Sharing Web Resources

As I continue to explore the Center for the Child Care Work Force (CCW), under the “Links” tab, there are over thirty five links to early childhood organizations some of which I was familiar with and others I have never heard of. I was drawn to explore the link for the “Child Care Services Association”. According to the website, CCSA is a non-profit, united way agency committed to “improving the affordability, accessibility and quality of child care. Through research, services and advocacy, CCSA works to improve the child care system in local communities of Durham, orange and wake counties, throughout the state of North Carolina and across the United States” (CCSA, 2006). I think having organizations focusing their attention on certain communities is an excellent idea to insure equity and excellence for all children. CCSA provides free referral services to families seeking child care, technical assistance to child care businesses, and educational scholarships and salary supplements to child care professionals. Also, for those of you who live in North Carolina, the website offers a fact sheet by county about the child care status in North Carolina.

I further explored the “Child Care Law Center”, a national nonprofit legal services organization that uses legal tools to make high quality, affordable child care available to every child, every family, and every community. Their mission is to break down barriers to childcare for working parents. Their work includes Protecting children's health and safety by strengthening child care licensing laws and regulations, promoting equal access to child care for children with disabilities, and implementing programs to promote language equity and access to child care for diverse populations, with an emphasis on immigrant families and ELL families. The website also offers updates on early childhood policy in the state of California, in particular, and new child related federal laws in general (CCL, 2012).

Going back to the CCW website, as I continued to explore, I was interested to read about the Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS); a rating and assessment system designed to assess early childhood programs, provide incentives to improve them, and communicate their level of quality to the public. The system is currently implemented in only twenty states; unfortunately, California was not one of them. The issue of excellence is reflected through the system’s measure of program’s standards and accountability. I believe mandating the implementation of such system can be an excellent idea to promote quality in early childhood programs (CCW, n.d.).

The website continues to offer a wealth of information to read and explore, especially under the “news to use” tab where article, papers, and reports are shared. I explored one report by the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media, titled “Covering Pre-K - New Investments in Our Littlest Learners”. The report states that “The quality of child care in the United States is uneven. Research has shown that much center-based care is inadequate. Analysts have even argued that some programs are of such low quality that children would be better off without them” (Jacobson, n.d.). Thus, affirming the growing need for stricter regulations and more consistent standards of quality nationwide in order to guarantee that all children are benefiting from the early care programs they attend.

References:

Center for Child Care Workforce. (n.d.) retrieved from http://www.ccw.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=80&Itemid=67

Child Care Law. (2012). Retrieved from

http://www.childcarelaw.org/

Child Care Services Association. (2006). Retrieved from

 http://www.childcareservices.org/

Jacobson, L. (n.d.) Covering Pre-K - New Investments in Our Littlest Learners. Retrieved from http://www.ccw.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=80&Itemid=67