State reported activities to support immigrant and LEP families in child care programs

For CLASP’s new policy brief, CCDBG State Plan Reported Activities to Support Limited English Proficient (LEP) and Immigrant Communities, CLASP reviewed FY 2006-2007 Child Care and Development (CCDBG) state plans for references to initiatives that could support immigrant families and/or providers, LEP families and/or providers, and English Language Learners (ELLs).  The state plans set out the policies and initiatives the state expects to implement over a two-year period using the direct service and quality set-aside funds in the Child Care and Development Block Grant.

Some examples of state-reported activities include:

• Utah assembled an early learning guidelines’ development team that represented diverse cultural groups. The team included Centro de la Familia, a nonprofit organization that works to meet the needs of the Latino population in the state;
• Arizona’s and South Dakota’s guidelines contain specific information or strategies addressing their use with ELLs.
• North Carolina’s Division of Child Development web site is available in Spanish
  New York’s application for child care assistance is available in six languages—Haitian-Creole, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and English.

CLASP found that state reported activities to support diverse families and providers were often vague.  Few states reported a comprehensive approach by planning for multiple strategies.   

To better serve the child care and early education needs of LEP and immigrant families, CLASP recommends that states  develop comprehensive strategies that are clear in their intent to meet the needs of LEP and immigrant families and providers and specific in their plans for implementation.  Some examples of recommended policies include:

• provide materials on child care services to language minority communities, including information about eligibility for child care subsidies;
• ensure that child care subsidy intake procedures and materials are linguistically appropriate, culturally sensitive, and accessible for those living in immigrant communities; and
• use contracts and grants to expand access to high quality child care programs for children in immigrant families, and support partnerships with immigrant serving organizations to provide information and direct services.