Feds Promote Child Care

11/24/2010

Real rest feels like every cell is thanking you for taking care of you. It’s calm, not full of checklists and chores. It’s simple: not multitasking; not fixing broken things.
Jennifer Williamson, American attorney and politician

While much of the attention the Federal government has been receiving has been around health care and jobs, the Administration for Children and Families has been extremely active in making structural improvements and in launching many new initiatives to improve its support of the early childhood arena. You can now go to a one location on the ACF website for a comprehensive update on all of these activities. Some activities to check out:

Elevation of child care in ACF through the establishment of Office of Child Care to administer Child Care and Development Block Grant and promote interagency coordination on child care matters.
Campaign to reshape and improve quality of Head Start Programs through requiring weaker programs to compete for funds; creating four new national centers to provide technical assistance to Head Start programs — centers on Teaching and Learning; Parent, Family and Community Engagement; Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness; and Program Management and Fiscal Operations. Also, awarding grants to Centers of Excellence in the Head Start arena to disseminate their best practices to Head Start and Early Start programs.
Launching two studies: National Survey on Early Care and Education (to study availability of care, and how available programs coordinate with families' needs), and a Study of the Early Childhood Care and Education Workforce (defining the population and the supports provided for early childhood teachers and caregivers).
Defining the new avenues by which the Department of Education is promoting early learning.

PreschoolFirst

• Online play-based assessment & curriculum for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.
• Variety — choose from 3,200 activities
• Aligned to all state early learning standards
• Easy to use with accountability
• FREE TRIAL

Simplify Childcare Management

“EZ-CARE2 saves me over 10 hours of administrative time per week,” says Patricia Field of the Winston Prouty Center. Better manage your center with EZ-CARE2 Mgt. Software.

www.ezcare2.com

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