All Featured Highlights: Systems and Financing

• Nov 20, 2012  |  Christine Johnson-Staub Planning Funding Partnerships: A Worksheet to Help States Get Started in Putting it Together The following worksheet comes from CLASP's "Putting It Together: A Guide to Financing Comprehensive Services in Child Care and Early Education." States and communities embarking on financing partnerships to expand access to comprehensive services can use this worksheet to begin mapping the need, available resources, and potential partnering strategies that will help them move forward. This document may be downloaded, edited, and saved. Download PDF
• Sep 13, 2012  |  Stephanie Schmit and Jamie Colvard Expanding Access to Early Head Start: State Initiatives for Infants and Toddlers at Risk All babies need good health, strong families, and positive early learning experiences to foster their healthy intellectual, social, and emotional development. Unfortunately, far too few young children receive the supports they need to build a strong foundation for future growth. The federal Early Head Start (EHS) program was created in 1994 to address the comprehensive needs of children under age 3 in low-income families and vulnerable low-income pregnant women. Research shows that EHS positively impacts children's cognitive, language, and social-emotional development; family self-sufficiency; and parental support of child development. This report highlights how states are using innovative funding, policies, and partnerships, to expand the critically important EHS program and better meet the needs of more low-income children and pregnant women living in their state. Download PDF
• Sep 11, 2012  |  Hannah Matthews At Risk: Early Care and Education Funding and Sequestration Sequestration was created in August 2011 as part of the Budget Control Act of 2011, which ended that year's showdown over raising the federal debt ceiling. Because Congress failed to come up with a deficit reduction plan, the Budget Control Act calls for $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts over the next decade, divided equally between defense and "non-defense discretionary" programs. This fact sheet explains how these cuts will impact federal early care and education funding and what can be done to prevent them. Read Online
• Aug 23, 2012  |  Christine Johnson-Staub Putting it Together: A Guide to Financing Comprehensive Services in Child Care and Early Education This guide provides state policymakers and advocates with strategies to maximize resources and make policy changes that drive funds, resources, and community partners to child care and early education programs to benefit young children and families. Separate from blending and braiding funding streams at the local or program level, the strategies described in this guide focus on state policy decisions that can facilitate the innovative use of funds, encourage partnerships at the state and local level, and replicate promising models from other states. Download PDF
• Jun 05, 2012  |  Christine Johnson-Staub and Stephanie Schmit Home Away From Home: A Toolkit for Planning Home Visiting Partnerships with Family, Friend, and Neighbor Caregivers Home visiting and family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) partnerships hold great opportunity to reach more children with family support services during the critical early years. This tookit provides states with an overview of FFN and home visiting partnerships, a tool to help states explore and establish this type of partnership, and case studies of existing home visiting and FFN partnerships. Download PDF
• Feb 23, 2012  |  Karen Schulman, Hannah Matthews, Helen Blank, and Danielle Ewen A Count for Quality: Child Care Center Directors on Rating and Improvement Systems Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) are designed to give providers incentives and supports to improve quality and parents information about child care quality. With the growth in QRIS, CLASP, together with the National Women’s Law Center, interviewed child care providers participating in QRIS in several states. This report provides findings on the key components of QRIS, cross-cutting lessons on QRIS strategies, and recommendations for policymakers from the perspective of child care center directors. Download PDF
• Oct 03, 2011  |  Christine Johnson-Staub Meeting the Early Learning Challenge: A Checklist for a High Quality QRIS CLASP's "Meeting the Early Learning Challenge" series provides information and policy options for states as they develop their applications for the Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge. Read Online
• Sep 15, 2011  |  Christine Johnson-Staub The Relationship Between Licensing and QRIS: Challenges and Opportunities More than half of states currently have child care Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) up and running, and more are under development. As states develop these promising systems, they are grappling with several questions around the relationship between child care licensing and the QRIS rating levels, including: defining program eligibility for QRIS participation, setting standards that align with licensing, deciding how licensing fits into QRIS levels, defining the role of licensing staff in rating and monitoring, and developing strategies for supporting programs through technical assistance. This presentation, given at the 2011 NARA Licensing Seminar in Pittsburg, Penn., draws from current state QRIS practices, as well as research conducted by CLASP and NWLC on child care providers' experiences with QRIS across the country. Download PDF
• Jan 20, 2011  |  Child Care and Early Education Building Comprehensive State Systems for Vulnerable Babies CLASP has developed this resource to help state leaders strategize how to create or improve early childhood systems to meet the needs of vulnerable babies and toddlers, their families, and pregnant women. Every state has the pieces of a comprehensive early childhood system in place. This tool will help state leaders locate and build them into a system that meets the needs of children and families. Download PDF
