Florida Early Childhood Needs Assessment
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NEEDS ASSESSMENT Preschool Development Grant Birth-5 Presented to the Florida Office of Early Learning Prepared by the Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies, College of Education, University of Florida And the Family Data Center, Institute for Child Health Policy, College of Medicine, University of Florida TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION FLORIDA EARLY CHILDHOOD NEEDS ASSESSMENT . 1 Figure 1: Florida Early Care and Education . 1 Figure 2: Early Childhood Data Repository Key Partners . 3 Figure 3: Assessment of Effectiveness of Early Childhood Care and Education System . 4 DEFINITIONS OF TERMS . 5 Quality Early Childhood Care and Education . 5 Early Childhood Care and Education Availability . 5 Vulnerable Children . 5 Underserved Children . 6 Children in Rural Areas . 6 Early Care and Education . 6 FOCAL POPULATIONS FOR THE PDG B-5 GRANT . 6 Table 1: Race and Ethnicity . 6 Florida’s Distribution of Poverty . 7 Figure 4: Children B-5 Living Below FPL . 7 Designated Rural Counties . 8 Figure 5: Designated Rural Counties in Florida . 8 Strengths and Weaknesses of the Data . 9 NUMBER OF CHILDREN BEING SERVED AND AWAITING SERVICE . 9 Health Care Services . 9 Medicaid or Medikids enrollment: Unduplicated Child Count . 9 Table 2: Unique child count enrolled in Medicaid or Medikids . 10 Limitations of the Data and Strategies to Improve . 10 Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children . 10 Figure 6: Children B-5 Receiving WIC Services . 11 Limitations of the Data and Strategies to Improve . 11 Young Children’s Mental Health Services . 12 Figure 7: Children 1-5 Receiving Mental Health Services . 13 Limitations of the Data and Strategies to Improve . 13 Number of Children Being Served in State and Federally Sponsored Early Childhood Care and Education Services . 14 The Florida School Readiness Program . 14 The Florida Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten Program . 14 Federally Sponsored Early Childhood Care and Education Programs: Head Start, Early Head Start, and Migrant Head Start . 14 Office of Early Learning Data: Unique Child Count of Enrollment . 14 Table 3: Unique Child Count Enrolled in SR and VPK by per Month for Fiscal Year 2017-2018 . 15 Seasonality of State Early Childhood Care and Education Program Enrollment . 15 Chart 1: Florida SR and VPK Enrollment Trends . 15 Head Start Enrollment . 16 Children’s Enrollment across Early Childhood Education Program . 16 Table 4: Head Start Connection to Support Services . 16 Table 5: Concurrent Program Enrollment . 17 Limitations of the Data and Strategies to Improve . 17 NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN WAITING LISTS FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD SERVICES . 18 Florida School Readiness Program . 18 Chart 2: Florida Monthly ELC Waiting List Totals . 19 Chart 3: Florida Average SR Waiting List SFY 2017-2018 . 20 Early Head Start, Head Start, Migrant Head Start Waiting List Data . 21 Limitations of the Data and Strategies to Improve . 21 QUALITY AND AVAILABILITY . 21 Measuring the Quality and Accessibility of Child Care among Vulnerable Children and Families: The Florida Index of Child Care Access . 22 The FLICCA Sub-Indices . 22 Selection . 22 Table 6: Child Count by Provider Type . 22 Infrastructure . 23 Measuring Access in the Spatiotemporal Context . 23 The Florida Index of Child Care Access Policy Matrix . 23 Table 7 . Example Quality Groups and Weights . 23 Figure 8: Policy Matrix . 23 Scenario 1—Positive Selection and Positive Infrastructure . 24 Scenario 2—Negative Selection and Positive Infrastructure . 24 Scenario 3—Positive Selection and Negative Infrastructure . 24 Scenario 4—Negative Selection and Negative Infrastructure . 24 FLICCA results for August 2017 . 25 Figure 9: Policy Matrix . 26 Limitations of the Data and Strategies to Improve . 27 Current Initiatives to Inform Parents about What Constitutes High Quality Early Care and Education Services . 27 GAPS IN DATA AND RESEARCH TO SUPPORT COLLABORATION . 28 ECCE System Service Use by Families with Children . 28 Limitations of the Data and Strategies to Improve . 28 Limitations of the Data to Support Collaboration and Strategies to Improve . 29 PROGRAMS/SERVICES AND MAXIMIZE PARENTAL CHOICE . 29 Input from Families . 29 Most Needed Services . 29 Stakeholder Focus Groups and Community Case Studies . 30 Current and Future Initiatives to Maximize Parental Choice . 30 QUALITY AND AVAILABILITY OF PROGRAMS AND SUPPORTS . 31 Limitations of the Data and Strategies to Improve . 32 BUILDING MEASURABLE INDICATORS OF PROGRESS . 32 ISSUES INVOLVING ECCE FACILITIES . 33 Limitations of the Data and Strategies to Improve . 33 BARRIERS TO THE FUNDING AND PROVISION OF HIGH-QUALITY EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION SERVICES AND SUPPORTS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR MORE EFFICIENT USE OF RESOURCES . 