Congregations Caring for Children

Advocacy for Quality Child Care

Advocacy for Quality Child Care

Advocacy for Quality Child Care

Advocacy for Quality Child Care

Advocacy for Quality Child Care

Why become involved?

You can make a difference!

Adequate state and local support for quality child care is still

insufficient to meet the needs of California's children. As noted

earlier, a majority of the state's children require child care, but

there is a tremendous lack of quality options.

The most significant legislative changes to support available, quality child care

have come about as a result of local involvement.  Congregations can help build

quality child care options in their communities by mobilizing their members

behind key movements in their community and statewide to make change for

child care.

What are the key issues?

Any time you choose to become involved in advocacy efforts, it is critically

important to understand the key positions related to the issue.

Early childhood advocates promote the following for child care programs:

Quality Child Care: It's difficult to define quality child care, but most experts agree

that at a minimum the following are components of a quality child care program:

A program that promotes positive learning appropriate to the age of the child.

Consistent staff who are nurturing and responsive to children.  They must be

well trained and appropriately compensated.

The physical environment is safe and promotes healthy indoor and outdoor

experiences.

Affordable:  There is a need for enough quality child care choices for families to

select from regardless of their income.  Quality child care is expensive.  Adequate

funding for families whose income makes it difficult to pay for good child care

settings is vital.

Available/Accessible:  Subsidized as well as non subsidized child care must be

made available for the hours when parents need care and must be located near

their homes, workplaces or where children go to school.  Child care is only truly

accessible when enough variety of quality alternatives are available and parents

have information on all of their options.

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