The commissioners will respond to the critical issues raised in the survey and discuss state-level collaborative efforts to address the crises facing our children, families and communities. OCFS handled applications from 15, eligible child care providers over just four months, from August through November.
The funds covered the costs of personnel, rent or mortgage, utilities, facility maintenance or improvements, personal protective equipment, supplies needed to respond to COVID, goods and services needed to maintain or resume child care services, mental health supports for children and employees, health and safety training for staff, and more. Providers statewide were delighted with the ease in applying for and receiving the grants.
Congratulations to OCFS staff for this great accomplishment! OCFS has a new diversity, equity and inclusion DEI officer — Angelica Kang, who comes to Home Office from just across the Hudson River where she served the City of Albany as assistant corporation counsel and most recently as chief diversity officer, advising senior leadership on creating and maintaining an inclusive workplace.
Before Albany City Hall, she put her Fordham law degree to work with the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services, where she answered legal and legislative questions on how agencies can best communicate during emergencies. So much depends on the individual experience of each person. When not in the office, Angelica enjoys the outdoors. Originally from New Jersey, she loves upstate New York, and her hobbies include rock climbing, making stained glass and arranging flowers.
As the child of immigrants — her parents hail from Taiwan — she has long known that the world is bigger than herself. Growing up watching her accomplished parents be discriminated against simply because of their appearance and accents also drove her to public service. And I want people to be themselves. The task force is expanding its mission to also provide recommendations on addressing child care workforce issues and will advise the state on the implementation of universal child care using existing state and federal funds.
Co-chaired by Commissioner Poole and DOL Commissioner Roberta Reardon, the task force is comprised of representatives from the child care provider community, the advocacy community, the business community, several state agencies, local departments of social services and unions that represent child care providers.
Environmental Protection Agency EPA grant that we used to establish our free Lead Testing in Drinking Water Program, which identifies sources of lead in drinking water at child care facilities. Child care providers can apply to the program until Sept.
OCFS is very pleased to partner with them on this lead-testing grant to keep all children in care safe and healthy. There is no known safe lead level, and young children are the most vulnerable to this toxic metal, which can cause serious physical and behavioral issues, including impaired hearing, lower IQ, damage to the nervous system and hyperactivity.
OCFS is prioritizing testing in facilities serving low-income communities, which research has demonstrated are consistently harmed because of disparate access to healthy environments. Facilities that provide care for children ages six and younger will be prioritized for funding.
OCFS has partnered with a lab to provide the testing in eligible state-licensed and -registered child care facilities. OCFS will support providers in developing a plan for responding to elevated lead level results. As a part of the program, OCFS offers free training for child care providers on the dangers of lead in drinking water and additional resources for providers and families. Testing results will also be communicated to the community, families and the public.
Have you ever been on an elevator or in an office and noticed small, raised bumps next to printed signs and wondered about them? January is Braille Awareness Month, chosen to honor the birthday of its creator, Louis Braille, who created the system in for people who are unable to read print due to a significant visual impairment. Since , when the Americans with Disabilities Act passed, Braille signs are required in public spaces to allow a blind or visually impaired person to read the same information that others read in print.
Braille is not a separate language, but a tactual alphabet. Biden pushes for voting rights bills; Kevin McCarthy squares off with January 6 committee. Tickets will be refunded at their point of purchase. Ned Lamont announced that the State of Connecticut is now providing residents with the ability to store their personal COVID vaccination records onto their smartphone devices.
The digital vaccination cards mirror the paper cards from the CDC that patients receive upon being vaccinated and provides them with a convenient option to securely show proof of being vaccinated on their smartphones without needing to physically carry the paper cards on their person. The governor stressed that the choice to load digital vaccination cards onto smartphones is strictly optional.
Those who do not have smartphones or do not want to digitize their vaccination records can continue using the paper cards they received upon being vaccinated as they have been doing over the last year. Instructions for how to load the digital cards onto smartphones can be obtained by visiting ct.
The system uses CT WiZ, Connecticut's immunization information system, to confirm a person's vaccination status. New York State is reporting three straight days of record cases, believed to be fueled by the omicron variant.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said Monday that he expects the omicron surge to last several weeks with a fast spike in cases before they drop. We are going to see a lot of New Yorkers affected by omicron. So far, thank God, based on everything we've seen so far, the cases are more mild than what we've experienced.
More than a quarter of NHL teams have been shut down through at least the weekend , after the Columbus Blue Jackets and Montreal Canadiens became the eighth and ninth to have activities paused because of several positive COVID test results among players.
The Blue Jackets had games scheduled for Monday night at Buffalo and Thursday at home against the Sabres postponed, bringing the total to 42 across the NHL this season. The league said Columbus was shut down because of "concern with the number of positive cases within the last several days as well concern for continued COVID spread. Phil Murphy said this latest surge could bring about the return of some restrictions. New Jersey reported back-to-back days of over 6, new confirmed cases on Thursday and Friday, as infections have dramatically spiked in recent weeks, state data shows.
This time last month, the state was reporting under 2, daily new cases. The number of people hospitalized for COVID has also been on the rise in the past month, from fewer than in early November to over 1, currently, according to state data. COVID patients in intensive care units and on ventilators are also up.
Just as they have at public schools, employees at Catholic schools, yeshivas and other independent schools have to have had their first dose of vaccine by Monday. This affects about 56, employees at schools and those schools need to hand their records over to the city showing compliance by December The city could fine schools that do not comply.
Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to announce this week if the traditional celebration in Times Square will go on, or if it will be modified due to the increase in COVID cases and spread of the omicron variant. On Feb. The Legal Aid Society, the city's largest public defender organization which advocates for runaway and homeless youth in the city, called on the OCFS to include teens in the rollout, citing that Black and Hispanic children and teens comprise the majority of youth held in OCFS facilities.
Those same populations have been disproportionately affected in the pandemic. State Sen. Brad Hoylman also sent a letter to the OCFS regarding the gap in vaccine eligibility, urging them to clarify that teens would be included.
He tweeted, "year-olds in adult shelters qualified for a vaccine while year-olds in youth shelters had been turned away. That just doesn't make sense. The New York Coalition for Homeless Youth praised the inclusion, stating, "Too often runaway and homeless youth in New York state are an afterthought when it comes to resource allocation. Homeless youth are homeless, and they should never have been excluded from eligibility for the COVID vaccine.
ACS, which oversees the NYC foster care and juvenile justice systems, described the move as a "game-changer.
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