Individuals with a founded finding of child abuse or neglect made by the Washington State Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) or a Washington State court may now apply to work in an assisted living facility or nursing home, provide long-term care services, or seek unsupervised access under a DCYF program such as child care or foster care.
The new program, Certificate of Parental Improvement (CPI), is aimed at reducing disproportionality. CPI was created in response to House Bill 1645, passed in 2020, which required DCYF to create this program by Jan. 1, 2021.
Before this program, individuals with a founded finding of child abuse or neglect that fell under RCW 26.44.020 or RCW 13.34.030(6)(b) were barred from working at assisted living facilities, nursing homes, long-term care services, or unsupervised access to children since this came up during the background process.
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In 2020, DCYF administered more than $60 million in grants to child care providers to help stabilize the industry and provide access to care for children and families. In May, the agency provided $30 million in grant funding and incentives and administered a second round of grants and incentives in November.
Through the Fall Child Care COVID-19 Grant, DCYF provided critical funds to more than 3,000 licensed child care providers in response to increased costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Fall Child Care COVID-19 Grants distributed a total of $29,765,380 to the following licensed child care providers:
- 2,016 Family Home Child Care ($13,361,400) with a license capacity of 20,582
- 954 Child Care Centers ($14,231,020) with a license capacity of 73,634
- 156 School-Age Programs ($2,152,810) with a license capacity of 10,121
- 3 Outdoor Preschools ($20,150) with a license capacity of 44
In the fall, DCYF also offered a one-time incentive payment of $250 to eligible Family, Friend, and Neighbor (FFN) providers serving children receiving subsidy. A total of 1,888 FFN providers received the incentive, for a total of $472,000.
DCYF recently hosted a legislative update webinar. The webinar provided an overview of the Governor’s recently announced proposed budgets and covered DCYF’s analysis of what’s in and out of the proposals, addressed questions, and collected feedback ahead of the 2021 Legislative Session. If you were unable to attend the live webinar, the recorded presentation is posted on the DCYF website under the Legislative & Federal Relations webpage. |
