Innovative Practices

St. David’s Center

St. David's Center History

St. David's Center was founded in 1961 as one of the first preschools in our area to integrate children of all abilities. For decades, our inclusive early education program has been offered in tandem with a continuum of early intervention services to optimize child development outcomes.

Today, as an independent 501c3 nonprofit organization, St. David's Center is a regional leader in child and family development, providing educational, early intervention and treatment, and social services for children and families whose life experiences include mental health concerns, child abuse or neglect, and developmental, physical, cognitive, emotional, and/or behavioral delays or disabilities.

Community Needs

We know from research the positive effects from high-quality early childhood education programs are magnified in children with economic disadvantages and children with special needs, yet these children are the least likely to have access to inclusive quality early education and childcare. Without consistent, well-informed, and well-equipped childcare providers and early childhood teachers, complex developmental and behavioral issues in children can lead to exclusion in the preschool years, identifying the child as the "problem," instead of addressing the underlying reasons why a child may be struggling. Without the crucial support during early development that sets a child up for success, children and families may face difficult transitions into mainstream learning environments and poor educational outcomes later on.

Inclusive childcare is critical to parents maintaining employment and meeting the basic needs of their children. Affordability in childcare and early childhood education is already a significant challenge for many families, not only those in poverty. Without access to childcare settings that not only welcome but truly meet their children where they are, parents either opt out of work or have inconsistent attendance, often depending on family, friend, or neighbor care that may also be experiencing personal or community distress.

In addition, the childcare shortage disproportionately affects families of children with disabilities, medical complexities, and behavioral health concerns. According to the Minnesota Department of Education's 2022-23 Early Childhood Screening (ECS) Report, 1,217 children screened were flagged for social/emotional behavior problems, 1,533 indicated cognitive problems, and over 2,100 with speech/language problems. For many children, challenging behaviors and developmental concerns do not present themselves until the children are introduced into a group setting for the first time. Children with challenging behaviors are more likely to be suspended or expelled from preschool settings and teachers may often resort to expulsion and suspension to address those behaviors. In addition, due to implicit or structural bias and the impacts of poverty and historical trauma, children of color are more likely to be removed from childcare for behavioral issues.

Solutions

St. David's Center's Early Childhood Education Program provides a flexible, inclusive early learning environment for children ages 16 months to kindergarten that responds to the individual learning needs of each child. We provide a tailored educational environment for up to 200 children annually, reserving approximately a third of our placements for children with a range of special needs, which provides an opportunity for children of all abilities to learn alongside one another, find similarities, honor differences, and increase compassion and empathy for others. As leaders in inclusion, we know children make greater developmental gains when they learn together in the same environment. Children with special needs make greater progress when included with their typically-developing peers, and typically-developing children make greater progress, as they have increased opportunities for leadership, empathy, and compassion. An inclusive classroom helps children gain an appreciation of diversity and encourages them to become more confident and comfortable with peers of all abilities. At St. David's Center, we believe children are set up for success when they are learning and playing alongside children of diverse abilities, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Our classrooms focus heavily on social-emotional development, which is the cornerstone for all development and the greatest indicator of later success in life. We believe all children have something unique to offer, and we believe in celebrating differences.

The inclusive nature of our classrooms means our teachers effectively differentiate their instruction for all abilities and learning styles through our curriculum, the set-up of the classroom environment, the materials offered, and the daily routines. Our classrooms are filled with resources and tools that all children have access to and that support our children's individual needs throughout the day. In addition, our daily routines are consistent and created with developmentally appropriate practices in mind. For example, transitions and wait times are limited, and children are given options for how they want to participate during group times to increase learning and engagement.

Using a holistic, strengths-based, and multidisciplinary approach, we help our teachers to identify and support children with unidentified developmental delays in the classroom and engage parents as partners in supporting their child's growth and development at home. Our goals include kindergarten readiness, improved mental health, stronger parent/caregiver-child relationships, improved developmental outcomes, and enhanced capacity for caregivers to support children with challenging needs. Backed by extensive research, we know that school readiness includes not just the readiness of the individual child but also the ability of the family (and community) to support optimal early child development.

Our low teacher:child ratio is one way we demonstrate our deep commitment to high-quality childcare and education for children of all abilities. In our toddler classrooms, we have no more than 18 children with three teachers the majority of the time. In our preschool rooms, we have no more than 14 children with two teachers. Children who are cared for in settings with lower teacher:child ratios benefit from more stimulating and responsive care. They also engage in more verbal interactions with their caregivers. These interactions foster secure attachments that are critical for a child's social emotional wellbeing and build the foundation for a child's ability to build healthy relationships in the future. Smaller group sizes have also been associated with children's positive development including higher social competence, communication and language skills, and cognitive development.

