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To help families succeed and low-income families thrive, quality child care is critical. Yet too many of America’s children are in early care settings that lack well-prepared teachers, lack the infrastructure to do background checks, and lack the ability to offer safe child-to-adult ratios that give children the attention they need to learn and explore.  Parents worry about the quality of care their children receive, yet often can’t afford better programs and feel powerless to do anything about it. As research continues to show the importance of the earliest years of life to a person’s future school and career success, figuring out how to provide more families with more access to quality care has become one of the great challenges of social and family policy of the 21st century.

The ¹ú²úÊÓƵ Foundation held this discussion of how to overcome these challenges and improve quality in early child care settings.

Participants

Introduction

Director, Early Education Initiative
¹ú²úÊÓƵ Foundation
 
Featured Speakers
Linda K. Smith
Deputy Assistant Secretary & Interdepartmental
Liaison for Early Childhood Development
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Rolf Grafwallner
Assistant State Superintendent
Maryland Department of Education

Kate Jordan-Downs
Director of the Child Development Center
Easter Seals of Washington, DC
 
Moderator

Director, Workforce and Family Program
¹ú²úÊÓƵ Foundation