AIP Audio Conference/Webinar Transcript
Strategies for Financing a Professional Development System
November 13, 2008
2:00pm – 3:30pm Eastern Time
Lori Connors-Tadros: Hello, everybody, this is Lori Connors-Tadros at the Afterschool Investments Project. We apologize for the technical difficulties that delayed the start of the call. We are going to go ahead and continue with the information that we have planned to present today.
Roshanda Shoulders: I'm Roshanda Shoulders, the Federal Project Officer for AIP. The Department of
Health and Human Services Child Care Bureau funds Afterschool Investments Project. In
September, we had a peer learning meeting, and it was on professional development, and this
Webinar is a continuation of our professional development meeting. So I hope you all enjoy it. At
this time, I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Lori Connors-Tadros, who is the Vice President in
Children and Family Services at The Finance Project.
Lori Connors-Tadros: As Roshanda mentioned, we have two purposes for today, to share with you
information and resources related to financing the afterschool professional development systems. We recognize that when we talk about credentials and any efforts to improve quality, we need to recognize the implications on both financing the system, impact on wages, and incentives for participation. And our second purpose is to – is to build a community. We do welcome all of the colleagues that we have joined with us today, including the state child care administrators, members of the peer learning teams, statewide afterschool networks and other youths. We recognize we are in very tight fiscal times and all of you are under increasing pressure. And we believe that in partnership, learning from each other and sharing new strategies that we can work towards building a strategic approach to financing the professional development system.
With this, I'm going to turn it over to Shawn Stelow who is organizing the webinar. She's a new staff member to the afterschool investments project having come from the U.S. Department of Education's 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program. Thank you.
Shawn Stelow: And I'd like to re-ask the question, what are the current funding streams that support your afterschool professional development course work or system? And you can check all of the funding streams that would – that apply in this case. And we'll see what folks have come up with.
I'll give you a few moments to answer that question.
At this point, we're going to show the results of the polling. And it looks like and, of course, this doesn't appear 100 percent because you checked all that applied but it's very balanced among local funds – I'm sorry, we're going to pull the polling results back up. Among local funds, state funds and federal funds with the next highest category being participant fees, a few using private dollars and a few using higher education dollars or – or a partnership with higher education.
At this point, we are working to connect Ellen Gannett both by sound and by slide so we're going to go out of order for a moment and throw it over to Jan from Vermont who's going to – Jan Walker is the director of workforce development and quality enhancement in the Child Development Division in Vermont. And she was one of – Vermont was one of the two states that participated in the peer learning network meeting.
Jan has some great information about what they are doing in the state to finance and to re-look at an existing system of professional development that they have for school-aged. We're going to go ahead and unmute Jan so she can begin.
Jan Walker: OK. Well I am filling in actually for Ruth Matthews who was at that – that national peer meeting but she has helped me get prepared to share our information with you all.
But I understand there are some materials that you will be able to look at and I'm thinking that the one that I'd to speak to right now is – has at the head of it the current status of Vermont Child Development Division funding for afterschool services.
Jan Walker: Can everyone see that?
Shawn Stelow: Yes.
Jan Walker: You know just as your poll you know found, Vermont I think probably reflects to some degree the mix that is – is out there. We have since as long as I can remember, always integrated afterschool professional development and support into our childcare development fund resources.
But – and right now, Ruth and I were looking at the overall dollars that are – are directly targeting afterschool and you see those dollars right there, the $196,000, is a combination not just professional development but for start-up grants, generally quality improvement and other related expenses relating to afterschool specifically.
We also put $80,000 into the Vermont School Age Care Network and that – within that there's $15,000 for professional development. We wanted to acknowledge that the recent afterschool conference was jointly funded with 21st Century funds as well as After Childcare Development Fund monies and an earmark grant from – brought to Vermont by Senator Jeffords.
And we do in addition to Ruth Matthews with the Child Development Division employees at whose major role is to focus on afterschool and youth work. We have used some Child Care Development Funds to in addition to Ruth, pay for an afterschool consultant who has you know who's listed there as funded at $51,000.
