| Name | Jennifer |
|---|---|
| Last Name | Bronson |
| Home Address | 1927 Riverwood Drive Hixson, TN 37343 United States |
| Organization Name | Chattanooga 2.0 |
| Describe Your Role In The Organization | Executive Director |
| Organization Address | 811 Broad Street #100 Chattanooga, TN 37402 United States |
| Website | https://www.chatt2.org |
| Best Phone Number To Reach You | 9204759305 |
| Alternate Phone Number | |
| Email Address | jbronson@chatt2.org |
| Alternate Email Address | jbronsonchatt2@gmail.com |
| Please Describe Your Project In Detail | Currently, the critical human resource gaps in the Early Childhood field are leading to huge financial burdens for local families and businesses. Turnover rates in the child care sector are at an all time high due to pandemic-related working conditions and burnout. Many child care small businesses are working at 75% capacity due to a lack of early childhood classroom teachers. This has led to even longer waiting lists and families forced to balance working with children at home or worse- placing children in non-regulated care situations as a stopgap measure. There are 1,045 child care teachers in Hamilton County, working in 202 individual small businesses, without one coordinating entity to assist with recruitment, retention, and other system-wide changes. Early Matters is an action team of Chattanooga 2.0, Chattanooga-Hamilton County’s collaborative of cross-sector organizations working together to improve outcomes for children and youth. To make Chattanooga-Hamilton County the best place in the nation for a child to be born and raised, Early Matters partners are working to create a coordinated and aligned early childhood system across all sectors. Quality child care is an integral part of this system. Unfortunately, a history of low wages, a lack of opportunity for growth and professional development, and no standard for health benefits create barriers to recruiting and retaining adequate child care workers - and therefore, create barriers to establishing and maintaining child care seats - for families. Throughout 2022, Early Matters will conduct a funding stream analysis to calculate the financial burden of a child care system that works for children, families, small businesses and our economy. However, until we can find long-term, sustainable solutions for child care in our community, a more immediate solution is required to prevent the child care system from withering altogether. To address the child care crisis in the interim, Chattanooga 2.0 proposes reinstating the Quality Matters Fund (QMF). The QMF is a public-private partnership grant created by Early Matters and former partners within the City of Chattanooga’s Office of Early Learning to support existing child care businesses to improve quality or increase the number of available high-quality seats. Between 2020 and 2021, a total of $492,000 in one-time capital investments was distributed to 15 child care agencies to expand access to child care for more families across Chattanooga-Hamilton County, as well as increase the rating of lower quality programs. We propose establishing a 2022 QMF grant cycle specifically for Recruitment and Retention efforts. Through the 2022 Quality Matters Fund, each child care small business would be afforded the option to select the recruitment and retention strategy that suits their employees’ needs best. Applicants would choose from a list of recruitment and retention tactics that comply with the federal guidelines for ARP funds (e.g., professional development, pay for classroom substitutes, recruitment or retention bonuses, employee recognition programs, health care stipend). The benefits of utilizing the QMF for this purpose are manifold: the fund is already established, recognized, and trusted by local child care providers; Early Matters has experience screening applications and distributing funds in partnership with the City of Chattanooga. If ARP funds are awarded for this project, first steps include identifying and reestablishing a QMF review committee, responsible for creating an award rubric, reviewing all applications and selecting award recipients. The City’s soon-to-be appointed Early Childhood Administrator would be invited to participate as a key member of this committee. Additionally, a small portion of the requested ARP funds will be used to identify and employ a part-time administrative assistant, responsible for processing QMF applications and awards, as well as monitoring compliance and reporting of the grantees. Although our proposed Quality Matters Fund grants are one-time awards to help immediately bolster and sustain the local child care workforce, this project takes aim at a sustainable solution for retaining educators. While a pay raise across the board for all child care staff in the county would certainly retain educators, there is no current, local sustainable solution for that need. However, as part of this proposed QMF grant project, funds could be used for professional development or higher education hours. With this additional training, child care staff may qualify for programs such as the TN WAGE$ pay subsidy, which offers stipends to early childhood educators who remain at their same child care provider for more than six months and who pursue professional development or higher education hours. Furthermore, by investing in the recruitment and retention of early childhood educators through the Quality Matters Fund, the City is also investing in sustained quality programming for children. Every dollar invested into the QMF will serve to: bolster the early childhood and child care workforce; provide consistent, caring adults and structured learning environments for children; and reliable child care for families wishing to pursue employment in our local economy. Above all, our community's children will benefit from this proposed investment of ARP dollars. Using the human capital-focused Quality Matters Fund, local leaders can provide small businesses an opportunity to negate the impact of the pandemic on their workforce while simultaneously positively impacting the two generational cradle-to-career pipeline. |
