Wis. Dept. of Children and Families first anniversary
Focusing on the children
Focusing on the children
Youth at the Boys & Girls Club and Marcia Hendrickson (
fourth from left) joined DCF Secretary Reggie Bicha (sixth
from left) in celebrating the Wis. Dept. of Children and
Families’ first anniversary
fourth from left) joined DCF Secretary Reggie Bicha (sixth
from left) in celebrating the Wis. Dept. of Children and
Families’ first anniversary
By Jonathan Gramling
Last year, Governor James Doyle took bureaus out of the Dept. of Workforce
Development and the Dept. of Health And Family Services to create the Dept. of Children
and Families (DCF), which is housed in the GEF I facility on E. Washington Avenue.
Reggie Bicha, who has a long history in working on child welfare issues as a social
worker, foster parent and administrator, was appointed to be the first DCF secretary.
In the past year, Bicha and his staff have been busy moving into their new quarters,
getting organized, maintaining and starting services and dealing with biennial budgetary
issues. It’s been a busy year for the DCF staff. And after the budget was finalized, Bicha
held several town hall meetings throughout the state to highlight its accomplishments in
its first year and some of its future objectives.
On August 11, Bicha held a town hall meeting at the Boys & Girls Club in the Allied
Drive neighborhood that was attended by approximately two dozen city and county
administrators, child care providers, university representatives and State Senator Mark
Miller who worked hard to preserve many child and family measures in the state budget.
One of the new department initiatives that Bicha touted was the institution of a licensed
day care provider listing on the DCF website that allows parents to search by geographic
area group and family day care providers that have been licensed by the state. For
Last year, Governor James Doyle took bureaus out of the Dept. of Workforce
Development and the Dept. of Health And Family Services to create the Dept. of Children
and Families (DCF), which is housed in the GEF I facility on E. Washington Avenue.
Reggie Bicha, who has a long history in working on child welfare issues as a social
worker, foster parent and administrator, was appointed to be the first DCF secretary.
In the past year, Bicha and his staff have been busy moving into their new quarters,
getting organized, maintaining and starting services and dealing with biennial budgetary
issues. It’s been a busy year for the DCF staff. And after the budget was finalized, Bicha
held several town hall meetings throughout the state to highlight its accomplishments in
its first year and some of its future objectives.
On August 11, Bicha held a town hall meeting at the Boys & Girls Club in the Allied
Drive neighborhood that was attended by approximately two dozen city and county
administrators, child care providers, university representatives and State Senator Mark
Miller who worked hard to preserve many child and family measures in the state budget.
One of the new department initiatives that Bicha touted was the institution of a licensed
day care provider listing on the DCF website that allows parents to search by geographic
area group and family day care providers that have been licensed by the state. For
Bicha, who used the service to find a new day care provider for his own children, this is just the beginning of the department’s efforts to assist
families in making good day care choices.
As a part of the 2009-2011 state budget, the legislature approved the the Quality Rating and Improvement System. “They said to the department
to come back to them sometime over the next couple of years and show them our plan to implement a Quality Rating and Improvement System,”
Bicha said after the town hall meeting. “And at that time, we can ask the Joint Finance Committee to release funding to support the system. We will
be making improvements to the DCF website. But the biggest improvement that we would like to be able to make to the website is information on
quality rating. So if you go into the website and find a child care center, we want to be able inform parents about whether this is a high quality center
or a low-quality center. We can’t do that until the quality rating system is in place. If we can inform parents about what quality child care means,
hopefully those parents will then have the tools to go out and ask child care centers how they rank in terms of quality. Do they provide trained staff?
Do they have early literacy supports for children? Do they have a nurturing, stimulating environment for children? If parents are asking those
questions, I can guarantee you the child care provider community will respond with improved services.”
Once the quality rating system is in place, Bicha plans to use the rating system to not only help parents become more knowledgeable
consumers of child care, but to also boost the quality of the provider system itself. “It’s about training, technical assistance and other supports to
help low-quality child care centers — those child care centers that have staff that aren’t trade and in some cases don’t even have high school
diplomas and don’t understand child development and nutritious meals — to develop the training and technical supports to improve the services
that they are providing for children,” Bicha emphasized.
Raising the quality of care that Wisconsin children receive either through foster homes or child care institutions is paramount for Bicha and
DCF. “Quality seemed to be on everyone’s mind,” Bicha observed about the participants in the town hall meeting. “And it makes so much sense.
For children from low-income families, in particular, we have 40 years of research that tells us that kids from low-income families who go to high-
quality child care centers are less likely to use drugs and alcohol, less likely to be involved in the criminal justice system and less likely to
experience child abuse or child neglect. They are more likely to have high paying jobs themselves as adults. The investments that we make in
early child care, quality child care, will have an impact on us in so many ways for generations to come. And you can see the passion about that in
the room today. We need to make sure that more kids in Wisconsin have access to high quality early care and education.”
