New Child Care Agenda - National Women's Law Center

October 8, 2008

Dear Friend of Child Care,

Over the past several months, a group of national and state organizations has been working to craft a shared agenda or “blueprint” for the future of child care, and we are now asking national, state, and local organizations to endorse this agenda. This historic collaboration has been a comprehensive process that has engaged a broad group of voices across the country. Most importantly, it has produced a solid framework for guiding the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and other opportunities for child care improvements in the new Administration and new Congress that take office next year.

We are pleased to share the product of this historic collaboration -- Developing America’s Potential: an Agenda for Affordable, High-Quality Child Care. The Agenda recognizes that high-quality child care helps children, families and communities prosper. It helps children learn and develop skills they need to succeed in school and in life. It gives parents the support and peace of mind they need to be productive at work. It also helps our nation stay competitive, by producing a stronger workforce now and in the future. But for many families – especially, but not only, low-income families – high-quality child care is unaffordable or unattainable. This Agenda for Affordable, High-Quality Child Care proposes comprehensive reforms to ensure safe, healthy and affordable child care that promotes early learning. It has five key objectives and proposes increased federal funding to meet these objectives:

· Children will be in healthy and safe child care settings.

o States will develop specific minimum health and safety standards for all child care providers caring for children not related to the provider for a fee on a regular basis.

o States will require these providers to have comprehensive background checks that include an FBI fingerprint check, participate in 40 hours of appropriate health and safety pre-service training and 24 hours of annual training.

o States will inspect child care settings at least twice a year, once on an unannounced basis.

· Children will be in child care settings that promote early learning.

o States will develop a Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS). The QRIS will rate providers on the quality of care they offer, beginning at the level of quality needed for providers to become licensed and regulated, and increasing to nationally recognized high standards.

o States will make grants available to help programs achieve and maintain the higher standards of the QRIS, including to assist providers in obtaining training, credentials, and degrees, as well as to increase providers’ compensation commensurate with their education. Programs and providers serving low-income children will receive priority for these grants.

o Grants and loans will be available for facility renovation and construction, with a specific focus on providers in low-income areas.

· High-quality child care for infants and toddlers will be expanded.

o States will administer grants to top-level QRIS providers to provide high-quality, comprehensive child care and development services.

o States will support organizations that operate family child care networks and provide technical assistance to other infant and toddler providers in their communities, including relative caregivers.

o States will support a statewide network of specialists to provide training and consultation on high-quality infant and toddler care.

· More families will have help paying for child care.

o States will double the number of children in low-income families who currently receive child care assistance.

o States will set a one-year, assistance-eligibility period for families.

o States will reimburse providers who serve children receiving assistance at no less than the 75^th percentile of currently valid market rates; and will develop strategies to increase the supply of care for underserved children including, such as children with disabilities and other special needs, children in limited- English-speaking families, and children whose parents work non-standard hours.

o The Dependent Care Tax Credit will be made refundable to help low-income families, the sliding scale for determining the amount of the credit will be expanded to help middle-income families, and the credit will be indexed for inflation to preserve its value to all families.

· A strong infrastructure will provide both research to guide policy development and technical assistance to states to improve the quality of care.

o States will conduct studies on compensation and other characteristics of the child care workforce.

o Technical assistance will be provided to states on conducting valid market-rate surveys and developing QRIS.

o Collaboration will be encouraged across early childhood programs.

The Agenda provides concrete policy proposals to achieve these objectives.

Your support is important to our success.

As many important issues compete for attention in the new Administration and a new Congress, a strong, collective voice will be a key component to our success. To strengthen the call to action on child care, we are asking our partners across the country to show their support for this comprehensive Agenda. (A list of the partners that have already endorsed the Agenda is attached.)

We are hosting a webinar on Monday, October 27^th at 2 pm EST to discuss the content of the Agenda and its relationship to new legislation. Future webinars and conference calls will focus on strategies for moving the Agenda forward in the coming months.

To join the growing list of local, state, and national organizations supporting Developing America’s Potential: an Agenda for Affordable, High-Quality Child Care, please register your support at our website. Your endorsement is an important contribution to making child care a top priority for policymakers.

We are eager to work with you, and your endorsement is the first important step in this shared campaign to make the Agenda a reality for children and families.

If you have any questions, please contact me at hblank@nwlc.org or (202) 319-3036.

Carole Stein, The Stein Group and Helen Blank, NWLC