Child Care and Development Fund, Report to Congress for Fiscal Years 2002 and 2003
CHILD CARE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE FOR TRIBES
Tribal Work Group
The Tribal Work Group (TWG) is a technical advisory group that assists with the implementation of CCDF and provides assistance to CCB in developing policies and procedures for Tribal child care programs across the country.
With the exception of ACF Region III (Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, DC, and West Virginia), which has no federally recognized Indian Tribes, the TWG consists of one Tribal child care administrator from each ACF Region and one member from Alaska. Tribal child care administrators are nominated to the TWG by ACF Regional Offices and serve 2-year terms. Throughout the year, several meetings are held to discuss Tribal policy and technical assistance issues.
Tribal Child Care Technical Assistance Center
The majority of CCB Tribal technical assistance is provided by the Tribal Child Care Technical Assistance Center (TriTAC). Through a contract with Native American Management Services Inc. of McLean, Virginia, TriTAC designs specialized technical assistance for child care directors on administering their CCDF programs. TriTAC assists Tribal grantees in child care capacity-building efforts through-
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A Tribal child care Web page (http:/nccic.org/Tribal)
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A toll-free information and referral line
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A database of "Effective Program Strategies"
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Tribal cluster trainings
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An annual National American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) Child Care Conference
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Training for new administrators
National American Indian and Alaska Native Child Care Conference
Sponsored by CCB, the annual National American Indian and Alaska Native Child Care Conference provides training and workshops for Tribal child care directors on CCDF program administration. Over 400 participants attend, including Tribal leaders; directors of Tribal child care, Head Start, and Employment and Training Lead Agencies; child care staff; national Tribal and child care organization representatives; and Federal agency staff from HHS and the Department of the Interior. In FY 2002, the Conference focused on quality child care issues. The FY 2003 conference focused on strengthening the foundations for early learning in Tribal child care settings.
Tribal CCDF New Administrators Training
Each year, CCB sponsors a 21⁄2-day training session for new administrators. This training is to provide new Tribal CCDF administrators with comprehensive information ranging from basic CCDF policy topics (statutory, regulatory, and data collection requirements) to CCDF contacts at the Federal and State levels and accessing child care information on the internet.
Tribal Cluster Trainings
In conjunction with TriTAC, CCB holds cluster training for Tribal child care grantees each year across the country. In FY 2002, this training provided information on working with providers to enhance the quality of Tribal child care programs in both center-based and in-home settings. Topics included ages and stages of child development, health and safety, promoting literacy, and supporting professional development and staff retention. Other training focused on financial management and technical assistance for data collection.
In 2003, extensive technical assistance was provided on the three key Good Start, Grow Smart components: early learning and literacy, professional development, and coordination. As a result of these training opportunities, a number of Tribes are collaborating with their State CCDF agencies.
Tribal Data Collection and Submission
Tribes are required to provide aggregate child care data on the ACF-700 report, including annual counts of Tribal children and families served through CCDF, average hours of service per child by type of care, average monthly payment and co-payments per child, and the number of children served by income. The Tribes are required to submit the ACF-700 report for each Federal fiscal year. Tribes may submit their reports up to 3 months after the end of the reporting period.
In FY 2002, 16,605 families and 29,810 children were served with CCDF funds (73 percent of grantees reporting) and in FY 2003, 18,333 families and 32,911 children were served (75 percent of grantees reporting). Although data quality is improving, some Tribal grantees have difficulty providing accurate, complete data due to a number of factors, including staff turnover and a lack of technology resources and infrastructure. To address these issues with data quality, CCB continues to provide technical assistance and specialized software (Tribal Data Tracker) to help Tribes with data reporting.