Additionally, St. David's Center provides access to a continuum of early intervention services including therapeutic preschool programming for young children (early childhood mental health and autism); mental health services and pediatric therapies (occupational, speech/language) in the same building as our early childhood education program. For parents, this means that one location serves all their children's needs. For teachers, it means a supportive, multidisciplinary environment and a collaborative, comprehensive approach to every child's development. For children, it means a strong foundation that prepares them to access every educational opportunity in the future regardless of ability.

The main components of our ECE and early intervention model include:

• Inclusive, tailored preschool program for children of all abilities, taught and staffed by skilled teachers, assistant teachers, and paraprofessionals.

• Inclusion specialists: Equipped with decades of experience working with children with special needs, our Inclusion Specialists conduct observations, strategize with teachers and complete formal assessments. Teachers may request an Inclusion Specialist to observe a specific child in their classroom, in the hallways and gyms, and on the playgrounds; offer strategies to meet a child's needs in a group setting; and make recommendations and referrals to parents for additional testing or interventions.

• Dedicated student support: Our teaching staff support individual learning, assist with observation and functional assessment, document behavior, implement strategies to support learning as developed by teachers and/or Inclusion Specialists, and provide in-the-moment opportunities for children to practice learning and relationship skills.

• Care Coordination: Many of our families also receive care coordination for children who are accessing multiple services within St. David's Center as well as through school districts, other nonprofit agencies, the county, and their primary healthcare providers.

Impact

Our results show the tremendous impact that our model has on the lives of children and families in our community. In 2023, our Inclusive Early Childhood Education program served 170 children. Overall, with 100% expected on a developmental trajectory, children demonstrated gains of 133% in social-emotional development, and gains of 137% in executive function. Additionally, results from a December 2023 parent survey indicated that 93% of parents feel their child is doing/feeling better, while 69% stated that as a result of services, they feel better equipped to support their child. By providing tailored learning environments, flexible classroom support, and multidisciplinary expertise integrated across a continuum of services at St. David's Center, children of all abilities receive the support they need to build competence and confidence in mainstream learning environments, successfully transition to kindergarten, and achieve their full, lifelong potential.

On a more macro and systemic level, we are impacting the greater community by providing inclusive childcare training and consultation to other childcare centers, with a focus on those centers that primarily serve racially and economically diverse populations. Our aim is to build capacity in both center leadership and staff so that they can better care for children with developmental delays or emerging mental health needs.

Our training and consultation model is designed to build and support an inclusion mindset across all decisions within a childcare center from hiring and training to budgeting and enrollment to classroom and shared space protocols to teacher communication with families and referrals for early assessment. In practice, center directors engage in a guided interview that clarifies the current state, informs the direction of our work, and identifies gaps in tools and templates that can help them lead with an inclusive mindset. Teachers are then offered training, consultation, and the opportunity to learn in real time with our consultants working alongside them in their classrooms. We help teachers understand the meaning inside children's behavior and provide them with support to address behavior effectively and equitably.

With this model, we are creating a systemic shift in the early education and care of children with developmental disabilities and behavioral health needs, preventing childcare expulsion and eliminating disparities in early education and care.

Creativity and new community partnership are taking shape to solve Central Minnesota's child care crisis

By Laura Billings Coleman | Published by IQ Magazine by the Initiative Foundation

Hackensack and other communities hit by home daycare closures have asked Morgan Dabill if the model for her smaller-than-average child care center could be more sustainable in outstate Minnesota. "It's critical that I keep my focus on getting my business off the ground, but if it's a model that works, we'll keep using it." Like any new business owner, Morgan Dabill had a lot on her mind in the lead-up to launching a new child care center in Pine River. After finding the perfect plot of land on the route between Pequot Lakes and Backus, Dabill spent months meeting with bank officers, fine-tuning her business plan, applying for grants, supervising the construction, and hiring and training staff certified to handle everything from infant care to after-school programs.

The one thing she didn't have to worry about was attracting customers.

"As soon as word got out that we were even thinking about starting this up, I had people messaging me about finding a spot for their kids," says Dabill. "Since the pandemic, I know of so many parents who've had to cut their hours or quit working completely because there's no place for their kids to go. I've had families calling from 45 minutes away. You can feel how desperate they are."