Vermont has also been participating in the career pathways project which you know is modest in dollars but combined with the work of Ruth and the afterschool consultant, really led to a lot of new targeted training for the afterschool folks. Like I said, even though Vermont has included afterschool in its larger systems of professional development, recently there's been a lot of special energy pushed toward them including developing competencies and, in particular, certificates and credentials that we'll talk more about.
Our Vermont system, the larger system of professional development is called the Northern Lights Career Development Center and we'll be looking at that Web site shortly. But that is the larger system of professional development that we have. It's sort of our virtual center that basically helps provide the state overall with a framework and a ladder and ways for folks to be documented in all the trainings they participate in.
Let's see. One of the things that we'll talk a little more about is the Vermont Child Care Industry and Careers Council. You'll see that the Cornerstone for Kids Foundation funded by (VOOST) also put some money into the Vermont – well, VCCICC stands for the Vermont Child Care Industry and Careers Council and they are our state not-for-profit organization that is charged with managing and developing the Registered Child Care Apprenticeship program.
And so it made sense for them to also be the site for a targeted after -school on-the-job training model. And they bring additional funds from the Department of Labor and other private funding sources. I didn't – that's not officially noted here anywhere I don't think.
So since I'm not seeing what questions are coming in, I'll maybe just proceed unless Shawn you want to interrupt me and tell me there's some questions I...
Shawn Stelow: Sure. There are definitely some questions. The Vermont document that we were just showing is a new document. We will post that after the presentation. We're going to click now if it's OK with you, Jan, to you your Northern Lights site so that folks can see the Web site. And this is something that folks will be able to access right now at their – at their desktop—and can review the website while you provide some background information.
Jan Walker: OK. Well, do you have the – the document Explore the Next Steps in Your Professional Development?
Shawn Stelow: We sure do and that one I believe is posted online and folks are
Jan Walker: OK.
Shawn Stelow: ...seeing that right now.
Jan Walker: That's something I just wanted to reference next. That one-pager called Explore the Next Steps in Your Professional Development is – is targeting the afterschool workforce. And it lists the three new opportunities targeting – professional development opportunities that have been developed fairly recently for the afterschool folks.
But if – and the – I'm hearing a lot of static.
Jan Walker: One certificate I wanted to just mention is the Vermont Afterschool Foundation certificate and that's not yet on the Northern Lights Web site because it's still in draft form but it is an example of a very entry level certificate designed to help people feel professional and engage in intentional development early on in their work with school-aged children. It just includes 16 hours of training and I think from what I understand that at least the draft of the application for the Vermont Afterschool Foundation certificate will be posted for folks to look at and see what that is.
One of the things that came loud and clear and I'm sure you guys are all aware of this, you know the afterschool workforce is really diverse and so our efforts at certificates and credentials also reflect that diversity.
But how about if we do go to the Northern Lights Web site? So is that visible for people right now?
Shawn Stelow: Yes it is.
Jan Walker: OK. So we're looking at the face – the home page, Northern Lights Career Development Center. As I say, it's not a physical building but it is a – a virtual concept here. On the left-hand side, you click on afterschool professionals and you'll see the references here. Kerrie Workman is the afterschool consultant so she's a resource people can click on here and communicate with.
We have the courses that are targeting afterschool folks on the righthand side on that page. But if you go down a little further and click on credentials on the left-hand side, you'll see a variety of credentials including the second one down there, the Vermont Afterschool Professional Credential which is inclusive of some higher education courses and a package that is designed to recognize and support those that are continuing to work in the field and are committed – committed to the field basically and can be recognized for the training and education that they have had that relates to their work. And by clicking on that you'll see both the credential and the application for it.
What we're trying to do is develop again, a recognized framework for – for this as well as have this drive some of the training that people can take. But on the other hand, we know that folks have taken a fair amount of training. So this is an opportunity to reflect on and document and package for the application, the training and knowledge and learning that they have had that relates to afterschool care and again be recognized for that.
We're using some resources to pilot this and are recognizing those that do get the certificate with - I believe we're doing $1,000 bonus for folks that are successful in putting together their materials and are completing the classes for the afterschool professional credential.
Shawn Stelow: Jan, I think it might be a good time to pause and invite folks who have questions to either unmute their phones or to send a question through the chat function. Are there any questions for Jan Walker of Vermont?
Jan Walker: If there aren't right away, I'd love to kind of do the on-the-job training and then – and then have all the questions perhaps.
