Child Care and Early Education at CLASP

Charting Progress Policy Framework Summary - Now Available!

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 first year of this project, CLASP worked with ZERO TO THREE to develop a Policy Framework, drawing on the input of over one hundred experts around the country. The 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, quality, and subsidy policies should address.

The Policy Framework Summary is now available online. Check back for future products, including research-based rationales supporting each recommendation, and a new section on this website that will present the full Framework with sets of policies that may help states move towards each recommendation. To learn more about the research base for this project, see: Supporting Growth and Development of Babies in Child Care: What Does the Research Say?

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.

State policies that improve access to high-quality child care and early education for immigrant families

State policies can promote, or impede, access to high-quality child care and early education for immigrant families. CLASP recommends that policymakers and other actors look to improve child care and early education policies and programs in the following ways:

1. Promote coordination and collaboration between the child care and early education and the immigrant- and refugee-serving communities.
2. Design child care and early education programs and policies that intentionally address the needs of immigrant families with young children.
3. Strengthen child care and early education systems to improve and expand access to high-quality services for young children in immigrant families.
4. Build the linguistic and cultural competency of state and local agencies and child care and early education programs.

CLASP has created a technical assistance tool for states that lists recommended policies that states can implement to address immigrant access to high-quality child care and early education programs.  Policymakers will want to evaluate the current set of policies they have in place that support these recommended courses of action as well as to plan for future policy changes and improvements.

Examples of recommended state policies include:

• State encourages and supports local coordination and collaboration between child care and early education programs and agencies and immigrant-serving organizations. This may include incentives for child care and early education programs to partner with immigrant serving organizations and funding for these partnerships. Examples of local collaboration include: mutual representation on governing boards, joint training opportunities, joint development of documents and materials for families, and joint applications for creating and expanding programs to meet the needs of immigrant families. Read more.

Policy choices that support providers in immigrant communities

As the young child population is rapidly growing in diversity, the early childhood field is facing a critical shortage of bilingual and bicultural providers. To most appropriately serve young children from immigrant families, the early childhood workforce must be more representative of the children it serves. Additionally, providers of all languages and cultures need training in cultural competency and second language acquisition strategies.

One way to increase the supply of qualified, bilingual and culturally competent early care and education providers is to assist providers from immigrant communities to gain the skills to become licensed child care providers, as well as to provide supports to immigrant providers in order to retain them in the early childhood field and to encourage further professionalization and credentialing. Targeted outreach and supports can help providers access professional development and higher education, which is essential to increase and sustain the diversity of the early childhood workforce.

A variety of policies are necessary to support immigrant providers with a wide range of educational backgrounds and levels of English proficiency. While some individuals need access to ESL classes and basic GED education, others have extensive training, education, and experience working in early childhood education in their home countries and just need their credentials to be recognized and validated in the US.

CLASP has created a checklist of selected policies that support immigrant providers, particularly those with limited English proficiency. Read more.

A visual tool for state early childhood system building developed jointly by national organizations

To improve the lives of all children vulnerable to the effects of poverty and other risk factors, state early childhood systems can’t just focus on any one aspect of development, but need to address the full range of child development needs. But to do this, states need help identifying the pieces that should be put into place.  An ad-hoc group of national organizations and individuals who provide technical assistance to state leaders, including CLASP, has worked together to develop a tool that can help state leaders in this work. 

The tool defines the four major systems that need to be coordinated: health; mental health, and nutrition; early intervention; family support; and early learning.

It also describes the structures these systems need to have in place to be effective: governance, standards, research and development, finance, communications, monitoring, and provider and practitioner support.

For each area, numerous technical assistance materials for state and local policymakers are being developed by the partner organizations.

Click here for a presentation on Early Childhood Development Systems.