| Date |
Licensing Issues |
Funding Issues |
| 2005 |
Safe Harbor Crisis Nursery was nominated and won the Lee Ann Miller Award for an outstanding agency from the Interdisciplinary Task Force on Juvenile Justice, Department of Social and Health Services, Washington State. After 22 months of negotiations, a Group Receiving Center license was granted in June. This required a $45,000 investment in a fire sprinkler system and the agreement to drop the child care center license. |
Contracts in the state were frozen. Currently Safe Harbor is ineligible to receive funding under any existing program from the Children’s Administration. The crisis nursery has received less than $4,000 over the last six years from state reimbursement programs while at the same time providing more than 10,000 child visits to TANF eligible, low income families at no charge. |
| 2004 |
Safe Harbor Crisis Nursery was nominated and won an award for State Social Work Agency of the Year from the National Association of Social Workers, Washington Chapter. |
Staff and board members met with Children’s Administration personnel to discuss potential funding sources and contracts. |
| 2003 |
The crisis nursery began negotiating for a Group Receiving Center license so that children could be admitted by child protective services and law enforcement for short term care while appropriate foster care was identified. |
The crisis nursery asked the state for the same funding structure for group receiving care that a similar organization was receiving in Region 1. |
| 2002 |
The Attorney General’s office ruled that the new legislation did not allow law enforcement or child protective services to admit children to the crisis nursery. Safe Harbor applied for and was granted a child care center license in addition to the Emergency Respite Center license. Children from CPS could stay at the crisis nursery for up to 10 hours under the child care center license. |
The decision not to reimburse was reversed by DSHS during an appeal hearing based on the existing WAC language. After the ruling, the state changed the WAC’s to preclude the crisis nursery from receiving TANF funds. Then the crisis nursery asked to receive the same funding that a crisis nursery in Spokane had received for more than 10 years. Children’s Administration canceled the funding for the Spokane organization rather than provide it to both organizations. |
| 2001 |
The crisis nursery worked with area legislators to create a state definition of crisis nurseries. Through their diligent effort, the bill passed in one session and became law in July. At the same time, a new facility was built through community donations and licensed as the first Emergency Respite Center in the state. It opened in November. |
Even though Safe Harbor was licensed as a child care center, Children’s Administration ruled that the organization could not receive TANF (Temporary Aid for Needy Families) reimbursements because technically it was a crisis nursery. It also ruled that under an Emergency Respite Center license, it could not receive TANF monies. |
| 2000 |
After 2000 child visits in just 2 years, the crisis nursery began talking to state licensors about moving to a bigger facility. The licensors said that they would not grant another license because Safe Harbor could not comply with the existing WAC’s, and they no longer granted waivers. |
Requests for funding under different programs were made to the state. The Children’s Administration determined that the program did not qualify for funding. |
| 1998 |
Safe Harbor Crisis Nursery received a child care center license with multiple waivers to provide care for infants and children up to 12 years old for a maximum of 72 hours during family emergencies and crises. |
There was an expectation that the state would contract for services at the crisis nursery or that the crisis nursery would be eligible for state reimbursements for care. Letters of support from Child Protective Services were part of the initial proposal. |