Shawn Stelow: Great. And it seems like there maybe aren't any questions right now. Hopefully, folks are seeing a visual now and somebody can send us a message and tell us if they are, of the Vermont Child Care Industry and Careers Council Webpage.
Jan Walker: So you're looking at that now. OK. The Child Care Industry and Careers Council again is the – is the organization that's a 501 C 3 but their primary overall goal is to support the workforce. But their original foundations were the establishment of the registered child care apprenticeship program.
But from the home page if you go to click on – on the left-hand side of Child Care Industry and Careers Council...on that page, again on the left-hand side, go down to just below college courses and you see on the job training.
Jan Walker: And there you go. That's the description of the on-the-job training that was – was worked on by – by Ruth and the Industry and Careers Council folks as a model to support the afterschool folks although it's relevant to folks that are also – that are not in afterschool programs. But it's – it's a roughly an abbreviated model of registered apprenticeship where the – but it's shorter, 1,000 hours instead of 4,000 hours, more suitable to a part-time worker and it's you know (65) hours of – of training versus you know the hundreds of hours for registered apprentices.
I'm particularly fond of this in that it involves on-the-job, regular supervision and support which you know is a good thing and that helps ensure that the things that people are learning and are supported and applied on the job which is also a virtue of the registered apprenticeship program in my opinion.
So are there any questions about those three – three particular activities relating to professional development. Again, they're new but I think they are integrating nicely into a larger system that already strives to encourage you know thoughtful intentional professional development and you know reward and recognize it. It's certainly great to have these specialized learning opportunities...
Shawn Stelow: Jan? We have one question from (LuAnn Faulkner-Schneider) who asks how many people have participated in these programs so far?
Jan Walker: Well, actually this is so new that they are being piloted. I believe there's about 10 people right now that are doing the on-the-job training model. The – they just – at the last (school age) conference – put out the application for the credentials. We’re not sure how many will be taking advantage of it. We’re hoping 15 or 20 folks. So again – and we’re a small state so I realize that our dollars...
Jan Walker: ...and our efforts you know don’t necessarily get the volumes of folks that other states might. But that’s, you know – so we’re just talking small numbers and brand new stuff, actually. But after actually years – the last few years – have been pretty intensive work on that with the afterschool folks developing competencies.
All of these things wouldn’t be possible – at least with our strategy in Vermont – of identifying the competencies that the workforce you know should have to do their jobs. And I don’t know how many folks have participated in the beginning certificate program. So I’m sorry I don’t have that data.
Probably at this time next year we’ll have all that for you. Right now it’s basically we’ve got some resources, have some history of development, and they are kind of going live right about now.
Shawn Stelow: Jan, thank you. We will definitely go back and revisit this after you all, in Vermont, have had a year under your belts to see the numbers of folks who have taken advantage of this and to certainly continue the conversation.
Again, I encourage people to continue to put comments or questions in the chat bar for Jan that we can get her to respond to later.
Ellen Gannett: Yes. Hello, everyone. I’m glad to be back. It’s a great pleasure to join this group. And thank you, Jan, for I think setting a nice stage for some of my remarks that are more general. And I think that the work that Vermont has done specifically around the career pathways project has been really quite wonderful.
Jan Walker: You’re welcome.
Ellen Gannett: Oh, absolutely. I think what I’ll do is I’ll jump right in to some of the major findings that the next generation youth work coalition found back in 2006 when we partnered with the National After School Association and did a linked set of surveys to youth workers all across the country. None of these findings, I think, will surprise you, clearly.
But I think what we do have now is substantiation that people really want to make it work. This is, in fact, very much of a career of choice for many people and not just a pipeline of other careers and professions.
One of the major findings from the Next Generation surveys was the fact that while training is prevalent in many places, we have workshops, we have conferences, and increasingly we have college courses. The reward for taking those training opportunities are very weak at best.
The youth workers, when they were asked about opportunities for promotion and advancement, also said that they were not clear just where they can go in their own organizations as they try to advance in their career. That while people can find ways to increase their salaries, most often they said they actually had to leave their job in order to get a salary bump up, that their own organization didn’t have the salary scales that would allow them to do so, and that three-quarters of the respondents said that that compensation – and this is no big surprise – is the primary factor for staying or leaving the field.
