Guiding Questions for Reviewing the OCDEL Child Care Certification Regulation Rewrite

Definition: Quality practices in child care are those program activities above and beyond basic health and safety measures. These practices include all aspects of care such as environments that are conducive to the learning needs of all children in care to providing appropriately challenging, playbased curricula. For this project, we are looking to infuse elements of quality into regulation, where appropriate and possible.

1. What about this regulation serves as a basis for a provider to move toward a higher quality practice without duplicating a standard that is in STARS?
2. What would make this stronger in supporting quality?
3. What supporting documents or guidance should be added to procedures or a provider implementation guide to help situate the regulation as a basis for quality?

Definition: Equity is providing various levels of support and assistance depending on specific needs or abilities. For this project, we specifically want to engage a diversity of:

• Provider types: family, group, center, school-age (Moving forward will become Family Child Care and Center Based Child Care only)
• Provider Characteristics: race/ethnicity or cultural practices, gender, language, ability, socio-economic status
• Geography: urban, rural, or suburban and specific municipality considerations

1. Who is benefitting from the change?
2. Who is burdened by the change?
   1. How are they burdened (more work? Increased cost? Something else?)
   2. Can anything be done to alleviate that burden?
3. Consider how this regulation is written, what parts of it will be well understood by those with limited English proficiency?
4. How might this regulation impact providers who have a primary language other than English?
5. How might this regulation impact a provider of color?
6. How have you consulted with those most impacted by the change?
7. What could make this more equitable?

Definition: Provider burden looks at disparate impact to child care programs that are differently situated. For this project, we want to mitigate undue burden that may be caused by a regulation, especially if there is a disproportionate impact on one type of provider over another.

1. How might this regulation impact someone if they were:
   1. In an urban setting?
   2. In a rural setting?
   3. In a suburban setting?
   4. In a specific area of Pennsylvania?
2. How might this regulation impact center providers? Family or group providers?
3. What would make this less burdensome for providers?

Definition: Compliance considers places where child care must comply with other local, state or federal regulations. For this project we want to ensure alignment with those regulations so that providers are not burdened by conflicting requirements.

1. Do the proposed regulations address all aspects of CCDF?
2. Are there regulatory citations to CPSL or Health Code that need to be included in proposed revisions?
3. Is there adequate reference to local codes or statutes to ensure compliance?