Thank you Lori, and good afternoon, everyone. We're glad you're joining us
for the second of the six part Child Care Emergency
Preparedness and Response Plan Webinar series. My name is Gail Kelso. I'm the Region Six State Systems
Specialist and with the Child Care State Systems
Specialist Network, which is a service of the Office
of Child Care, and I'll be moderating today's webinar. Lori, who you already met
briefly, has just a couple of things, and so I'm just going
to say them because we've had a couple of people
that have joined us since Lori went through them. As you'll notice, all the phone
lines you're going to hear through your computer because
with as many people registered for this webinar as Lori said, it's not possible for us to have all the sound controlled. So if you are having trouble
hearing, then please know that the webinar is being
recorded and the recording will be sent to all registrants. We do have time at the end
of the presentation for questions and answers, so
throughout, if you'd like to, there is a question
and answer pod in the upper middle of the screen. The chat pod is in the
lower middle, and please feel free to use those as you like. This webinar series represents
work across many states as they have responded to both state and local emergencies and the impact of those emergencies on
their child care system. These webinars support states'
and territories' development of collaborative emergency preparedness and response plans as framed by OCC. The series was developed in
recognition of, and with sensitivity to, the
complexity of the topic. We acknowledge that not only are
there multiple systems and stakeholders involved but
also that this topic has an emotional response as well. We are also aware of individual
states' and territories' progress in not only creating
a plan but in revising and expanding their plans. While our focus today is on
subsidy issues, planning for the continuation of child care services as a specific part of your plan, we're aware of how it is related to all other areas of the CCDF program
and therefore to the webinar sessions to follow. The webinar series includes
speakers from federal and state government and national experts. It's designed so that states and
territories may choose sessions of interest or need as opposed to watching each and every one. You are certainly welcome to
participate in all because we believe that each topic is inter-related and integrated. Participants will be asked to
interact via chat polling and question and answer box. Today we also will use a
feature called word cloud. Webinars and resources will
be archived and everything, as Lori said, is being recorded. A transcript will be made
available at a future date. All lines are muted in order
to provide the best audio experience and we are again
making questions and answers available throughout. We also will compile the
questions and answers received for a resource later on. Please be aware that states
and...