• Feb 10, 2012  |  Elizabeth Hoffmann and Tiffany Conway Perrin Extending Home Visiting to Kinship Caregivers and Family, Friend, and Neighbor Caregivers CLASP conducted an interview project to explore how home visiting programs are serving children in nonparental care--specifically children in kinship care and in family, friend, and neighbor care. This policy report presents findings from CLASP's interviews with major national models of home visiting and other stakeholders. Download PDF
• Jan 18, 2012  |  Child Care and Early Education A Tool Using Data to Inform a State Early Childhood Agenda This tool is intended for state advocates and policymakers to use as they work to develop a state early childhood agenda. It includes a series of key questions to understand the context and conditions of young children, birth to six, in the state. It also includes questions specific to infants and toddlers. Read Online
• Mar 25, 2011 Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program Guidance from HHS Read Online
• Nov 17, 2011  |  Hannah Matthews Integrating Systems: Improving Access to Better Serve Families Families seeking assistance often face multiple, complex needs and that require the services of more than one program. Integrated service systems help to provide a more family-centered, seamless service delivery system, a system that offers a broad continuum of services and tailors these services to the strengths and needs of individual families. This presentation given at the 2011 State and Territory Administrators and the Child Care Policy Research Consortium Joint Meeting in Bethesda, MD looks at how to create an integrated system and the challenges and opportunities of doing so. Download PDF
• Mar 25, 2011  |  CLASP Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program Guidance from HHS Read Online
• Jan 20, 2011  |  Child Care and Early Education Building Comprehensive State Systems for Vulnerable Babies CLASP has developed this resource to help state leaders strategize how to create or improve early childhood systems to meet the needs of vulnerable babies and toddlers, their families, and pregnant women. Every state has the pieces of a comprehensive early childhood system in place. This tool will help state leaders locate and build them into a system that meets the needs of children and families. Download PDF
• Mar 15, 2010  |  Elizabeth Hoffmann A Tool Using Data to Inform a State Infant/Toddler Care Agenda This tool is includes a series of key questions to understand the context and conditions of infants and toddlers in the state, encompassing data on demographics and program/service participation, as well as the details of child care and early education settings in the state. Users can download and save a copy of this tool, then fill in their state's data. Read Online
• Oct 18, 2010  |  CLASP and ZERO TO THREE Including and Expanding Early Head Start in State Early Childhood Systems In May 2010, five state teams came together in Stowe, Vermont, with representatives from ZERO TO THREE and CLASP to discuss ways that Early Head Start could be included in state early childhood systems. This webpage provides links to these resources to help all states reflect on how they can promote high-quality services like Early Head Start for infants and toddlers. Read Online
• Nov 17, 2009  |  CLASP and National Women's Law Center Audioconference: State Early Childhood Advisory Councils Join CLASP and the National Women’s Law Center on December 1 for a call about what states are doing with economic recovery funds that are allocated to fund State Early Childhood Advisory Councils. Read Online
• Dec 15, 2006  |  Early Childhood Systems Working Group State Early Childhood Development System and Core Elements The Early Childhood Systems Working Group consists of 14 organizations, including CLASP, that mapped four elements of a State Early Childhood Development System as well as the Core Elements of these systems that are needed to support families and help children thrive. Download PDF
• Aug 03, 2006  |  Rachel Schumacher, Katie Hamm, Anne Goldstein and Joan Lombardi Starting Off Right: Promoting Child Development From Birth In State Early Care And Education Initiatives State early care and education policies that start at birth and address the full range of children's development can potentially identify health and developmental issues, link families to necessary supports, and assure that those who care for infants and toddlers have the tools to stimulate early learning and development and ease transitions into the preschool and elementary years. This paper describes a menu of state strategies to improve early care and education for infants and toddlers, and supports to their families, including: examples of specific policies to promote child development birth to 3, as well as ideas for state funding and governance structures that provide attention and resources for all children birth to age 5. Read Online
• Oct 15, 2009  |  CLASP and National Women's Law Center Audioconference: Update on State Child Care Assistance Policies and Use of Economic Recovery Funds Join CLASP and the National Women’s Law Center for the third in a series of calls about how states are working to improve the quality and accessibility of child care in the current economic crisis. Read Online
• Jan 09, 2008  |  Rachel Schumacher, Elizabeth Hoffmann, and Anne Goldstein (ZERO TO THREE) Charting Progress For Babies in Child Care: Policy Framework This policy framework sets forth four key principles that establish the foundation of supports that all babies and toddlers in child care need, as well as 15 recommendations that state child care licensing, subsidy, and quality enhancement policies should address. Read Online
• Oct 02, 2009  |  Danielle Ewen Early Learning Challenge Fund Legislation This page provides updated information on the Early Learning Challenge Fund legislation (Title IV of SAFRA) as it proceeds through Congress. Read Online
• Jan 11, 2010  |  Danielle Ewen The Early Learning Challenge Fund - Metrics and Data This presentation provides an overview of the data-based metrics included in the House Early Learning Challenge Fund legislation (Title IV of HR 3221, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2009). Download PDF
• Feb 03, 2010  |  CLASP and NWLC The President's Budget Proposal: Opportunities and Challenges for Early Childhood Programs In this audioconference, Danielle Ewen and Helen Blank discuss the president's FY 2011 budget proposal and implications for funding of state and local early childhood programs. Read Online