Since opening its doors in October 2022, the Wild Roots Early Learning Center is already in the black with more than 40 children in full-time care, a staff of nine caregivers, and more than a year-long waiting list for infant care. When fully enrolled, Dabill's nature-focused operation will be able to accommodate nearly 70 kids from 6 weeks to 12 years old, dramatically improving child care options in an area hard hit by the recent closure of several family-based providers. But across much of Greater Minnesota, finding available child care slots remains an uphill battle for working families—and a growing headache for employers.

"What was already a deeply entrenched problem prior to the pandemic has, in fact, gotten worse—particularly in Central Minnesota, where there's a forecasted shortfall of up to 17,000 child care slots to meet demand," said Don Hickman, Initiative Foundation's vice president for community and workforce development. Family-based providers have long been the backbone of the rural child care system. For the past 20 years, though, providers have been leaving the field at a far faster rate than they've been replaced. It's happened for a host of reasons: from a predictable wave of Baby Boom retirements to the unexpected challenges of operating through the pandemic. While profit margins have always been low—providers need to make their rates affordable for working parents—Minnesota's strong post-pandemic jobs recovery has added additional pressure as child care workers leave the field for richer opportunities.

"Many providers now have to wonder why they're working 14-hour days and wearing down their homes while running a home child care when they could be making several dollars an hour more, with benefits, working at a gas station or a grocery store," Hickman said. While expanding capacity in child care centers has helped to offset the closure of home-based options in higher-density areas, that's not an option in most of Minnesota's rural communities. "You typically need a mass of 80 children to make a child care center cash flow," he said. "Smaller communities don't have those numbers, so families are a hundred percent dependent on home-based providers."

Quality, affordable child care can no longer be viewed as a short-term problem families need to solve. "This is an economic development challenge," Hickman said. "The free market isn't going to fix it on its own.

Communities Commit

Fortunately, a growing number of communities across the Initiative Foundation region are making inroads as they explore more sustainable solutions to the persistent shortage. "Several years ago, if you mentioned child care to a room full of employers, you'd hear crickets," said Marnie Werner, vice president for research and operations at the Center for Rural Policy and Development. Werner is the author of a new report, Rural Child Care Solutions: From the Ground Up. "The child care issue is now converging with the retirement of Baby Boomers, and if there's not enough child care in a community, you've got an increasingly smaller pool of workers to fight over."

That trend is what motivated Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures to take the lead on creating a new child care center to serve young families in 30 new workforce housing units at Red Willow Estates in Onamia. "As we thought about how to tackle the child care problem in our region, we looked at the ways we could utilize our available buildings," said Beth Gruber, director of planning and community engagement at Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures (MLCV). Working with Kidz Zone, a provider with centers in Garrison and Aitkin, MLCV recently earned a major grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) to fast-track the development of a 63-slot child care center set to open in the fall of 2023. Partners at Mille Lacs Health System, eager to expand child care options for their growing workforce, will cater the food for the center, eliminating the need to install a commercial kitchen. "The Mille Lacs Band is the largest employer in this region, so this partnership will really help our workforce. At the same time, it will serve everyone in our community," Gruber said.

That all-hands approach also is on display in Brainerd, where the YMCA recently earned $600,000 in federal funding to help convert a former funeral home into a child care center for up to 140 kids. Even before the pandemic, Crow Wing County had a child care deficit of about 1,300 spots. It's a shortage that has galvanized multiple partners to help fill the gap with grants from DEED, the Brainerd Lakes Area Community Foundation, Minnesota Main Street Economic Revitalization funds, and American Rescue Plan Act funding from Crow Wing County. Seeing business, government and philanthropy working together to solve the child care gap in Brainerd is an encouraging sign, says Werner. "Over the last 20 years I've been studying this, it's clear that real community cooperation, getting everyone on board, is what contributes to long-term success," she says. "This is too big a problem to expect just one sector to solve everything."

COMMUNITY-BASED PROBLEM-SOLVING: An all-hands approach is being taken by communities throughout the region to address child care shortages. Beth Gruber of Mille Lacs Corporate Ventures at the site of a future child care location.

The Initiative Foundation provided grants to support the Pine River, Onamia and Brainerd projects. It also has supported a host of other projects across the region as part of its long-standing commitment to improving and expanding early childhood options. The Foundation has also brokered a partnership with First Children's Finance and Chisago, Pine, Mille Lacs and Isanti counties by offering each county a $10,000 challenge match to implement their best ideas for overcoming the child care gap.

