1crayon.jpg (10866 bytes)  November 16, 1999 -- Meeting Summary


9:00am - 12:00pm

Chaps

The Radisson Inn

SeaTac, Washington

 

Commission Attendance
Mona Lee Locke and Melinda French Gates Co-Chairs; Kathryn Barnard, Craig Cole, Kim Cook, Alex Deccio, Yolanda Cortinas-Trout, Robbin Dunn, Sheri Flies, Marty Jacobs, Dee Ann Perea, Yvonne Ullas, Dee West, Gayle Womack, Kyle Yasuda and Diana Yu.
Special Guests
Rick Cocker, Cocker Fennessy
Kris Mitchke, Bozell Worldwide
Meeting Summary
Mona Locke opened that meeting by welcoming Commissioners.
Melinda Gates explained that the co-chairs want to reiterate where we are and where we are going over the next six months. They believe that we have narrowed the focus and that continual reminders of where we are going will help all Commissioners talk about what we are doing.
Melinda reminded Commissioners that we have focused in on two major goals.
Create a statewide public engagement campaign to share information with parents, grandparents and anyone who cares for young children about the importance of early brain development. The campaign will also offer practical ways to take advantage of that information.
Establish a non-profit foundation that will provide funds to efforts in two areas: child care quality and parent education.
The foundation will provide scholarships and other supports to child care providers who wish to further their studies in early childhood education.
The foundation will also provide funding to support local programs providing parent education. The goal is to increase access to parenting programs and inspire parents to attend.
Robin Zukoski then made a few housekeeping announcements. Robin corrected of a statement she made last month regarding the AWRD database resources. It is the Department of Employment Security that has developed this database, not the Department of Corrections.
Robin also reminded the Commission that they have been invited by the House Children and Family Services Committee to attend a presentation by Robin Karr-Morse on December 1 from 10:00am – noon, and a presentation by Dr. Craig Ramey on December 3 from 1:30pm – 3:30pm. Both of these meetings will take place in House Hearing Room A.
Parent Education Subcommittee Report
Robbin Dunn spoke on behalf of the parent education subcommittee and presented four recommendations the subcommittee came up with to support parent education.
Recommendations
The foundation will:
Support the training of parent educators.
Audience: Parent Educators.
Action Steps: The subcommittee will develop parameters for types of programs the foundation should fund.
Background: The subcommittee finds that training of providers is the key to quality. However, there is very little standardization or regulation in training of "parent educators". Subtext of goal here is to support development of skill based competencies for training parent educators in pre-service and in-service education as well as enabling people to access training.
Increase the accessibility of parent education.
Foundation will support a broad variety of programs under title "parent education". These should include community-based classes and community college programs. Also want to encourage collaboration with other community based programs. Foundation will identify ways to overcome barriers to parent education.
Audience: Families and others who care for young children.
Action Steps: Subcommittee will identify barriers to parent education and suggest strategies to overcome. Subcommittee will develop criteria for funding parent education proposals.
Expand informal support systems for families.
Foundation will support programs that create networks for new parents. Components must include interaction with babies and meeting other new parents in neighborhoods and/or communities. The committee will come up with factors/criteria for programs to be funded. The priority factors will be a networking approach to access to parent education, information, experiences, and skills
Audience: Parents of infants and toddlers
Action Steps: Develop criteria for successful networking type programs.
Create, or expand an existing, 1-800 number to serve as a referral source for parent education and family support programs.
Audience: Families and other people who care for young children.
Action Steps: Identify preexisting 1-800 resource numbers. Evaluate services. Develop Foundation parameters for services and advertising. Identify contracting group or create new number.
Discussion
Melinda Gates clarified that the Foundation will lay out the criteria that programs must meet and that applicants will apply for grants based on this criteria.
Kyle Yasuda noted that evaluation and outcome measures are key – we need to make sure they fit in here somewhere.
Mona Locke asked Robbin Dunn what is meant by "support" for parent educators as described in recommendation number one. Is this an existing program?
Robbin Dunn explained that they seek to create a mechanism and structure that will train the trainers. The goal is to expand the pool of qualified parent educators.
Mona Locke asked if the grant money goes straight to the trainers.
Dee Ann Perea noted that money will also go to developing the criteria for quality training.
Robbin Dunn responded that the subcommittee believes this is a multi-step process. Developing the criteria for training is the first piece of this process. The subcommittee sees the need for development of a set of skills based competencies which would be adopted by the community colleges and vocational institutions.
Mona Locke asked if the programs to be funded are existing programs.
Robbin Dunn responded that it is really both existing and new programs. The current system for training parent educators is extremely fragmented. The goal is to set common standards and bring unity to the profession.