The recently passed state budget will have an impact on the amount of funding that is available to counties for children and families
programming over the next two years. According to DCF, counties will take a 3.6 percent reduction in calendar year 2010 and a 6.4 percent
reduction in calendar year 2011 in their DCF Children and Families allocation, due to decreased federal funds to support the community aids
allocation. General purpose state revenues actually increased slightly. Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds were used to fill
what would have been an even larger reduction. There was increased funding for county child support agencies and for foster parent training.
“Certainly the economy and the impact that is having nationally and on our state and what that will mean for us in state government provides a
unique challenge that we’ll have to work through,” Bicha said. “And it also provides an even greater challenge on the children and families whom
we serve. The old notion of having to do more with less at a time when we know that there are going to be more kids and families in our state who
are needy is going to be a unique challenge. But we think the Department of Children and Families was created at just the right time so we could get
the foundation in place, the infrastructure that is necessary to get out and help families early.”
In order to do more with less, Bicha hopes to use the upcoming quality rating system to make decisions about funding day cares. “We are
already spending $375 million on child care,” Bicha said. “But we pay the same amount to a poor center as we do for a high quality center. We don’t
use the $375 million to leverage improved quality. So we don’t believe we need to spend more money. We think we need to change our rules to
spend the money in ways that are investments in quality.”
Like many Wisconsin families, DCF will be pinching pennies as it tries to improve the future for Wisconsin’s children.
families in making good day care choices.
As a part of the 2009-2011 state budget, the legislature approved the the Quality Rating and Improvement System. “They said to the department
to come back to them sometime over the next couple of years and show them our plan to implement a Quality Rating and Improvement System,”
Bicha said after the town hall meeting. “And at that time, we can ask the Joint Finance Committee to release funding to support the system. We will
be making improvements to the DCF website. But the biggest improvement that we would like to be able to make to the website is information on
quality rating. So if you go into the website and find a child care center, we want to be able inform parents about whether this is a high quality center
or a low-quality center. We can’t do that until the quality rating system is in place. If we can inform parents about what quality child care means,
hopefully those parents will then have the tools to go out and ask child care centers how they rank in terms of quality. Do they provide trained staff?
Do they have early literacy supports for children? Do they have a nurturing, stimulating environment for children? If parents are asking those
questions, I can guarantee you the child care provider community will respond with improved services.”
Once the quality rating system is in place, Bicha plans to use the rating system to not only help parents become more knowledgeable
consumers of child care, but to also boost the quality of the provider system itself. “It’s about training, technical assistance and other supports to
help low-quality child care centers — those child care centers that have staff that aren’t trade and in some cases don’t even have high school
diplomas and don’t understand child development and nutritious meals — to develop the training and technical supports to improve the services
that they are providing for children,” Bicha emphasized.
Raising the quality of care that Wisconsin children receive either through foster homes or child care institutions is paramount for Bicha and
DCF. “Quality seemed to be on everyone’s mind,” Bicha observed about the participants in the town hall meeting. “And it makes so much sense.
For children from low-income families, in particular, we have 40 years of research that tells us that kids from low-income families who go to high-
quality child care centers are less likely to use drugs and alcohol, less likely to be involved in the criminal justice system and less likely to
experience child abuse or child neglect. They are more likely to have high paying jobs themselves as adults. The investments that we make in
early child care, quality child care, will have an impact on us in so many ways for generations to come. And you can see the passion about that in
the room today. We need to make sure that more kids in Wisconsin have access to high quality early care and education.”
The recently passed state budget will have an impact on the amount of funding that is available to counties for children and families
programming over the next two years. According to DCF, counties will take a 3.6 percent reduction in calendar year 2010 and a 6.4 percent
reduction in calendar year 2011 in their DCF Children and Families allocation, due to decreased federal funds to support the community aids
allocation. General purpose state revenues actually increased slightly. Federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds were used to fill
what would have been an even larger reduction. There was increased funding for county child support agencies and for foster parent training.
“Certainly the economy and the impact that is having nationally and on our state and what that will mean for us in state government provides a
unique challenge that we’ll have to work through,” Bicha said. “And it also provides an even greater challenge on the children and families whom
we serve. The old notion of having to do more with less at a time when we know that there are going to be more kids and families in our state who
are needy is going to be a unique challenge. But we think the Department of Children and Families was created at just the right time so we could get
the foundation in place, the infrastructure that is necessary to get out and help families early.”
In order to do more with less, Bicha hopes to use the upcoming quality rating system to make decisions about funding day cares. “We are
already spending $375 million on child care,” Bicha said. “But we pay the same amount to a poor center as we do for a high quality center. We don’t
use the $375 million to leverage improved quality. So we don’t believe we need to spend more money. We think we need to change our rules to
spend the money in ways that are investments in quality.”
Like many Wisconsin families, DCF will be pinching pennies as it tries to improve the future for Wisconsin’s children.
