TO: CITY COUNCIL FROM: Councilmember Sylvia Arenas District 8 SUBJECT: SEE BELOW DATE: April 26, 2022 Approved Date 4/26/2022 _____ SUBJECT: CITY ROADMAP - CHILD CARE: SPENDING PLAN FOR AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN FUNDING FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH FOCUSED PROGRAMS AND SERVICES RECOMMENDATION 1) Accept the staff recommendations. 2) Direct the City Manager to ensure strategic alignment of all City childcare services with the principles of the Child and Youth Master Plan and the City Roadmap. 3) Accept the Mayor’s memorandum recommendations with the following amendments: a. Adopt Mayor’s Recommendation 1, while directing the City Manager to maintain commitment of the full $400,000 currently proposed for 4.25 FTE positions in PRNS, as a minimum, to sustain after-school, summer, and other core recreational programs and ensure that childcare funding is strategically aligned with the Child and Youth Master Plan, and b. Accept Recommendation 2, with the edits below: i. Recommendation 2.a.i: “Subsidies for those low-income families who narrowly exceed the income ceilings in the state subsidies provided through SCCOE [, Go Kids, Choices for Children, and/or any other direct subsidy provider within the Local Planning Council]”, and ii. Recommendation 2.a.ii: “capital needs for childcare facilities expansion or development that will [provide critical upgrades to meet the city’s quality care standards, allow for program expansion, or help our facilities] meet "license-ready" [state] childcare standards.” c. Refer all Council recommendations regarding unallocated funds through the Child Well-Being Working Group and the Child and Youth Master Plan, and return to the Neighborhood Services and Education Committee and Council on recommendations for allocation of these funds.
COUNCIL AGENDA: 4/26/2022 FILE: ITEM: 22-566 7.1
CITY COUNCIL April 26, 2022 Subject: City Roadmap - Child Care: Spending Plan for American Rescue Plan Funding for Children and Youth Focused Programs and Services Page 2 4) In consultation with key stakeholders including members of the Child Well-Being Working Group, direct the City Manager to prioritize funding from the remaining unallocated fund balance of the $10.5 million American Rescue Plan Act funding to: a. Address and implement recommendations of the Bill of Rights for Children and Youth Audit currently in progress to ensure the City is adhering to the updated needs and concerns around children and youth. b. Explore hosting an intergenerational recreational quality standard working group that aligns with our Family Friendly City Initiative to bridge child, youth, and senior well-being services. c. Invest in childcare services as an automated response for survivors of gender-based violence and/or their family through a Memorandum of Understanding and/or contract between the San José Police Department and a local drop-in childcare provider to issue vouchers as part of our survivor-centered practices and services during the intake and interview process. d. Disrupt the gender-based violence pipeline for young girls and fast track gender-specific survivor-centered recreational and empowerment programming in partnership with key stakeholders (described in the background) to target young female sexual violence survivors between the ages of 7-17 years old and report back to the Neighborhood Services and Education Committee by Fall 2022. BACKGROUND I commend the dedicated Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services and Library staff for this thoughtful and comprehensive proposal that is responsive to the needs of children and families in San Jose. Their forethought has enabled us to invest quickly and strategically, so that we can enhance and expand the programs and services we offer, as well as those offered by the robust network of partners that we lean on to help address gaps exacerbated by the pandemic. At the Special Joint Meeting on Child Well-Being held on March 25, 2022, this network (elected officials, governmental agencies, nonprofits and the public) reconvened to strategize alignment of our spending priorities to close service gaps in childcare and early education. A key outcome was the establishment of the Child and Youth Master Plan Working Group to formalize collaboration between the City of San Jose and key community organizations and stakeholders as the Child and Youth Master Plan is developed. This body will keep a pulse on the changing landscape and needs; it can certainly help guide the City’s investments going forward so that we may continue to work in parallel with our community partners without duplicating efforts. I appreciate Mayor Liccardo’s memo, and his concurrence with my advocacy for investment in childcare. His memo clearly describes what is at stake for our families. I appreciate our City staff and my City Council colleagues for putting this item on the City Roadmap, and for prioritizing this work with our ARPA funds. It's vital that we keep the focus on the critical needs of our families, the lack of equity in the current system, and the great opportunity we have if we leverage our current city programs to meet equity goals. We must maintain a laser focus on immediate steps that will help families, and that should include: a) investments in key improvements in PRNS programs to make the CITY COUNCIL April 26, 2022 Subject: City Roadmap - Child Care: Spending Plan for American Rescue Plan Funding for Children and Youth Focused Programs and Services Page 3 programs more equitable while expanding their services to support more families, b) ensure that city funds invested in subsidies for state-subsidized preschool are both non-duplicative and effectively expand the reach of the programs, and c) that our upgrades in city facilities are strategic in both improving and expanding services, as well as helping to leverage state funds. In order to broaden the positive impact of these programs and services, a truly intersectional approach needs to be put into practice as various issues connect and marginalize people based on gender, race, sexual orientation, physical ability, etc. Our current system criminalizes girls, especially girls of color, who have been victims of sexual and/or physical abuse. In order to end the sexual abuse to prison pipeline for marginalized girls, we must keep our community safe from sexual assault, as well as ensure that all paths towards healing and justice are free of barriers so that perpetrators can be held responsible for their actions. A barrier to survivor reporting is the need for childcare support for survivors of gender-based violence and/or their family members during the initial intake and interview process. When survivors have the courage to come forward and report a sexual violence crime to our San José Police Department, we must ensure that they can do so in a safe and confidential space without worrying if their children, siblings, or other family members will be indirectly traumatized from the recount of the violent experience. That is why it is critical that the City also prioritize investing in childcare services as an automated response for survivors of gender-based violence and/or their family through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and/or contract between the San José Police Department and a local drop-in childcare provider to issue vouchers as part of our survivor-centered practices and services. Examples of local drop-in childcare providers to explore an MOU/contract with includes organizations such as, but not limited to: Bright Horizons, Kidango, or KidsPark San Jose West. I have sounded the alarm on the rising rates of gender-based violence and we can no longer look the other way when we know that most survivors of sexual violence, which includes sexual assault and child sexual/abuse, are between the ages of 7-17 years old. We need to meet the dedication and commitment we’ve made to update survivor-centered policies in our San José Police Department with an investment in recreational and empowerment programming to support young girls and prevent them from entering a vicious and intersectional cycle of gender-based violence. These recreational and empowerment programs should be developed in partnership alongside key stakeholders including, but not limited to, the Child Abuse Prevention Council, Children’s Advocacy Center, Community Solutions, Evergreen Valley College Womyn’s Gender Equity Center, Office of Gender Based Violence Prevention, Young Women’s Freedom Center, and YWCA Golden Gate Silicon Valley. These gaps and investments in system improvements need to be addressed immediately and our most vulnerable children and youth cannot wait any longer.