Kathryn Barnard asked for more clarification on recommendation number one. She states that recommendation number one reflects a need for something more that early childhood education expertise. To talk to parents implies adult education which is a different skill. There are not a lot of good models for this available. It would be innovative to develop skills standards but who would develop them. This could be a huge task. Further, where would all of this education take place? To impact parents need to provide training in the workplace.
Alex Deccio asked if anyone had considered starting with a pilot program.
Mona Locke indicated that she completely understands the desire for enhancing quality. But the goal the commission has discussed for the last few months is expanding access for parents. She believes it is important for the commission to chose a couple of things to do really well. We need to find a way to balance the desire for increased quality with the need for increased accessibility.
Kim Cook noted that do we need to think about how much money we need to put this into action or do we say this is what we want now lets raise the money.
Robbin Dunn explained that it has not been an easy undertaking. The subcommittee is basically building a house without a budget.
Melinda Gates responded that the subcommittee needs to prioritize what is doable first. What can be done with a small amount of money and have a big impact. Both importance and doability need to be reflected in the priorities. That is why the co-chairs favor making recommendation number 4 (the 1-800 number) the first priority.
Sheri Flies asked if this becomes the working arm of the Foundation. Will the Foundation have to do more research in order to implement? Recommendation number one appears to be more of a continuation rather than implementation.
Robin Zukoski stated that if Mary Ellen O’Keeffe were here, she would say that the ultimate goal is expanding accessibility but that quality must be a part of this accessibility. Expanding the pool of qualified educators helps support quality and supply.
Mona Locke noted that accessibility could be the criteria of a grant. This helps build in quality control.
Sheri Flies asked who would develop the criteria for the grant?
Melinda Gates said that the subcommittee should develop the criteria not the Foundation. The foundation will take the criteria and fund only those programs that fit. That way the Foundation will be able to start processing grants right away.
Kathryn Barnard noted that she was still unclear about the definition of parent educator. Parents have contact with doctors, nurses, child care providers all the time. Do we need to create something new. Or, should we try to infiltrate those settings with our message?
Robbin Dunn responded that "parent educator" became the title for the process.
Mona Locke asked if all of these must be parent educator programs or if other community resources like children’s museums, toddler programs, etc. can be included. For instance, in Yakima we heard the need for parent education in Spanish. How will that fit?
Kyle Yasuda noted that this is the Commission’s constant struggle. There are so many fragmented things in place already. WPCAN gives grants for parent training and always includes funding for program evaluation. Maybe we should consider giving the funding to WPCAN. Should we support something that already exists rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.
Robbin Dunn noted that the subcommittee didn’t see this as something new. It is bringing support to something that is piece-meal but that already exists. They are not trying to create a new system.
DeeAnn Perea added that they didn’t list Children’s Museums because they didn’t list any specific community programs to partner with.
Mona Locke asked if we are going to train parent educators then the logical follow up is that we would only support parent education programs that complied with our criteria. Do we want to limit ourselves in this way?
Melinda Gates suggested that the Commission talk about the rest of the recommendations then come back to number one.
Craig Cole explained that he supports going for the low hanging fruit – working toward something that is doable right away so we can do some good quickly while developing other things. He supports making the 1-800 line the first priority.
Robbin Dunn responded that the subcommittee put the resource line as their fourth priority because they believe that it is very doable and can be achieved in the short term. Wanted to focus energy on other things.
Melinda Gates asked if the subcommittee was against moving the 1-800 number up to first priority.
Gayle Womack noted that if we place the 1-800 number as our first priority we may not have the services available. If we are going to give folks access to information and resources shouldn’t we be sure the communities can meet the need.
Mona Locke replied that we will not be providing services but serving as a conduit for information about services.
Dee Ann Perea asked how the parent education information will be given out over the resource line and how it will be monitored.
Robbin Dunn explained that we develop the criteria which programs will have to adhere to.
Craig Cole agreed that in a perfect world you would develop the infrastructure and then use the services. But, we live in an imperfect world and we need to build on the existing network. We need to do good right away by providing information about the existing programs. Then we can develop additional resources later.
Mona Locke asked the Commission how they feel about recommendations one and two. Should we vote today or ask the subcommittee to rehash and come back in January.
Sheri Flies stated that she agrees with the goals of the subcommittee. But, she thinks the Commission needs to give the foundation something concrete that has one line item for each recommendation. We should develop the application and hand it to the foundation.
Melinda Gates asked if recommendations two and three should be rolled together.
Robbin Dunn responded that she feels it makes a stronger statement if we leave them separate.
