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Within the early care and education system, licensing requirements apply to the largest number of providers who care for millions of children from birth to school age. Licensing helps prevent various forms of harm to children—risks from the spread of disease; fire and other building safety hazards; injury; and developmental impairment from the lack of healthy relationships with adults, adequate supervision, or developmentally appropriate activities.
Consumer education helps families access the information needed to make informed child care choices. Well-crafted consumer education is strengths based and culturally and linguistically responsive to the needs of communities. When done well, consumer education can reach large numbers of diverse families and ensure the widest possible access to information and services.
Comprehensive background check requirements are a focus topic for the National Center on Subsidy Innovation and Accountability. Comprehensive resources are available that break down the requirements into easier to understand language.
Early Head Start-Child Care (EHS-CC) Partnerships support communities to expand high-quality early learning opportunities in the years before preschool. The partnerships work to increase the number of Early Head Start (EHS) programs and child care providers that can meet the highest standards of quality for infants and toddlers.
The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 requires Lead Agencies to develop state- and territory-wide child care disaster plans. These plans must demonstrate how each state and territory will address the needs of children—including the need for safe child care—before, during, and after a major disaster or emergency, including a state of emergency declared by the governor.
Family child care (FCC) has many unique qualities that sets it apart from other early care and education settings. A FCC setting offers several benefits to families. Some benefits include a neighborhood-based home environment, smaller groups of children, mixed-age groups so that siblings can be together, a consistent caregiver, and greater flexibility in hours of operation. However, FCC providers may face challenges, such as a sense of isolation, limited resources when working longer hours, no support staff, and less business expertise. Stakeholders strive to understand these issues as they develop ways to support and increase the success and stability of FCC providers. Many resources address health, safety, and quality improvement systems across all early childhood settings, including FCC. However, the following online resources and written products more specifically address FCC settings.
NCTECD’s office hours series consists of eight facilitated virtual sessions that were organized around immediate TA topics requested by Tribal Lead Agencies. The sessions provided practical information, strategies, resources, examples, and peer-learning opportunities.
This ChildCare.gov COVID-19 Resources and Information page provides direct link to national Novel Coronavirus (COVID019) resources as well as state-and territory-specific child care information and resources to help both families and child care providers stay informed about the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on child care.
This page contains resources to benefit those working in CCDF Lead Agencies and other policymakers.
This page features resources for child care providers, and covers topics such as health and safety; business practices; social and emotional support; and trauma.
The Child Care State Capacity Building Center’s (SCBC) Infant/Toddler Specialist Network (ITSN) has begun the next series of infant/toddler (I/T) hot topic webinars, which are designed to raise awareness about important topics, provide relevant resources, inspire continued conversations, and encourage further action toward increasing the supply and quality of I/T care.
This three-part webinar series on Understanding and Addressing the Impact of COVID-19 in Tribal CCDF Programs was held by the Office of Child Care to understand the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Tribal communities and identify ways to support Tribal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) programs’ response to and recovery from the pandemic.