   On July 9th, Region 9 celebrated the opening and renaming of our new San Diego child care facility with a ribbon cutting. The Barry Ted Moskowitz Child Care Center, formerly known as Kids on Broadway, was relocated from leased space to its new location in the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Building. With an expiring lease and federal funding challenges, the child care center could have been on a path to closure. The San Diego community, teachers, parents, local, state, and federal officials worked together to advocate for the center, which ultimately resulted in keeping Kids on Broadway open until the new facility was built.
The new center has capacity for over 80 children, ages 6 weeks to 5 years, and is operated by Bright Horizons. It has a large playground that includes an outdoor bathroom and changing table, allowing teachers to take advantage of the year-round temperate climate and create a vibrant indoor/outdoor curriculum for children.
 During the ceremony, Dan Brown, Region 9 Acting Regional Administrator, announced the center will be named the Barry Ted Moskowitz Child Care Center. Dan explained, this name "reflects the considerable time, effort and advocacy that went into bringing this world-class center to fruition. [Judge Moskowitz] has been a tireless champion for bringing a world-class child care center onto the campus to meet the needs of federal employees who work here."
A big thank you to all who advocated for and worked on the new facility. Everyone's efforts and dedication is reflected in the new world class facility.
 Photograph Credit: Steve Shinn, Gensler Architects
SEPTEMBER is NATIONAL PREPAREDNESS MONTH
Are you prepared? Check out the latest Child Care Aware of America’s Emergency Preparedness webinar series. Certificates of attendance and CEUs are available. You can access archived recordings on: http://usa.childcareaware.org/preparednesswebinars/
Recent webinars include:
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Child Care Emergency Supply Kits: What to Pack and Where It’s At: Every child care program should have fully-stocked emergency supply kits ready to use—one that is portable for evacuations and another that is on-site for sheltering in place. This webinar will provide you with a greater understanding of what to put in your kits and how to store them.
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Keeping Kids Safe: The Basics of Active Shooter Response for Child Care Programs: What can you do keep children in your child care program safe from similar threats? This webinar will introduce child care providers to some of the basic prevention steps to take to in dealing with violence, such as an active shooter incident
Please consider joining Child Care Aware of America’s mobile texting pilot to quickly and efficiently send one text in an emergency to all parents in your program.
Register for the mobile texting pilot, upcoming webinars, access more emergency preparedness resources or request training or assistance at: www.childcareprepare.org.
Our Child Care Program Managers have been busy reviewing and updating Board files. If you are contacted by GSA for more information, please respond promptly so we can assure our records are complete.
During this process, we identified several Boards who have not yet received Board training. Best practice is to have a basic Board training for all of members, as well as Board training and orientation for any new members as they join. If you are interested in receiving a one hour Board training webinar, please contact your GSA Child Care Program Manager or Sandy Axelrod at sandra.axelrod@gsa.gov or 202-253-4161 to schedule a session.
GSA Child Care also offers quarterly Board Networking sessions that you are invited to join. The next one will be Thursday, September 27th at 2:00 pm EST. Please save the date and look for an invitation with more information in your inbox soon.
And finally, we invite you to join our Federal Child Care Board Facebook Group. To join, log into your personal Facebook account and enter the following in the search field: “Federal Child Care Center Boards”. You will then see a link to request access to the group. The administrator will then grant you access.
All Boards can benefit from both training and networking opportunities throughout the year. Please take advantage of these opportunities to enrich and enhance your Board experience.
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