33 TRANSITION SUPPORTS AND GAPS . 34 SYSTEM INTEGRATION AND INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION . 35 Vision . 35 Mission . 35 Priorities . 35 References . 36 Appendix A: Distinct Count of Children by County Enrolled in Medicare and MediKids . 37 Appendix B: Head Start, Early Head Start, and Migrant Head Start Enrollment by Grantee . 39 Appendix C: Early Head Start, Head Start, and Migrant Head Start Enrollment by City . 41 Appendix D: Children’s Enrollment in Multiple Early Care and Education Programs by Early Learning Coalition . 43 Appendix E: Florida School Readiness Program Waiting List Data . 48 Appendix F: Data Sharing Agreement Status as of July 15, 2019 . 50 Appendix G: Data and Variable Descriptions as Defined by Agency . 52 INTRODUCTION FLORIDA EARLY CHILDHOOD NEEDS ASSESSMENT The PDG Birth-5 funding provided the impetus for Florida stakeholders from health, education, and social support sectors to convene and reconceptualize how and for what purposes we can work more efficiently and effectively to sup- port the needs of young children and their families . The Florida comprehensive early childhood system includes educa- tion, health, and other social support services that promote family self-sufficiency which, if accessed by families in need, empower them to attend to their children’s health, social-emotional, and educational needs . The image below (Figure 1) identifies critical programs and services that encompass the comprehensive early childhood system of programs and services that support young children and their families . Figure 1: Florida Early Care and Education This new, more comprehensive, definition of the early childhood system in Florida has provided the necessary stimulus to engage stakeholders from each of the aforementioned sectors, through the convening of the State Advisory Council (SAC) . Florida’sPDG B-5 SAC is comprised of key leaders from every sector that implement services for young children: Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Agency for Health Care Administration, Agency for Persons with Disabilities, Association for Child Care Management, Florida Association for the Education of Young Children, Florida Association of Early Learning Coalitions, Association of Healthy Start Coalitions, Florida Association for Infant and Mental Health, Children’s Services Councils, Department of Children and Families, Department of Education, Department of Health, Executive Office of the Governor, Head Start State Collaboration Office, and the Office of Early Learning at the Department of Education (OEL) . The SAC is led by Chairman Eric Hall, Chancellor of Innovation, Department of Education . All members of the SAC have been actively engaged in several “all hands” meetings . During these meetings, all relevant stakeholders were committed to fostering collaboration that supports a more integrated and comprehensive system for vulnerable young children and their families . 1 Through the convening of the SAC, Chairman Hall has set the stage to support meaningful and sustained commitment from stakeholders and agency heads . The structure for convening and collaborating to construct a collaborative and coordinated system for Early Childhood Education and Care has effectively been set by the facilitators from the UF Lastinger Center . Prior to the first convening of the SAC, each of the representative agency heads committed to the shared mission set forth in Florida’s PDG Birth-5 application to develop a more coordinated system to support positive health and developmental outcomes for children, and self-sufficiency for families . The PDG Birth-5 needs assessment team based at the University of Florida’s Anita Zucker Center for Excellence in Early Childhood Studies and OEL proposed development of a new Early Childhood Data Repository to include child-level information from each of the state and federally sponsored programs that provide services that support family self- sufficiency and positive child developmental outcomes . With the primary aim of integrating the best available dataand information to guide the discussion and subsequent decision-making . The status of the data sharing agreement process is shown in Appendix F: Data Sharing Agreement Status . Once data sharing agreements have been completed and the necessary data have been included, the research team from the Anita Zucker Center will provide distinct counts of children and families represented within each of the service programs, and then link client records across the service system to provide distinct counts of children within different profiles of services . This count of children within service profiles will enable key stakeholders to understand the extent to which children and families are enrolled in multiple services, the types of service