networks and really help you become an advocate with us and maybe somewhere down the line becoming a leader in advocacy for our field and for our communities

Nancy  35:01

Okay, so let's take them back one more time, what's the website that they can go to for any of the resources we talked about? And just to get connected?

James M.  35:09

www.ccrcca.org.

Nancy  35:13

And the phone number was 

James M.  35:15

1(866)674-KIDS

Nancy  35:16

Okay, and because you gave it already once I'm going to have you repeat it, because if we have people that really want to advocate and hear your voice and said, Yes, I'm ready to jump in there with you, James, what's your email address,

James M.  35:30

they can reach me at JMoses@ccrcca.org. 

Nancy  35:35

So my hope is that your inbox is going to be flooded when this episode drops with people that are just ready to stand alongside you and jump in with all of your team. Because this is important work, important work that started a long time ago and will can continue, and I'm excited to see where we go. 

James M.  35:53

Thank you. I look forward to having a full inbox. I don't know exactly how we're going to manage it. But we'll figure it out 

Nancy  35:59

that's a good problem to tackle right.

Ana  36:02

Well, James, we want to thank you for joining us today and sharing all this valuable information. We know our listeners will absolutely benefit from all the great things that you've shared today. 

James M.  36:11

Well, thank you so much. We appreciate the partnership we have with county superintendents office and we appreciate the opportunity to share with our community, what we offer, how they can access it and how they can be involved in the work we're doing. So I really appreciate the opportunity to share. 

Nancy  36:26

Alright, well, that brings us to the end of yet another episode. We thank our listeners for joining us and we want you to remember that each month, we will continue to come together to share with you how tomorrow's readiness starts today.