Spring is in the air and changes abound. We welcome back our Spanish Interpreter Christina Jager and her new baby Sophia. They will pick up the reins from Daisy Montanez who will be delivering her baby soon! We really appreciated Daisy’s support and coverage during Christina’s maternity leave and wish her the best. We welcome Crystal Salyer who will be taking on the Supervised Visitation program this month. Crystal currently works part time for DNCCC’s Parent Education Program and helping SV families will be a natural extension of that activity.

It is with sadness that we announce the closure of the Hansell Child Development Center. Due to the broad range of child care options for pre-school children, our enrollments were no longer able to support the program. When the Hansell Center opened in 1997, there were not as many State Preschools, no Tribal Preschools and only a few private center options. Parents have other choices now and State regulations influence who can and cannot utilize this subsidy – all leading to low enrollments and a change for the program. The up side is that we have an opportunity to develop and try another option: a Family Child Care Education Network. It works similar to a Child Development Center except that slots are in family child care homes that are eligible and committed to child development activities such as developmental profiles and environmental ratings. With parent concerns about school readiness, this would be an added value to child care homes and very attractive for enrollment. We had a visit from the Humboldt CCC Network Coordinator who presented their model and answered questions for providers, staff and administration. We are working with our State Consultant to transition the contract from center to home based services. There is another article in this issue about Networks. Please feel free to call us if you have questions. Ask for Cris, Char or Maggie. This is new to us also & we can all learn from your questions!

Get out & enjoy the winter sun! Kids will be cooped up again soon and now is the time to bundle them up and enjoy our beautiful county!!