Investing in the Profession

While increasing child care capacity across the region is critical, Hickman said, Central Minnesota will also need to activate a new generation of child care providers, especially those who can fill the growing gaps in family-based child care. "Lifting up home-based providers is critical to rural areas that don't have big employers that can take the lead," he said. "Home-based care is typically one-third cheaper than center-based care, and for these rural communities, having room for eight to 10 kids is right-sized."

To encourage more people to enter the profession, or expand the capacity of their current child care businesses, the Initiative Foundation has contracted with St. Cloud Technical and Community College, Central Lakes College in Brainerd, and Pine Technical and Community College to make it possible for students to graduate debt-free while earning certifications and degrees in early child development and education. The Foundation also is exploring partnerships to expand the offering to the Leech Lake Tribal College, and to build credentialing pathways in both Spanish- and Somali-language programs.

"If students still need help after [they've been] awarded financial aid, the Initiative Foundation covers the rest," said Annette Weaver, Pine Tech's education coordinator. Weaver also leads the region's professional development delivery initiative for Child Care Aware.

With virtual night-time classes, many early childhood education offerings have been retooled to fast-track workers sidelined by the pandemic into new jobs in child care, and to make continued certification simpler for working providers in rural areas. Since launching, the program has made it possible to graduate nearly 200 child care providers per semester, and to support continued certification paths for fledgling providers like Cora Collins, 28, who just launched a home-based child care in Brainerd after leaving a third-shift manufacturing job.

"This first year has been more of a challenge than I'd expected," said Collins, who notes that making required safety updates to her home, and setting prices that are affordable for working families while remaining profitable, has been a challenge. "I love working with children, but financially, it doesn't always make sense."

That's why experts believe a final piece of the child care puzzle will depend on finding new ways to ensure providers can improve upon the current average: $11 an hour and a 65-hour work week. "Even if they're providing care because it's something they value doing in their communities, we still need to think about family providers as small businesses that need support," says Elizabeth Davis, professor of applied economics at the University of Minnesota. In Swift County, for instance, a child care grant program helps family providers cover ancillary expenses, up to $150 per enrolled child. Brown County dropped all licensing fees for family child care providers. Cook County has a child care assistance program that helps qualifying families pay for a portion of their child care costs, making care more accessible to families and rates more sustainable for providers.

Werner, for her part, also sees promise in the so-called "pod model," which would allow multiple licensed family providers to use a single location, like a church, for serving small groups of kids outside of their home. Multiple studies show that the stress, isolation and wear and tear of having a business in the home is a serious pain point for potential family providers. "Pods are a way to get those businesses out of the home," Werner said. "Women have so many more career options that the days when a young mother will decide to take in a few more kids while they're home are coming to an end. The more we can do to help family providers run their day cares as profitable businesses, the more it's going to have an effect."

Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation (SMIF)

Brenda Novack, Family Child Care Provider in Waterville, Le Sueur County

SMIF uses DEED dollars to support training in their region to limit costs for providers who are required to take a minimum of 16 hours of training a year. The trainings delivered assist providers in implementing new and innovative practices in their business of caring for children. The trainings support building quality for providers in Southern Minnesota. Little Wonders Child Care is sharing their experience with SMIF training. Keep reading for a provider's story on how trainings supported by SMIF have benefited her small business caring for children.

Little Wonders Child Care, which is my family-based program, has been open for 14 years, and I have been in the child care field for 27 years. Two years ago, I bought the home next to mine, so I now operate my Childcare program out of a second home. It has its own playground and everything in the house is all geared toward the kids. Since it's a separate building, I don't have to live and breathe my business like I did 27 years ago.

I have taken many of the classes that SMIF offers to childcare providers. I take a lot of trainings to enhance my program. I always go into a training with the idea that I want to learn one new thing, and I want to take something back and rejuvenate my program. I've definitely done that through the training opportunities from SMIF

I took the S.M.A.R.T. Steps class, which supports body movements for healthy brain development and can help with challenging behaviors. I loved that class so much that they asked me to come back and help facilitate chat sessions. I incorporate S.M.A.R.T. every day into what I do with my kids. We're constantly working on building our cores, on the floor jumping, crawling, and using the large motor development movements. Using the tools from that class has really helped me manage behaviors. At this point, I would call my childcare a S.M.A.R.T. program.

