Most often parents are concerned about leaving their children with strangers. Since Community Child Care Connection does not monitor child care facilities, we cannot offer parents assurances about any specific program. Having a provision for dealing with complaints, allows CCCC to direct families to the proper reporting agencies when situations arise that indicate abuse and neglect, fraud, or licensing concerns.

A summary of our Complaint Policy follows:

• When CCCC receives complaints, which indicate serious licensing violations, fraud, child abuse, neglect or discrimination, we will both report them and urge persons with such complaints to report them directly to the appropriate authorities. Persons can contact DCFS Abuse and Neglect Hotline at (800-25ABUSE) or the local DCFS licensing unit at (217-785-2688). Where complaints involve business policy disputes with providers, we offer parents and providers resources to clarify and resolve such matters themselves.

• No child care provider has an automatic right to be included in our referral list. Our agency also has a complaint committee to consider the complaint and the response. If necessary, the committee may decide to suspend or remove providers from our referral database. While our policies and procedures are designed to base such decisions on objective criteria, we will act immediately to protect children and thus temporarily suspend referrals to providers about whom we have received serious complaints until a Department of Children and Family Services inquiry indicates reinstatement to or permanent removal from our files.

• CCCC will not give out information about any licensing violation complaints if requested by anyone other that the appropriate DCFS licensing agents. CCCC staff encourages persons who desire this information to call the DCFS complaint hotline. The hotline number is (877-746-0829).

• CCCC records all actions and maintains confidentiality for these documents.

CCCC staff may find themselves providing consultations, technical assistance and/or educational sessions in a child care program facility. Any visits to a provider, licensed or license-exempt, must deal with objective matters and/or offer technical assistance, provide information and consultation, and improve quality, not monitoring.

CCCC aims to serve parents and providers in the fairest and most efficient manner possible. We will not exhibit bias towards any child care related program or it’s parent agency for any services, including, but not limited to parent referrals, provider training and technical assistance. Furthermore, staff will not show bias toward any program and/or parent based on personal relations.

On occasion, during on-site visits and consultations, CCCC Specialists may occasionally take photos or video the purpose of improving quality, providing information, and/or observation to assist in quality improvement, etc.. CCCC staff will not display images of children in programs on their website, newsletters or other publications, on social media, or in public places. Photos taken on child care providers and/or other adults may be display with prior permission. (Photos or video taken at a public event attended by large crowds will be regarded as a public area and therefore prior permission will not be sought.)

It is the expectation that CCCC employees behave in a manner representative of its ethical and/or moral commitment to provide quality services to our clients, constituents, and community partners.

It is our policy to effectively provide services for all cultures, age, race, gender, sexual orientation, socio economic status, languages, ethnic backgrounds, and spiritual beliefs/religions in a manner that recognizes, values, affirms, and respects the worth of the individuals and protects and preserves the dignity of each person.

Those employed by CCCC will demonstrate the following:

• Recognize, value, and respect the worth of every recipient of our services.

• Utilize appropriate resources to ensure needs of recipients are met.

• Assess recipients to aid in matching their needs with appropriate community-based resources.

CCCC ensures non-discriminatory and respectful services to clients by employing cultural competency practices.

CCCC staff members are committed to the community, represent a variety of cultural backgrounds, and are capable of handling cross-cultural situations. Discrimination is not tolerated, and employees will conduct services in a manner that recognizes values and respects the worth of our clients.

CCCC staff shall provide and advocate for effective communication with clients of all cultural groups, including those of limited English proficiency or low literacy skills, those who are visually impaired, those who are deaf or hard of hearing, and those with disabilities.

When necessary and/or requested, CCCC will implore community resources to seek and provide translation services and/or all necessary services for our clients while remaining sensitive to their cultural beliefs and practices to ensure they receive the highest quality of services we can offer.

The content of CCCC, IDHS, and INCCRRA databases/systems are made available to authorized users only, and are utilized for the sole purpose of accomplishing the official business of CCCC and/or the IDHS. Any content and/or data found within these databases is protected and remains confidential according to CCCC and IDHS policies.

Prohibitions of data and database use:

• Users are prohibited from disclosing individualized information on parents or children unless required by enhanced CCR&R service contracts, in which prior approval from the IDHS has been received.

• Disclosure of individualized information on child care providers is also prohibited with the exception of referrals to parent/guardians as contracted by the IDHS, and for the distribution of professional development opportunity information.

• Users wil not transfer, sell, alienate, license, or otherwise use Core or CCAP Services databases, tools, or other information generated from databases in any manner other than in delivery of Core or CCAP Services without the specific written pre-approval of the IDHS (or other database owner), unless in the form of aggregate data for supply and demand reporting purposes.

• Data collection will not be used for personal use, or for any other reason unrelated to specific job duties as outlined in CCCC and IDHS policy, procedure, and guidelines.

CCCC is committed to making child care data available for the purpose of contributing to research, providing services to child care professionals, and forging new partnerships with other organizations to improve the lives of children and families. Aggregate data (defined as data that does not include identifying information for any individual, family, or program) may be made available to the community, or other third party entities, upon request. CCCC reserves the right to deny any request for mailing labels or statistics.

Statistical Data Requests

CCCC will provide statistical information which is readily available and can be filled immediately free of charge. More complicated data requests will be assessed at $50.00 per hour. An estimate for approximate staff time will be given at the time of the request. Organizations who wish to receive equivalent data updates on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly bases will be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Fees Associated with Data Requests

Requests for data services might be charged a nominal service fee to help defray costs associated with provided data information/mailing labels. These fees are based on factors such as: staff time to generate reports/statistics, printing, material costs, and database maintenance. Upon receipt of the request CCCC will evaluate and estimate staff time to fulfill the request.

Policy regarding CCAP Data

CCCC administers the state child care subsidy program within our nine-county service delivery area under contract by the Illinois Department of Humans Services (IDHS). All data collected by the local CCR&R for the processing of subsidy application and payments is for internal use only. Requests for subsidy information can be made to IDHS.

Per IDHS CCAP Manual: Court Orders and Subpoenas 07.02.01

“If a CCR&R or Site Administered child care provider is named by and properly served with a court order or subpoena seeking records in reference to a pending civil or criminal court case, they must seek legal counsel from their own attorney before producing documents that may contain privileged information."

Data requests/information concerning Community Child Care Connection employees, in its entirety or portions, is not available to any person, program or institution with the exception of the Illinois Department of Human Services or the Department of Children and Family Services.