Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care
Provide Information on Infant/Toddler Care
Policy Ideas
What policies can states use to move toward this recommendation?
To move toward this recommendation, states may use multiple policy levers, starting from different points. Potential state policies include:
Licensing
- Develop general information about infant/toddler child care and licensing standards, using appropriate formats and literacy levels and the primary languages of communities in the state.
- Provide language access and cultural competency training for licensing and monitoring staff.
Subsidy
- Review written information, including print and online media, on subsidy eligibility and applications to ensure that it is understandable and user-friendly for low-literacy level families with infant and toddlers.[1]
- Make it easier for families with babies and toddlers to access child care subsidies by coordinating the application and re-determination processes for child care subsidies with other social service programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly Food Stamps), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and Medicaid.
- Provide supports for community outreach opportunities to provide appropriate information on subsidy eligibility and enrollment in both oral and written forms.
- Partner with family literacy programs to help disseminate information to parents of babies and toddlers about state child care subsidy programs and the application processes.
- Collect language data on parents who receive child care assistance and use the data for planning and evaluation purposes to improve access for LEP families with babies and toddlers.
- Review subsidy program enrollment processes and materials to ensure compliance with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services policies related to providing access for LEP individuals.
- Improve language-related issues pertaining to accessing subsidies by translating information, regulations, and applications, hiring bilingual staff, and using qualified interpreters.
- Increase bilingual staff capacity in the subsidy agency through pay differentials or other incentives.
- Provide language access and cultural competency training for subsidy staff.
- Provide dedicated funding for translation and interpretation services at the local level, including facilitating access to language telephone line services for local child care licensing and subsidy offices.
- Require local agencies and child care providers to report how they ensure access to child care subsidies for LEP families.
- Provide guidance to local child care agencies about LEP and immigrant eligibility for child care assistance.
- Provide information that is easy to understand and appropriately translated for immigrant families that explains child care subsidies and the application process, including answering common myths about documentation or requirements for participation.
- Partner with other state agencies, including offices devoted to refugee and immigrant affairs, to develop language access plans and outreach strategies for child care subsidies. [2]
Quality Enhancement
- Provide resources for outreach on quality infant/toddler care targeted to particular groups, such as parents with low-literacy skills and language-minority communities, including the use of ethnic radio, television, and websites.
- Create and disseminate information packets for new parents that discuss quality care for infants and toddlers and help link parents with information and referral agencies.
- Partner with immigrant-serving organizations and other community-based organizations to provide information on quality infant/toddler care and child care subsidies to parents.
- Employ cultural mediators at the state level and provide resources to local agencies to employ cultural mediators to relay information on quality infant/toddler care to diverse communities.
- Include specific quality standards for infant and toddler care in Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) and ensure that QRIS standards are translated and disseminated in diverse communities.
- Provide resources to CCR&Rs to build cultural and linguistic competency through the hiring of bilingual and bicultural staff and to hold cultural competency training for existing staff.
Related Project Recommendations
- Build Supply of Quality Care
- Use Subsidy Policies to Promote Stable, Quality Care
- Promote Access to Comprehensive Services
1. Adams et al., Designing Subsidy Systems.
2. Bessie Tartt Wilson Children's Foundation, Communication in Any Language.
Visit page: http://www.clasp.org/babiesinchildcare/recommendations?id=0015