Friday, April 03, 2009
The Future of Child Care...
I think that it is realitively obvious that families need child care to work. Communities need thriving child care providers in order to prosper. Children in care need safe, stable, supportive settings. Investments in child care are investments in the current workforce, in economic development, and most importantly, investments in the future. The recent economic downturn has helped to highlight the important role that child care and early education programs play in the economic health of states and localities.
It is clear that helping families afford child care and ensuring that providers can keep their doors open should be part of any economic recovery package. While immediate funding is critical to get parents to work and ensure that children are in healthy and safe environments, now is the time to also think long-term about the needs of families and their youngest children and to invest in improvements in the quality of child care, to increase opportunities for our most vulnerable children to participate in Head Start and Early Head Start, and ensure that families can afford the child care that best meets their needs.
A long-term child care agenda should:
I think that it is realitively obvious that families need child care to work. Communities need thriving child care providers in order to prosper. Children in care need safe, stable, supportive settings. Investments in child care are investments in the current workforce, in economic development, and most importantly, investments in the future. The recent economic downturn has helped to highlight the important role that child care and early education programs play in the economic health of states and localities.
It is clear that helping families afford child care and ensuring that providers can keep their doors open should be part of any economic recovery package. While immediate funding is critical to get parents to work and ensure that children are in healthy and safe environments, now is the time to also think long-term about the needs of families and their youngest children and to invest in improvements in the quality of child care, to increase opportunities for our most vulnerable children to participate in Head Start and Early Head Start, and ensure that families can afford the child care that best meets their needs.
A long-term child care agenda should:
- make child care more affordable for low-income working families;
- increase the quality of child care for all families;
- expand the supply of high quality settings, especially for families with infants and toddlers and other underserved populations; and
- remove barriers that prevent families and providers from participating in or providing high quality care.
// posted by Tammy Wachter @ 6:12 AM 