I have taken the Conscious Discipline class twice, which addresses behavioral challenges in compassionate ways. The first time I took it, I had a little girl whose mom was deployed. I was really struggling with her on how to meet her needs. I was thinking outside the box on how to handle the separation for her because she was very attached to her mom. Conscious Discipline helped by gave me some tools to help her. We did Brain Breaks which I still love to do with the kids. It's a C.D. of different songs and it helps the kids move in different ways. Another thing I did was develop a special space just for her. I had her bring a favorite stuffy from home as well as using the feeling dolls and poster that Conscious Discipline recommends. Her mom flew the United States flag in honor of Little Wonders Childcare over the base. When mom returned home, she presented us with the flag and a special certificate.

In the fall of 2023, I took a training about working with children with ADHD which was part of SMIF's Dine and Learn series. I took the class with one child in mind who has not been diagnosed with ADHD, but has a lot of the aspects of it, so I wanted to take it and learn a little more about it. I learned something important, that when people think about ADHD, they think about the hyper end of it. And the trainer mentioned that there can be a difference in how boys and girls act when they have ADHD – that girls can be a little quieter and tend to daydream more. They tend to be the ones who get overlooked if they have ADHD because the teachers and parents don't recognize it.

It means a lot that we have this option in our region for providers to take trainings. I get to connect with other providers in this area, not just throughout the state. I really do enjoy both the online and the in-person trainings. It's nice to be able to sit down at a table with a group of other professionals in the field, and if I've had a rough day, I can look at someone next to me and we can bounce ideas off each other on how to handle things.

Having SMIF offer these trainings to us, it shows that our profession is being valued, which is huge. It's something that most people don't acknowledge. So, this is a positive message that says, "Hey, we value you and we want you to be able to fulfill your trainings that the State is requiring you to keep your license up to date." When the trainings are offered, I always ask myself, do I need this for my license? Or is this class run by a trainer that I really enjoy listening to? Sometimes I might just go and listen to that training one more time because I might learn something new. I would just like to thank SMIF for offering these classes.

This story is from SMIF's 2024 Impact Report which will be published in January 2025.

MN Initiative Foundation

West Central Initiative, Marsha Erickson

Lead Project Contact

CAPLP Child Care Aware, Maria Steen Child Care Connections Director and Katie Sonsthagen, Family Child Care Supports Coordinator

Background

West Central Initiative's Early Childhood Initiative and the CAPLP Child Care Aware staff (along with other regional partners) have a long-standing relationship of troubleshooting child care issues, planning solutions and working together to implementing programs that best serve the early care and education system in west central Minnesota.

With input from several partners, CAPLP Child Care Aware received a Department of Human Services grant and took the lead, developing a program "hub" called Shared Services Alliance.  As titled, this program is designed to congregate child care-related services in one "space" to allow family-based child care providers to access services and share resources with a goal of supporting the economic health of these small businesses.  As the first project, the CAPLP Shared Services Alliance planned to overcome some of the key barriers that prevent family child care (FCC) providers from utilizing substitutes and assistant caregivers while also attempting to address some of the causes of burnout in the FCC profession specifically. The planning process found these barriers that prevent the use of substitutes:

• Lack of qualified adults to fill the role,
• The costs related to CPR/First Aid & other required trainings for the substitutes,
• The out-of-pocket costs related to paying substitute wages.

Having access to a low-cost substitute or assistant caregiver has a dual goal.  First, it is designed to improve the sustainability of FCC providers by giving them paid time off, while not needing to close their child care business for the children and their families. Secondly, FCC providers consistently cite the job's isolation and long hours as one reason that they leave the field. This program allows the provider to attend events and appointments during the day, or to bring a second trained adult into the care environment for an extra set of hands.  Additionally, FCC providers tend to fall in the middle- to lower-income brackets, and the business model for child care does not create high profit margins. The Shared Services substitute programming was the best solution to address all these concerns.

Program Design

The initial pilot of the FCC Shared Services Alliance, which began design in May 2022 and was launched in January 2023, was targeted within Becker County.   To pilot the program, the partners felt they needed to concentrate on a smaller geographic area, working through logistics and program "bugs."  Becker County was home to 60 licensed family child care (FCC) providers, and White Earth Early Childhood Program tribally licensed 18 FCC programs. White Earth Nation is geographically located on lands that Minnesota identifies as Becker & Mahnomen Counties. CAPLP's Shared Services Alliance Substitute Program was open to all Becker County & White Earth licensed FCC providers who had licenses in good standing.  Additionally, Becker County had taken a momentous lead in bringing together community partners to address their community child care crisis. Becker County Commissioners invested $270,000 from the federal COVID relief packages (CARES and ARP) for startup and ongoing grants to child care programs. They have a taskforce that meets monthly to discuss and address topics like the workforce, expansion, and retention efforts. Their needs assessment of current FCC providers indicated FCC programs needed access to resources to sustain their businesses; substitutes/a substitute pool was indicated as a high need. The overall community focus on child care was instrumental in implementing the pilot. Finally, key partners in this work, jointly serving the community—White Earth Early Childhood, MAHUBE-OTWA Community Action Partnership, West Central Initiative, & Essentia Health—all affirmed the need for this child care substitute service.