| Please explain how your project meets the requirements of the American Rescue Plan | By bolstering the early childhood workforce through recruitment and retention efforts tailored to the individual needs of each provider, Chattanooga will help to staunch the negative economic impact caused by the public health emergency. The positive impact will be to ensure that small businesses do not have to close their doors, parents will have reliable care for their children, employers will have a consistent and reliable workforce, and children will have enriching experiences to help equip them with the skills necessary to be successful in Kindergarten. |
| Where would your project take place? | Hamilton County, TN |
| How much will your project cost in total? | 5 |
| Do you have any matching funding sources from other local governments, private entities, non-profits, or philanthropic entities for your project? | Yes |
| Please describe the source and list amounts of any other funding. | The project cost is $5 million in total. We expect that, if granted $2 million in ARP funds from the City of Chattanooga to re-establish the Quality Matters Fund, the Hamilton County Commission would be willing to consider a potential match of those granted funds. We also anticipate a smaller infusion of financial awards to the QMF from private and philanthropic donors if the City provides the initial $2 million. |
| What portion of the project are you asking the city to fund? | $2 Million |
| If funded, when would your project start? | March 1, 2022 |
| How long would your project take to complete? | 3-4 months to process QMF grant applications and awards, but the implementation of grant dollars would last for one year. |
| What milestones would you use to measure your project’s progress? | March 2022 Development/review of eligibility criteria, use of grant funds, grant award amount, and scoring rubric. Early Matters’ Access to Quality Child Care working group convenes to edit and revise the application materials. Identify and establish a QMF review committee, responsible for reviewing all applications and selecting award recipients. Identify project manager/ administrator. Development of application and communications around application process. Early Matters website content added for QMF applications. April 2022 Media release announcing the opening of applications and dates for technical assistance webinars. Open applications to licensed child care providers; media release. May 2022 QMF committee reviews all applications and selects recipients using scoring rubric. Funds distributed to child care award recipients. November 2022 Interim report from providers on the use of funds and status of recruitment and retention. Early Matters provides a reporting template for ease of submission. Administrators ensure funds are being utilized per federal guidelines. April 2023 Final report from providers on the use of funds, final recruitment and retention dollars, the increased number of professional development hours acquired, and the number of child care teachers newly eligible for the WAGE$ pay stipend. Media release summarizing the impact of the public-private investment. |
| How would you ensure accountability and transparency throughout the project lifecycle? | Recipients of the QMF grants would be required to submit both an interim report and a final report. As in previous QMF years, a committee would be responsible for reviewing all applications and selecting award recipients. A part-time administrator will serve as the point of contact for grantees and will continuously monitor projects and progress, in addition to overseeing interim and final reports for each grantee. |
| If successful, how would your project benefit the community? | Chattanooga 2.0 is a collaborative of dozens of leaders working together to impact child and youth outcomes along the cradle-to-career continuum. In early childhood specifically, one fifth of the 21,300 children under 5-years-old in our area were living in poverty. For all children, but especially those living in poverty, attending a high-quality child care program is correlated with positive long-term life outcomes. Despite the benefits, less than half of Chattanooga-Hamilton County’s youngest residents are currently enrolled in an early learning program. While some parents are able to stay home to provide care for their young children, it’s critical that we ensure adequate support for those who cannot. Our hope is that through distribution of grants through the Quality Matters Fund, we will have multiple proof points for what recruitment and retention tactics were successful - i.e., which strategies worked well to retain and recruit child care employees and which did not, so that we may scale successful strategies in the future. The positive impact of recruiting and retaining quality early childhood teachers will be to ensure that small businesses do not have to close their doors, parents will have reliable care for their children, employers will have a consistent and reliable workforce, and children will have enriching experiences to help equip them with the skills necessary to be successful in Kindergarten. |
| How will you attract community buy-in for your project? | Early Matters has a vast network of organizational and community partners who are invested in improving early childhood outcomes. Chattanooga 2.0, Early Matters, and its partners have kept a steady drumbeat of media attention and community engagement surrounding the issues facing child care and early childhood education. To date, our coalition has garnered positive feedback for its impact in the child care space; we can leverage that reputation and momentum to build support for this project. Specifically, we recently concluded a one-year needs assessment regarding the barriers community members face in accessing quality child care. One of the four key barriers was workforce issues. We are also currently collecting countywide input on family needs in early childhood. We have an opportunity to marry the findings of the survey, along with the findings of the needs assessment, with an announcement of a public-private, city-county funded grant to invest in our child care workforce- to act on this gathered community feedback and support families and businesses in Chattanooga-Hamilton County by keeping quality child care open. Moreover, as we have done in the past, Early Matters will craft a comprehensive communication strategy for this campaign. This campaign will include, among other strategies, disseminating multiple press releases both announcing the opening of grant applications and the final report one year later to summarize the impact. |
| Is there anything else you would like us to know about your project? |