So in response to these findings, we established the first career pathways project, which was to establish a comprehensive workforce development system for youth work. Now, I do want to state how we defined youth work. That, in itself, was a very tricky exercise because language is very much a problem with our field, nomenclature and what words to use to describe who and what we are.
But for purposes of this particular set of studies and for the career pathways work, we have all come to agreement that we can live with the word youth work, which, by definition, includes school age child care – which is the regulatory programs that are licensed in our states – afterschool programs that are run by 21st Century Community Learning Center funding, as well as youth development programs that serve adolescents. And so youth work was the term of choice to describe that entire field.
(Nine sites) going together in a learning community – and we are excited because on this phone call we’ve got at least two – there may be more out there that you know maybe during our conversation you can type in and talk about your experience; Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New York City, Baltimore City and the state of Maryland, and two locations in the state of California, Long Beach and San Diego, with the support of the (Packard) Foundation.
All of the sites receive technical assistance from the National Institute of Out of School Time, and we all engaged in rich cross sites sharing and peer learning.
Some of the common system features that we were able to unpack during this year was that many of the new programs and collaborations are really deeply embedded in public systems and policies. And this compensation and retention issues are an integral part. It’s not the primary problem and focus of the initiatives that we were focused on.
We asked every site to be very explicit about focusing directly on the compensation and retention issues which are so – which are such a deep problem for our field – and not just skirt around it.
Far too often there’s a comfort level with working in these kinds of projects where you tend to want to work on the compensation – on the credentials or you want to work on the core knowledge or some of the other system issues. And we told everybody that was part of our learning community, no, not OK. We want you to target anything you can do to raise the level of compensation and retention in our field.
And what is wonderful is that the system building goals that we all took on were very comprehensive. And we were able to do some very innovative work around the cross-cutting strategies that would not only just provide education or training opportunities but where it would make a difference.
If you were going to earn the credential, well, we want you to then think about what difference that is going to make in terms of the retention and the compensation for earning that training and credential and course work.
So the first career pathways project has helped to uncover (a set) of these cross-cutting strategies. Number one is to make sure that you build on existing systems and that you know in terms of our financing strategies, we really have to be very creative in doing just that, making sure that we build on some of those systems that were actually developed for early childhood education can often be expanded.
And as you can see from – you’ll hear from probably Illinois especially – where a system that might have been traditionally and originally built for an early childhood sector can sometimes be expanded for the youth work or the afterschool sector. And that’s, I think, a very important strategy.
The other strategy that’s important is that we define, as I have spoken before, about defining youth workers very, very broadly. This is really one field. And I think the (silo) mentality has just got the idea that afterschool is different than school age care or different than youth work.
We really jumped into this work thinking, we’re all in this together and that we maintain that focus on the need for both incentives for advancing our work as well as rewards for earning it. We leverage a range of public and private funding. And we understand that this work is developmental, it’s progressive, it’s incremental, and most importantly situational.
And what I mean by that is that we are all opportunists. We – I think what we ended up doing is just looking for that opportunity where we could jump on a wagon – the Forum for Youth Investment calls it jump on that moving train, which is the train that’s moving in your state – and get there and see if you can log on the use agenda and that afterschool agenda to whatever is exciting.
In my own state, for example, in Massachusetts, there was a very big initiative going on around a workforce agenda for early childhood education. And we all – all the school age people and the afterschool people – elbowed our way into that table to make sure that all of the core competencies and the delivery systems were going to embrace the afterschool sector as well.
So we you know we haven’t figured it out. We’re all working on this. And you know as I said it’s a developmental process. Many of us who are on the phone I bet you know you join me in thinking about these issues for years, maybe decades, of trying to professionalize these systems. But there’s a lot more excitement now than ever before.
The questions that were raised and we’re now going to begin to tackle in career pathways number two, which is just started this year, are what are the opportunities to promote changes in regulation that currently limit youth worker eligibility for some of the publicly funded workforce development programs.
And I think being able to expand some of the definitions that set a boundary – a line (in the span) that stops at age 13, for example – are only for those programs that are licensed or only those programs you know that served subsidized children. That eligibility you know can we relax and are there ways that we can think about opening up these boundaries.
