Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care

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Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care

• NAEYC Annual Conference
• Chicago, Illinois
• November 8, 2007

Rachel Schumacher Center for Law and Social Polic
y (CLASP)
Anne Goldstein Consultant, ZERO TO THREE
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Session Overview

• Where are babies and what are their early care
  and education needs?
  
• Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care
• Project overview
• Policy framework
• Successes and lessons in promoting high quality
  care for babies in Michigan and Ohio
  
• Discussion

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Where are Babies?
Primary child care arrangements for children
birth to 3
with employed mothers
Source Urban Institute, 2002 National Survey of
Americas Families.
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Babies in Child Care Need

• Warm, nurturing caregivers they can trust to care
  for them as they grow.
  
• When relationships are nurturing,
• individualized, responsive, and predictable,
  they increase the odds of desirable
  outcomesbuilding healthy brain architecture that
  provides a strong foundation for learning,
  behavior, and health. The Science of Early
  Childhood Development. National Scientific
  Council on the Developing Child. 2007
• Infants with secure attachment relationships with
  their caregivers are more likely to play,
  explore, and interact with adults in their child
  care setting.Raikes, Helen. A Secure Base for
  Babies Applying Attachment Theory Concepts to
  the Infant Care Setting. Young Children.
  1996.

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Connecting Research to Policy

• Research shows that factors that promote strong,
  secure relationships and high-quality
  interactions between caregiver and child are
  
• Low staff-child ratios
• Well-trained caregivers
• Adequate compensation
• Good relationships with parents/involvement
• Cohen, Julie, Onunaku, Ngozi, Clothier,
  Steffanie, and Poppe, Julie. Helping
  Young Children Succeed Strategies to
  promote Early Childhood Social and Emotional
  Development. 2005.
• Relationships cannot be legislated, but policies
  to better support them can through
  
• Early care and education policy
• Supportive governance and finance systems

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Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care
Project

• Identify a set of state policy recommendations to
  increase the odds that infants and toddlers
  experience positive early learning experiences
  that include warm, responsive, and nurturing
  interactions with their non-parental caregivers
  in child care settings.
• Licensing
• Subsidy
• Quality Enhancement
• Steps
• Solicit input from the field
• Develop recommendations and menus of policies to
  help states move forward
  
• Gather information on developing state policies
  and post online
  
• Provide information and assistance to state
  leaders

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Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care
Policy Framework

• State policies can promote the quality and
  continuity of early childhood experiences and
  positively impact the healthy growth and
  development of babies and toddlers in child
  care.
• Four principles of what babies and families need
• Research-based recommendations supporting
  principles
  
• Menu of policies for states to move toward the
  recommendations

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Multi-Level FrameworkWhat Does it Look Like?

• First Level Key Principles
• Second Level Recommendations
• Third Level Menu of policies

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Four Key Principles Set the Foundationfor the
Policy Framework
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Principle Babies in child care need nurturing,
responsive providers and caregivers they can
trust to care for them as they grow and learn.

• States should
• Establish what providers and caregivers should
  know to care for babies and toddlers.
  
• Ensure that providers and caregivers for babies
  and toddlers have access to education, training,
  and support.
  
• Promote competitive compensation and benefits for
  infant and toddler providers.
  
• Recruit and maintain diverse and culturally
  sensitive infant and toddler providers and
  caregivers.
  
• Support continuous relationships between
  providers and children, birth-three.

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Principle Babies in child care need healthy and
safe environments in which to explore and learn.

• States should
• Ensure babies and toddlers in centers are in
  small groups with sufficient numbers of adults.
  
• Ensure babies and toddlers in family child care
  are in small groups with sufficient numbers of
  adults.
  
• Require training and provide supports on health
  and safety issues critical for babies and
  toddlers.
  
• Monitor and provide technical assistance to
  infant and toddler providers.

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Principle Babies in child care need parents,
providers and caregivers supported and linked to
community resources.

• States should
• Partner with parents of babies and toddlers in
  child care.
  
• Screen babies and toddlers in child care for
  health and developmental delays.
  
• Link necessary services for vulnerable babies and
  toddlers to child care settings.

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Principle Families need access to quality
options for the care of their babies and toddlers.

• States should
• Build the supply of high quality infant and
  toddler child care.
  
• Promote stable, quality care for babies and
  toddlers through subsidy policy.
  
• Provide culturally and linguistically appropriate
  information on choosing infant and toddler child
  care.
  

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Phase Two of Charting Progress

• Post Policy Framework online and update as
  needed
  
• Gather and post state policies and links (with
  your help!)
  
• Select key recommendations for additional
  research and develop in-depth profiles of state
  efforts
  
• Help state leaders use the framework and track
  their own progress
  
• Develop technology capacity for a dynamic,
  user-friendly, searchable website and online
  community

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Thank You
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Additional Resources from CLASP
Challenges of Change Learning from the Child Ca
re and Early Education Experiences of Immigrant
Families
Starting Off Right Promoting Child Development fr
om Birth in State Early Care and Education Initi
atives
Coming Soon Building on the Promise St
ate Initiatives to Expand Access to Early Head
Start for Young Children and their Families All
available at http//childcareandearlyed.clasp.org

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CLASP Starting Off Right - State Initiative
Profiles http//www.clasp.org/publications/state_
infanttoddler_profiles.htm
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ZERO TO THREE Resources

• For more information
• Go to www.zerotothree.org (click on public
  policy)
  
• Sign up for The Baby Monitor, a bi-weekly
  e-newsletter of the State Policy Network

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Contact Information

• Rachel Schumacher, Senior Fellow
• 1015 15th Street NW Suite 400
• Washington, DC 20003
• [phone]
• rschumacher_at_clasp.org
• Come see our new, improved website
• http//childcareandearlyed.clasp.org
• Anne Goldstein, Consultant,
• ZERO TO THREE
• Early Care Counts
• 297 Herndon Parkway, Suite 104
• Herndon, VA 20170
• [phone]
• agoldstein_at_earlycarecounts.org
• www.zerotothree.org/policy