Kathryn Barnard explained that she hasn’t seen anything that addresses reaching those parents that need help the most – those with low education, in poverty, etc. These parents won’t sign up for classes. The Foundation should challenge the community to meet the needs of the neediest parents.
Kyle Yasuda noted that the recommendations appear to be on target but that maybe it’s the wording that is causing confusion.
Mona Locke asked Commissioners if we should lump all of the recommendations together or try to do some of them well.
Dee Ann Perea commented lumping the recommendations together is okay but she believes that expanding funding for existing programs will reach out to those hard to reach pockets of the population. Many innovative programs have long waiting lists. Additional funding would allow the expansion of existing high quality programs.
Melinda Gates noted that if we keep number 2 and number 3 separate then special emphasis can be given to creative and innovative programs. This way the Foundation can have flexibility to give to new programs.
Gayle Womack suggested that on the grant application extra points could be awarded for innovation or for reaching hard to reach communities.
Robbin Dunn said the subcommittee struggled with how specific they should be in terms of the foundation. She is intrigued at the idea of creating an application for the Foundation grants.
Mona Locke reflected that the subcommittee has done a lot of work coming up with these recommendations and the Commission is fleshing them out.
Melinda Gates then recommended that the Commission take a break and that the subcommittee meet during the break to discuss the idea of lumping all of the recommendations together.
A break was taken
Mona Locke called Commissioners back after the break and explained that the co-chairs will present their suggestions and then take a vote.
Mona Locke recommended that we move forward with the 1-800 number (recommendation number four) and that we lump recommendations 1, 2 and 3 together.
Melinda Gates asked who was in favor and who was opposed.
All Commissioners were in favor, none were opposed. The Commission adopted the recommendation.
Public Engagement Campaign update
Rick Cocker presented the Commission with the final draft logo and asked for any final input. The Commission then voted to adopt this logo for the public engagement campaign. The image (in sepia tones) is of an adult hand grasping an infant finger over the tag line "Connecting with Baby, Learning from the Start."
Kris Mitchke then gave an overview of where the campaign is headed and provided a conceptual outline. First, she reviewed the objective and strategy of the campaign and then she listed several tactics that will be used to meet the objective.
The group has revised its approach by: 1) Using preexisting materials as much as possible, and 2) Efforts will be focused on getting audience to affirmatively ask for information.
Tactics:
Research
Media / Public outreach
Advertising
Paid Media
Collateral
1-800 number and fulfillment services
Direct Mail
Web Site
Fundraising
Corporate Sponsorships
Research: Survey 400 parents and caregivers to guide the development of the campaign. Ask what information would be useful to them, identify what information they already know and what type of help would be most effective. Also, ask about message delivery. The research will demonstrate the need for education on early learning and can also be used as a research benchmark. We can test again later to measure our progress.
Media—develop op-ed pieces, speaker’s bureau, and radio and TV ads. Will supplement paid media with unpaid.
Will develop 2-4 TV ads, 2 print ads, and 2 radio spots. Message will be the importance of early learning and will provide a phone number or web site to visit for more information. The ads won’t deliver the entire message.
The collateral materials will provide the complete message. These are items already in existence that we will rebrand or co-brand with our logo. This will be a good area to try to partner with other groups and expand delivery of already developed excellent information. For instance, we could distribute 250,000 books, 10,000 videos, and 10,000 CD roms.
Critical to this effort will be fundraising. Will need corporate sponsorship to underwrite the collateral materials. These will also create corporate sponsor promotional opportunities on shopping bags, refrigerator magnets, etc.
Rick Cocker asked Commissioners for input. He also asked of there were any areas where emphasis is needed.
Discussion
Yvonne Ullas asked if the campaign will be in English only.
Rick responded that no, other foreign languages will be made available based on the target audience.
Gayle Womack suggested that we should provide links to current services on the campaign web site.
Alex Deccio commented that public service announcements are a good way to reach the Hispanic population.
Kathryn Barnard noted that it would be very beneficial to work with Child Profile on this campaign.
Mona Locke explained the need to make sure that the campaign 1-800 number and the foundation 1-800 number are the same.
Melinda Gates then thanked Rick and Kris and explained to Commissioners that we will come back another day to discuss the fundraising strategy.
TEACH update
Robin Zukoski gave a brief overview of where we are on implementing the TEACH program.
First, the subcommittee recommends that we be a TEACH licensee. The cost is $1,500 that includes replication materials; data base design as well as technical support from North Carolina.
Second, TEACH will license one non-profit entity per state. The entity must not have any conflicts inherent in the structure (no college or child care providers). This usually requires a 2-month RFP process. If the foundation is not to be the entity, TEACH will run the RFP process to identify the best organization.
Third, the Washington entity must make quarterly reports back to TEACH in North Carolina.