CAPLP Child Care Aware took on the responsibility of hiring part-time substitutes as CAPLP employees.  They earn a competitive wage and accrue PTO as part-time employees.  CAPLP Child Care Aware pays for required training and background checks, and keeps records on file for the county licensor for the approved subs. This eliminates the burden from individual FCC providers' plates. The FCC Support Coordinator designed a simple Microsoft Form to collect membership data (for evaluation purposes) and built an online reservation/booking system that providers are granted access to once they join the Alliance. Providers have appreciated the ease with which they can look at the shared calendar of availability and put a request in for a substitute within minutes.

The FCC Support Coordinator did the work of designing the membership and scheduling platforms.  Free technology was used whenever available.  The forms providers complete are done with Microsoft Forms, and the bookings calendar is through Microsoft Bookings, which links to employee Outlook calendars. It is important to note, however, that as the service grows, Child Care Aware is exploring other booking services that charge a fee but that seem to be able to handle the increased volume of subs and clients.

Grant funding through the Department of Human Services has been used to heavily subsidize the cost of the substitutes. The providers are charged $5/hour for the service, while the actual wage & benefits for the CAPLP subs costs run closer to $24.50/hour. Program organizers feel that keeping the service affordable is a requirement to make it accessible for providers.

The original one-year budget was approximately $70,000, which included the income generated by the service fees. The bulk of the budget went to the coordinator & substitute wages. One factor that was a bigger variable than anticipated was the cost for travel. Because of our hiring challenges, not all the subs were located within the targeted geographic area, and thus, mileage costs were higher. The budget was adjusted to anticipate greater travel costs in the second year. By the end of the first pilot year, we had eight FCC providers consistently using the service.  This was lower than anticipated. However, the positive feedback from users and the incremental growth has led to expansion. Based on eight users over 9 months of actual subbing available, the cost currently is approximately $5,900 per client. As this is a shared service with the intent to reduce costs as the scale grows, we project this per client cost to be greatly reduced as more providers are served.

Lessons Learned

All partner input, including the family child care providers themselves, along with all theories and assumptions around this idea, told the organizers that this was a need.  To get this pilot off the ground, it took a lot of time and relationship building.

The original design of the program was to hire one full-time substitute/coordinator. After facing the hiring challenges that many other agencies faced exiting the pandemic in 2022. CAPLP revised the plan to hire a 32 hour/week Substitute/Coordinator with the option to hire multiple part-time substitutes. Once the coordinator was hired, about 6 months into the pilot, more targeted work could take place. CAPLP initially found that the FCC providers were hesitant to open their care setting to someone they did not know. To help build relationships, CAPLP offered the first session for free as an orientation and assistant caregiver time. The substitute would work alongside the provider, getting to know the children, the space and the provider's routine.  The assistant caregiver option allows the provider time to prepare lunch, do paperwork or other duties, while the assistant supervises the children.

The coordinator attended community meetings and spoke with area child care providers to spread the word about this new service. She also leaned into the Becker County Early Childhood Initiative partner (a program supported by West Central Initiative) to help recruit for the substitute pool. CAPLP partnered very closely with the Becker County Licensing agency (Sourcewell) to ensure that the protocols would meet all the licensing requirements.   This piece also helped FCC providers feel secure in the legitimacy of the program. Over the course of the first year of the pilot, four additional part-time subs were hired. The coordinator does the onboarding and training, typically having a new sub shadow her or another of the more experienced subs before being available for solo bookings.

Next Steps

• After a survey of interest, the FCC Substitute program is expanding to Otter Tail, Pope, and Douglas Counties, using the same format.  CAPLP is currently seeking substitutes for these counties.
• Using the Shared Services Alliance, CAPLP is seeking ways to provide low-cost tele-health services for FCC.
• With only initial exploratory conversations and research underway, the partner group is interested in exploring a Child Care Center-based Substitute System.