Having trouble viewing this email? View it in your web browser

2021 State & County Home Visiting Fact Sheets Available 

Voluntary home visiting programs help parents and others raising children with supports to improve health, safety, literacy and family self-sufficiency. But too few receive these services.

We’re a partner in the Childhood Begins at Home campaign that is working to increase access to evidence-based home visiting services and are happy to announce that the fact sheets we produce are updated and available for our FY 2021-22 advocacy!

These fact sheets show the picture of the startlingly low number of pregnant women, children and families served by voluntary, evidence-based home visiting across the commonwealth. Use the map to see the number of children served in your county.

This year, Childhood Begins at Home is calling on policymakers to include an additional $6.3 million within the Department of Human Services budget ($3.9 million in the Community-Based Family Centers line and $2.4 million in the Nurse-Family Partnership line) to serve a greater proportion of pregnant women and families with young children eligible for evidence-based home visiting services.

You can learn more about our work with Childhood Begins at Home at www.childhoodbeginsathome.org or by watching the Home Visiting Works video. 

Fulton County Home Visiting Virtual Event Highlights Parents

The Childhood Begins at Home campaign last week hosted a virtual event with Sen. Judy Ward (R-Altoona) and Rep. Jesse Topper (R-Bedford) where parents and home visitors could express the value of evidence-based home visiting services and the many benefits they provide. Other attendees included representatives from the Parents as Teachers and Early Head Start models as well as Fulton County District Attorney Travis Kendall, Fulton County Commissioner Paula Shives and Fight Crime: Invest in Kids State Director Bruce Clash. 

As noted above, the campaign is seeking $6.3 million in the FY 2021-22 state budget to expand home visiting services across the commonwealth. Participants reinforced to Sen. Ward and Rep. Topper that home visiting is a worthwhile investment in the broader Department of Human Services budget, especially in light of these services continuing through the pandemic.

Local Fact Sheets & Mapping: Child Care and Pre-k in Pennsylvania

PPC is a proud member of the Pre-K for PA and Start Strong PA campaigns that are focused on increasing access to high-quality pre-k and child care. Each year we create interactive maps for the campaigns, and the 2021 maps and fact sheets are now available for advocates who work in early care and education.

The maps allow users to see a variety of data points around pre-k, including unmet need and locations of high-quality providers, as well as for child care, including the number of children served in the subsidy program or the capacity of providers in the state meeting high-quality standards. Both the pre-k and child care data is available at the statewide level, as well as at the county, legislative district and school district levels. After completing your search you can also print fact sheets by these geographical levels.

This advocacy is imperative, as too many infants, toddlers, and preschoolers do not have access to high-quality, publicly funded programs in Pennsylvania:

• Pre-k: Of the 167,469 eligible children ages 3-4 living in Pennsylvania, only 36% - or 1 in 3 children – have access to high-quality pre-k.
• Child care: Only 41% of Child Care Works (CCW) children under five years of age are in high-quality programs, and only 39% of CCW infants and toddlers are in high-quality programs.

Learn more about Pre-K for PA and Start Strong PA.

Save the Date: Early Care and Education Twitter Chat for Giving Infants & Toddlers a Healthy Start

More than 21,000 babies and toddlers in Pennsylvania did not have health insurance in 2018, and babies and toddlers under age 3 in our state are more likely to be uninsured compared to school-age kids.

On Tuesday, April 13^th from 1-2 p.m., PPC is participating in a Twitter chat with other early care and education advocates as part of the work of Children’s Health Insurance Subgroup within Pennsylvania’s Prenatal-to-Age-Three Policy Collaborative.

Who: Pennsylvania’s Prenatal-to-Age-Three Policy Collaborative, Children’s Health Insurance Subgroup
What: Twitter Chat with Early Care and Education Advocates
When: Tuesday, April 13^th from 1-2 p.m.
Hosted by: @PAP4Children
Hashtags: #healthystartpa #WOYC21

Our goal is to raise awareness during the Week of the Young Child (April 10-16) of the need for infants and toddlers to have health insurance coverage and the options available for families.

Please join us! By raising awareness that no family makes too little or too much to get health insurance, we can help ensure kids are healthy enough to attend child care, because every child deserves an equal opportunity to a quality educational foundation that will prepare them to grow, learn and succeed.

Pennsylvania to Receive $5 Billion Federal Infusion for Education

Last week Gov. Wolf and the Pennsylvania Department of Education released publicly the amount each school district stands to receive in stimulus funding from the recently-enacted federal American Recovery Plan. Pennsylvania is expected to receive $4.9 billion in federal relief funds to help Pre-K to 12 schools return students to in-person instruction, address learning loss and to provide additional supports, among other priorities. About $4.5 billion of the funds will flow to school districts and charter schools in a proportional amount to what was received last year via federal Title I-A funds as part of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund (ESSER Fund). School districts and charter schools must use at least 20% of the funding to address learning loss and the social, emotional and academic needs of underrepresented students, including students from low-income families, students with disabilities, English Language Learners, migrant students, students experiencing homelessness and children in foster care. Guidance for use of the funds has been posted publicly. 

Unfortunately, there has been little federal support for Career and Technical Education (CTE) recognized through stimulus packages (separate from the state legislature allocating GEER funds both last year and earlier in 2021), and the underfunding is compounded by the fact that additional funding for CTE was not a priority in the Governor’s budget proposal. 

A new fact sheet produced by PA Schools Work, of which PPC is a member, outlines why an increased investment in CTE as part of the FY 2021-22 budget is critically important, as career and technical education centers have experienced unique and costly challenges, including equipment needs and modifying instruction to adapt to a virtual environment. 

PPC, Allies for Children, and Pennsylvania Association of Career and Technical Administrators will be providing an update on why increased state investments are necessary at an upcoming webinar on April 19^th. Register now to secure your spot. 

In other K-12 news, while districts will still be required to administer PSSAs, Keystones and other state assessments and have indicated this will occur later in the calendar year, the Pennsylvania Department of Education received a waiver from the U.S. Department of Education that indicates that outcomes will not be used for high stakes measures, including in the Future Ready Index. PDE also has made updates to health and safety guidance for school districts, which includes changes to social distancing measures and changes for school closures based on transmission levels.  

Uninsured Pennsylvanians to Receive More Financial Assistance and More Time to Enroll for Health Insurance through Pennie™

Pennsylvania’s health insurance marketplace, Pennie™, has extended the enrollment period through August 15^th following the federal government’s recent announcement. Additionally, families have an even better opportunity to purchase high-quality, affordable health insurance plans thanks to the new provisions in the American Rescue Plan (ARP). The ARP provided the largest expansion of access to financial assistance since the ACA passed in 2010.

Also noteworthy is that Pennie operates a “no wrong door” policy to ensure that those who are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP are connected to coverage. In fact,  its most recent report shows more than 55,000 applications were transferred to Medicaid or CHIP for more significant savings.

Please share this good news with your networks to help even more children and their families connect to health insurance! To learn more, visit www.pennie.com.