And how can funders be encouraged to increase their investments to the levels necessary to support a more prepared and stabled workforce? You know what we don’t want to create is a competition between early childhood sector and the afterschool sector or the youth development sector. We need more resources, not to just stretch the existing resources even thinner and thinner.
And how can we ensure that policymakers think beyond professional development to the broader system building issues that are so necessary to increase workforce retention? And what I mean by that is that we can’t just keep relying on thinking that training alone is going to nail it. We’re – we’ve got to be intentional about thinking about these system issues and these financing issues that keep the turnover rate as high as 60 percent a year in our field. And it’s totally unacceptable if we’re going to reach the very high bar that we’ve set ourselves for in terms of child and youth outcomes.
And so now we’re about to embark, I think, on a very exciting initiative with three of our states, three of our nine sites – and that is in Missouri, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania – and that is to work, expand the TEACH project. I hope many of you are familiar with it, but basically the core principles of TEACH are to build out existing partnerships in your state, to think in a very diverse way about who we’re going – who the workforce is using existing systems and to collaborate.
Sue Russell, who was the founder of TEACH Early Childhood, has agreed that we need to do something about the afterschool sector. And while many states not only have TEACH for early childhood professionals, they have in very small and modest ways also provided TEACH scholarships for college, for some school age providers as well.
But as we look at how many of those scholarships actually go to school age providers, we recognize that there real – it’s a very small number. And there are many reasons for it, of course, namely the part-time nature of the work and that the regulations were designed for full-time early childhood professionals.
So now we’re going back to the drawing board with the Child Care Services Association, Sue Russell’s organization, the National Institute of Out-of-School Time, my group, and these three states, in partnership with the Next Generation Youth Work Coalition. And we’re going to really see if we can get a pilot going in these three states with a cohort that will begin this winter semester where we’ll have about 25 recipients of scholarships taking age appropriate courses, not early childhood courses but courses that are designed around youth development, adolescent development, and afterschool specific program quality.
And the good news about TEACH, for those of you who are unfamiliar with it, is that yes, you get a scholarship to go to college, and with every course you take you get some kind of a bonus or a salary bump up. And their commitment to your employer is also a part of the system. So it has – it means for every course you take, you have a commitment to stay and retain your position in your employers – in your organization.
So it has all the elements, I think, of what we’re talking about in terms of this cross-cutting approach where you have both public and private sources of funds that will pay for scholarships to help youth workers go to college, where that college experience then will be rewarded. And you’ll get a scholarship you know a salary or a bonus, and where you’ll be retained in your current place of employment.
And so in concluding my little section – before we maybe have an opportunity for a conversation – is some lessons that we’ve learned both in the career pathway project, number one, and some things that we’re learning already in career pathways two.
Make sure that you start off small. We’re very intentional about only looking at one city or one small cohort of folks who are going to be experimenting with the TEACH expansion and only about 25 students.
We want to be able to use data as a powerful way to make – to send messages to public and private funders about how important this work is. So we’re going to be able to track our results and make sure that we keep good valuation data about how it’s working.
It feels as if it’s very important that not only that we provide training, workshop training, but that we connect it to formal education and that we attach college credit to these opportunities.
Whatever we do, we need to do it well. We need to be inclusive. We need to engage not only our stakeholders out there in messaging and advocacy, but the students themselves and being the voice of what they need for these professional development systems.
Be strategic. Be political. Think systematically and not just about a program. And to the extent that you can, partner and match those dollars. We were very fortunate that Cornerstones for Kids gave us this new grant. But built into the grant was that if we were going to go to Missouri and Minnesota and Pennsylvania, they, too, needed to be able to match the dollars, which – and I’m very proud to say all three of those states were able to sign both public and private dollars to make it happen.
Shawn Stelow: Ellen, thank you very much. We’re glad we were able to get you in to share that presentation. And I think since we have some folks from Illinois on the call today, which was one of your first group sites, it makes sense to invite Renee Deberry and Tammy McCullough from Illinois to share with us a little bit about the strategic plan that they worked on during the peer learning meeting and what’s been happening in their state and how this connects with their next generation youth work activities.
Renee Deberry: This is Renee Deberry. Can you hear me?