Finally, the bottom line start up cost is about $10,000. This would give us the TEACH name, database and technical assistance.
Components
Education: this is a formal credit from an institution of higher learning. It means that the TEACH program must push articulation in community colleges and universities
Compensation: A second critical component.
TEACH must see a state’s commitment to education before supporting scholarships for community based training for a CDA. This could also be done at a later date.
TEACH can easily sit on top of STARS. STARS is the state mandated minimum training. TEACH is education in early childhood education and will always build towards a degree.
The subcommittee will work on action steps as a basis for building a business plan to get us started.
Foundation update
Robin Zukoski explained that Pacific Northwest Grant Makers (part of the NW giving project) has agreed to assist us in developing the Foundation.
Robin also announced the Preston Gates and Ellis has offered free legal consultation on this project.
Public Comment
Lloyd Gardner explained that he has a letter regarding the interagency agreement that the Commission has with DSHS. He still is unsure about where the one million dollar expenditure comes from and wonders about who will be paying for the Foundation.
Joan Gorner commented that I-695 was passed to cut funding and that the funding of the Commission should be cut. Joan presented Mrs. Locke with a parenting book. She believes that private resource should be used to help parents, not government resources.
Cris Shardelman noted that she saw an ad a couple of weeks ago regarding a meeting where child advocacy training was hooked into Head Start /ECEAP and that a session on "how to talk to your legislators" was being offered. Cris asks why tax dollars are being used to teach people how to talk to their legislators.
Melissa Myers, an educator from Skyline High School, thanked Commissioners for their work and continued support. She believes that parent education needs to start in high school. Skyline High School has a vocational program that focuses on parenting and early childhood education.
Erin Perea, a student at Skyline High School, is enrolled in the ECE program. She has 2 ECE classes and one psychology class. She gets a chance to work with children and thanks the Commission for supporting work in the early childhood education field.
Caleb Valentea is also a student at Skyline who is enrolled in the ECE program. He enjoys the program because being with the kids provides him relief from a stressful day. His outlook on young children has changed and he sees how important early childhood education is.
Kathy Zeisel is a parent educator who does home visits. She explains that the Commission needs to be sure that the community knows what support and information already exists.
Rachel Levine is a former teacher. She likes the idea that existing programs should be used first and that these programs can be built upon. She states that we all need to remember that our number one priority needs to be kids. She commends the Commission for their work.
Shannon Austin is a Head Start literacy specialist. She benefited from parent education and believes we need to help parents be better parents. She appreciates the work the Commission is doing for families. In her parenting class they were not dictated how to do things but information was provided to allow people to be best parents.
Jean Hueston states that she is always delighted to hear what the Commission is working on. She states the community networks are working locally to get more child care home visits. She also comments that when she was in high school family education was a required class.
Karen Voorhes is happy to see that the Commission is looking at using existing systems and not totally relying on tax dollars. This allows the parent to be the judge. She likes the focus on appreciating parents rather than judging them.
Joseph Connor explains that what the Commission is doing reminds him of the Soviet Union and that our public education system is a mess. He states that our students are failing their standardized 4th and 8th grade tests. The Commission should be eliminated.
Sharon Oldfield states that the complaints about the Commission’s work is that it is looking to be universal. Plans are aimed not just at abusive families but at everyone. The concern is that this will be come mandatory not voluntary. Also, these types of programs don’t reach the people they are aimed at because at-risk families drop out of studies.
Donna Robbins is from PEPS. She is delighted to see that the subcommittee recommendation regarding the expansion of informal support systems for families is on the table. She commends the Commission for listening.
Barbara Fenster commends the Commission for its work but asks them to keep in mind who needs help the most – those that can’t read, have low education, poverty, etc.
Julanne Burts asks the Commission why inmates are inputing data into the AWRD database system. Who authorized this? What about security? Mrs. Locke explained that Robin Zukoski would talk to her after the meeting and answer her questions. (More information about the AWRD program is available from the Department of Employment Security or on the Internet at: http://awrd.org/).
Doug Buffet, a tax payer and future father, explains that he is very concerned about what the commission is doing and is very concerned about kids. He asks the Commission to keep out of his child’s life. He states that since the passage of I-695 government still doesn’t get the message – why is this Commission being funded while fire and police protection are being cut?
Marda Kirkwood states that it is unethical to take taxpayer dollars to use in a marketing campaign. There is a difference of opinion about what is good and what is bad for children. She states that a lot of people find that you (commission) propagate opinions that they disbelieve.
The meeting was closed.

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