Early Care and Education: Child Care
This section to the Zero to Three website is relevant to my current professional development as it discusses the positive outcomes of early learning experiences. All babies and toddlers need positive early learning experiences to foster their intellectual, social, and emotional development and lay the foundation for school success. Babies and toddlers living in high-risk environments need additional supports to promote their healthy growth and development. All child care arrangements, including family, friend, neighborhood, family, and center based child care have the potential to provide high-quality, individualized, responsive and stimulating experiences that occur within the context of strong relationships and which are embedded in everyday routines (ZEROTOTHREE, 2012).
Infant-Toddler Policy Issues: Child Care
This section of the website encouraged me to further explore policy issues related to child care within my home state of Delaware University of Delaware University of Delaware
Politicians Support for the Early Childhood Field:
Early Head Start and the Child Care and Development Fund were established to provide high-quality early care and education programs as protective buffers against the multiple adverse influences that may hinder a child’s development in all domains (ZERO TO THREE, 2012).
Early Head Start- The only federal program designed to improve the early education experiences of low income infants and toddlers. The program’s mission is to support healthy prenatal outcomes and enhance the intellectual, social, and emotional development of infants and toddlers to promote later success in school and life (ZERO TO THREE, 2012).
Child Care and Development Fund- A block grant that provide funds to help improve the quality and supply of child care for low income children and their families. Through the use of subsidies the Child Care and Development Fund help working parents make informed choices about the most appropriate child care for their children. The infant-toddler set-aside of Child Care and Development Fund, has helped states focus on the unique needs of infants and toddlers by investing in specialized infant-toddler provider training, providing technical assistance to programs and practitioners, and linking compensation with training and demonstrated competence. Despite modest increases in federal child care funding, CCDF funds are insufficient to serve all eligible children (ZEROTOTHREE, 2012).
I like how you divided up the sections of the website and described what they are about. The part helpful to me is the Politicians Support for the Early Childhood Field. Some of these policies and laws are so confusing. It is nice to have a place where I can read it in terms I can understand!
ReplyDeleteTinisha,
ReplyDeleteI love learning more about resources for infants and toddlers. This age is so important in setting the stage for the preschool years and ultimately life, yet so often overlooked. Having a university coordinate professional development is a wonderful idea. This would be a great way to ensure that trainings are of high quality and perhaps be more consistent than other methods. This approach might also make it possible to have more trainings that focus on infants and toddlers. So often, trainings that focus on this age group are limited. In the past, I have found myself having to attend trainings for preschool and then trying to figure out if I could make it apply to infants and toddlers. Is it possible to get college credit for some of the trainings?