Shawn Stelow: Yes.
Renee Deberry: OK, great. I actually have someone else with me as well and this is (Kath Wolf) and she is part of our professional development system on the early care and education side and I thought that might give us a greater understanding of the entire system.
So the peer support meeting, we’re very excited about being there with all of the other states and we learned a lot and we shared a lot. So I am very pleased about that. and we had a strong conversation about financing strategies and we talked about – actually we talked with Bob about five things in terms of optimizing our federal funding and resources and then talking about what were our existing resources, creating flexible funding (experience) for the work that we do and the really strengthening and looking at our public and private funding and partnerships as well. And then creating new and creative kind of funding streams where we can look at alternatives to the private and – public and private funding that we currently have.
But I thought that, for us, not just talking about funding, that it might be helpful to kind of back up a little bit so that people can understand sort of the infrastructure that was created a few years ago, more than a few, probably about 10 or so years ago with the MOST initiative and (Ellen) would remember the wonderful work that (Nia) did in providing technical assistance and support to the most in initiative at that time.
So, I would say we started back in 1994 and 1995 and the goal of that was really to increase professional development opportunities for providers and out of school time, but also the public awareness of the needs of those providers. So as a part of that process, we learned a lot and collected a lot of data so that we could then make really informed decisions about what the needs of out of school time providers were. We did a lot of surveys in terms of their time in programs, what the cost was for quality, those kinds of things. And so we created, from real rich supports for an infrastructure that we were trying to develop and strengthen during that work.
And I would say, during those efforts we did some really good work in terms of developing competencies which we still support our professional development with to this day and then those competencies were used to create an associates degree that now is still on the books at the Chicago city colleges and then we did a wonderful thing, which if I understand right with (Ellen), we might be the only one that still consistently do a leadership institute for directors and coordinators that are new and emerging in the field.
So as a part of that work, I would say that that work was a premise to the work that we’re moving forward now and that the system that we developed as a part of that, we created a platform for the professional development and it’s a logical advancement to what we’re now calling (ISAY), which is the Illinois School Aged and Youth Development Credential. So very excited about that.
And right now, we have gotten support, we are part of the Career Pathways, as (Ellen) said, and right now the bulk of our dollars are actually coming from quality dollars from the Illinois department of human services who also have given up their support and allow us to maintain those very same activities, the professional development, the work around higher ed and the associates degree and also the leadership connections. But I think it might be helpful for you to kind of understand what the Gateways of Opportunity professional development system looks like a little bit now and how as (Ellen) said previously, we sort of attached ourselves to what was developed as an early care and education system.
Kath Wolf: Hi I’m Kath Wolf, not Tammy, and I serve as Co-Chair of the Professional Development Advisory Council here in Illinois, which did indeed start as an early childhood professional development system, but because school age has had a long and active professional development involvement in Illinois, it became very common – very clear to all of us that it was time for the school age and youth people to join with the PDAC group. The school age group joined with us and now the Gateways to Opportunity which is the name of the career path in the entire professional development system in Illinois goes from birth to age 21. So the funding that we’ve got for that, some of that general funding helps support the infrastructure in the development of the school age and youth credential and in addition, we’re continuing to look for money to support the development of that credential.
Ellen had referred to TEACH and the role that has played and that did play a strong role in Illinois. Just this July we changed our system and now have a scholarship that we are calling Gateways to Opportunity scholarship, so we’re not using TEACH in the same way but we’ve drawn significantly from the lessons we’ve learned in that project and the Gateway scholarship has a bonus and release – no, it doesn’t have release time, it does have the bonus, it has other kinds of significant parts to it, but it doesn’t have the employer buy in requirement, which has allowed us to open the door to more participants here in Illinois, and that is available to school age and youth practitioners. So that’s been an exciting piece of our work.
Renee Deberry: I want to tell you where we currently are in terms of funding, we have gotten some funds from the Chicago Youth Services and those dollars actually came from the (Mott) Foundation. That is used to support the system it’s self and the development of the credential and we have some funding from the (McCormack Tribune) Foundation which helps fund and support the system. There is some limitation which is actually goes to the age of eight. So we use most of those funding for sort of the meeting and support of the development of the system other than the credential itself.
