a CLASP Child Care & Early Education project
About this project
CLASP's Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care project is a multi-year effort to highlight state policies that support the healthy growth and development of infants and toddlers in child care settings, and to build an online resource to help states implement these policies.
In the project's first year, CLASP and ZERO TO THREE developed a Policy Framework with four key principles that babies and toddlers in child care need and 15 recommendations for states.
| NEW! Download the Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care Subsidy Tool. |
CLASP is writing research-based rationales to support each of the 15 recommendations and state examples of implementing policies to move toward these recommendations. Related briefs and papers are also available.
To date, CLASP has released the following products:
Policy Framework and Research-Based Rationales
Policy Framework Summary:
Sets forth 15 recommendations for states, supported by the research-based rationales below. January 2008
Babies in Child Care Need: |
Project Recommendations and Supporting Materials: |
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Nurturing, responsive providers and caregivers to care for them as they grow and learn. |
Continuity of Care:Support continuous relationships between providers and caregivers and the children they care for, from when they enter child care to age three.
Support a Diverse and Culturally Competent Workforce:Recruit, maintain, and support diverse and culturally sensitive infant and toddler providers and caregivers.
Core Competencies:Establish what providers and caregivers should know to care for babies and toddlers.
Training, Education, and Support:Ensure that providers and caregivers for babies and toddlers have access to education, training, and support.
Compensation and Benefits:Promote competitive compensation and benefits for infant and toddler providers.
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Healthy and safe environments in which to explore and learn.
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Center Ratios and Group Sizes:Ensure that babies and toddlers in centers are in small groups with sufficient numbers of providers.
Family Child Care Ratios and Group Sizes:Ensure babies and toddlers in family child care are in small groups with sufficient numbers of providers.
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Parents, providers, and caregivers supported by and linked to community resources. |
Comprehensive Services:Link necessary services for vulnerable babies and toddlers to child care settings.
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Their families to have access to quality options for their care. |
Build Supply of Quality Care:Build the supply of high-quality infant and toddler child care.
Stable, Quality Subsidy Policy:Promote stable, quality care for babies and toddlers through subsidy policy.
Providing Information on Infant/Toddler Child Care:Provide culturally and linguistically appropriate information on choosing infant and toddler child care.
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State Examples
States are implementing a variety of policies to improve the quality of child care for babies and toddlers. Read state examples of how policymakers are moving toward the project recommendations.
Examples available on policies in: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Briefs and Papers
- Ensuring Quality Care for Low-Income Babies: Contracting Directly with Providers to Expand and Improve Infant and Toddler Care.
July 2008
Based on interviews with state policymakers, this paper explains how states are using direct contracts in their child care assistance programs to create or stabilize care in particular communities or for specific populations; to create child care slots meeting quality standards important for infants and toddlers; to extend the day for infants and toddlers served in Early Head Start; and to improve the quality of infant/ toddler family child care.
- Building on the Promise: State Initiatives to Expand Access to Early Head Start for Young Children and Their Families.
April 2008
This joint report by CLASP and ZERO TO THREE examines actions that states have taken to build on Early Head Start (EHS). Twenty states use at least one of four main approaches: 1) Extending the day or year of existing EHS services, 2) Expanding the capacity of existing EHS and Head Start programs to increase the number of children and pregnant women served, 3) Providing resources and assistance to child care providers to help them deliver services meeting EHS standards, and 4) Supporting partnerships between EHS and center-based and family child care providers to improve the quality of care. The report also analyzes opportunities and challenges facing state policymakers and provides recommendations for state leaders interested in promoting better futures for at-risk children through building on Early Head Start.
- Supporting Growth and Development of Babies in Child Care: What Does the Research Say?
June 2007
This brief outlines research to make the case that 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—the central tenet of the Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care project. The majority of infants and toddlers will spend some time in non-parental care during these early years; and research shows that secure relationships with parents and caregivers are of primary importance for cognitive, social, and emotional development.
- Starting Off Right: Promoting Child Development from Birth in State Early Care and Education Initiatives
July 2006
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.
Check back for future products, including additional research-based rationales to support each recommendation of the Framework, and examples of how states are implementing particular policies to help move toward a recommendation.
This work is supported by the Birth to Five Policy Alliance, the Irving Harris Foundation, the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and an anonymous donor.