And then we are really looking for additional funding to expand the work about the competencies of the credential ((inaudible)) particularly on the youth side and had some support and partnerships with Teen Reach and also looking at the Illinois State Board of Education as a part of that.
So our goals and our next steps for this work is really to look at some of the existing funds mappings that we’ve done actually with the support of the Illinois After School Partnership, which is the name of our Mott network. Only because we already had an Illinois After School Network, so we didn’t want two of them. And to really look at establishing what we have been calling, as a part of our credential work, the financial resource committee. That committee would then tackle the support and leverage of resources for public and private funding and partnerships. And then also, looking at what our strategic goals are for the development for the future. So that’s where we are sitting right now. And that’s where we are in Illinois.
Shawn Stelow: Great. We don’t see any questions have been added through chat in Illinois. I have a question however ...
Female: OK.
Shawn Stelow: For Illinois. I know that some of our AIP Team Members have been working with you and I was wondering what are some of the big major goals, or take-aways from the strategic planning that you did on site in D.C. in September and what are the next steps as you go into a new year and what you’re going to work on first and some of the areas you’re going to look at?
Tammy McCullough: What came out of the strategic plan when we got together after we met (Susan), closer to the end of the two days that we were present was that we really needed to convene our partnership and leverage the existing resources that we had. I think that came up and it was a strong message that we are not always tapping into the resources of not just our funders but the organization and the strength of the participants that are part of the development of the credentials.
And so that came out and that would probably be one of our first strategic goals in terms of maximizing our existing resources, so we started with that.
And then there is a lot of work in terms of fund mapping that we were not fully aware of that had been done in terms of looking at what the existing and other possible funding that might be available in Illinois, so we’re going to do those two things.
So I would say that we would look at new funding streams and then actually look at maximizing our existing resources and the people that are at the table and our partnerships.
Shawn Stelow: Great. Thank you, and I think that you set things up perfectly because you both reflected on (Ellen’s) comment earlier and you brought up to the strategic financing portion.
Due to time constraints, we’re going to have Jenifer Gager from The Finance Project give you a very brief one-slide overview, but know that this is a topic that we fully intend to share with the applicable investments through AIP going forward this year, and Lori will talk more about that in a bit, but for now I’m going to turn things over to Jenifer Gager.
Jenifer Gager: Great. Thanks so much, Shawn, and hello, everyone, and the slide that you are not seeing but I am going to make a reference to it is one of the eight key elements of sustainability is adaptability to changing conditions. So I just wanted to applaud everyone on the call for hanging in there today and adapting, as we’ve gone through a few technical difficulties, so thank you very much, both participants and presenters.
My name is Jenifer Gager and I work with the MOTT afterschool networks program here at The Finance Project, which is a project that closely collaborates with the Afterschool Investments Project, and as part of my work with the MOTT project offer both TA technical assistance and training and ongoing support through publications and response to inquiries to the 38 MOTT funded statewide afterschool networks, and some of you are a part of those, and if you’re not directly affiliated with those, certainly would encourage you to feel free to reach out and vice versa, and I’m always available, as Shawn mentioned, beyond the scope of this presentation.
So we are just going to focus in on one slide this afternoon for now and just wanted to encourage you in the sense that we will continue to have this information available and there are a number of different formats going forward.
So one of the main questions – series of questions, really, that we have encouraged folks to think through around strategic financing is kind of a progression of steps, and if you’re able to see the visual and look at the slide, I think it can be very, I guess, an initial inclination is to kind of go straight to the financing strategies and the funding sources, and (Renee) actually did a magnificent job of going through some of the five funding strategies that the Finance Project has articulated in some of our publications.
But prior to getting to the financing strategies and funding sources, there really are four key steps that we encourage folks to think about because they really lay the groundwork and the foundation for picking and selecting the right series of financing strategies and funding sources, and I think go into a little bit more detail about what I mean by that, and I think (Ellen) also has done an amazing job of putting – laying out that financing a system is different than financing a number of various components, and that was something that we’ve heard from School’s Out Washington at the AIP gathering in September, and who had originally had three components, the course catalog, the core competencies and professional registry put together and really wanted to create a state-wide framework for professional development and added some more components to that to create a state-wide framework.
So it really depends what strategies you’re financing and also I think Illinois spoke very well to understanding the fact that you’re financing – you need to be cognizant of how your financing can be used, and they made the point that the gateway trust opportunity covers birth to age 21, but they’re very cognizant of the fact that the (McCormack) funding only goes up to age eight.
And so these are two very good examples of why being clear about what you’re trying to finance will help you make determinations around which funders you may be going out to, whether they be public or private, which funders you may be targeting for resources for what specific needs in your professional development system.
So those are a couple of examples on "financing for what". How much do you need? This is something that you want to get a good sense of like how much things will cost, by each strategy according to year because as we know in this current economic downturn, economic times change, and so prices may go up and down, but also revenue sources may change as well. So having a clear idea of you know what you think you may need at the startup phase versus what you may need three years out for your professional development system is very important to be able to be detailed about that so that you can craft your strategies around that.
And then in terms of what resources do you currently have, I would just go back to that Illinois example that I touched on that what you would like to do is evaluate your current resources and get a good handle on, are they restricted, how restricted are they and what are the restrictions, is it an age range restriction, is it a type of funding restriction, are the dollars more better suited to go towards training or some of the dollars go towards some tangible items, for example, if you’re putting together a state-wide trainer registry or doing web development and things like that, getting a good sense of what your types of sources that you’re considering can go towards.
And then finally, I think (Ellen) said it elegantly as well about looking for that funding mix between public and private sources.
And then the last step is putting it all together, looking at what you want to finance, how much you have in hand, how much you need, and then seeing where the gaps are between the two, and what you’d want to do is, of course, look at that both by strategy, so which type of thing are you looking to finance, whether it’s training, whether it’s the incentives, whether it’s developing your credential programs, and then also by year, so again, that concept of how much is elemental cost in year one versus your two, three and four. Certainly if you’re looking to start up something new, you may – there may be some initial startup costs that then go away after those – that initial first year.
So these are some thoughts to carry with you as you go into looking at strategic financing, and we’d just like to really encourage you to reach out to us, both through – by phone and by web, and any other ways that are most convenient to you and we really look forward to offering you more in-depth assistance on any of these topics going forward.
Shawn Stelow: Thank you so much, Jenifer. I hope that you have spent a pleasant hour with us and have learned some new things, learned about some new practices and ideas that are occurring in states. You’ve certainly heard some terrific information from Jan Walker in Vermont, from Ellen Gannett, and thank you so much, Ellen, at NIOST, from Renee Deberry, Kath Wolf, and Tammy McCullough in Illinois, and from Jenifer.
Lori: We’ve mentioned a number of different resources. You do have the contact information. I do
want to thank a few people in closing and then tell you about a couple of next steps and
information here.
I want to thank Roshanda and the Child Care Bureau for supporting us in this effort, and to
Antoinette Price at the Communication Management Center. I do want to tell you that the Afterschool Investments Project has put an increased effort around targeted technical assistance, and we are developing materials and resources, coordinating and collaborating with our partners at NCCIC and the National Infant and Toddler Child Care Initiative, and the MOTT networks, to bring you the support and resources that you need.
Recently we hired Shawn, and Amanda came back from maternity leave, and so this map which is also on our website, shows you the point of contact. If there is any information that you want or you have a question or information you want help with –please just make a contact with that person and they will coordinate the support to you.
Shawn Stelow: Great, and thank you very much, Lori, and thank you to all of the speakers and most importantly all of the participants who joined us today. Immediately when you log off of this, and Mandy Barton can send an e-mail if I’m explaining this – or an extended chat – if I’m explaining this wrong.
An evaluation should pop up on your browser if you’ve joined us on the Web as well as through audio, so that you are able to evaluate the content and the process for today’s webinar.
If you are unable to access that evaluation, an evaluation form is posted at the AIP website. You’re seeing the address for that on the slide right now, hopefully, and we love to get your feedback in either way.
And I would encourage you, again, to type some more questions in, if you feel there were some questions that went unanswered, we will route them to the appropriate person as Soumya typed in just a little bit ago, please note that the PowerPoint presentations are also available on the AIP website.
Again many thanks for your time today, and look for information about future audio calls or webinars from AIP going forward. Thanks very much.
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