Comments for national policy blog

Comment on Virginia Needs an Overhaul of State Child Care Laws by babes hazed

babes hazed — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 16:40:38 +0000

babes hazed…

I am looking to get a capable author, long time in this area. Excellent article!…

Comment on Virginia Needs an Overhaul of State Child Care Laws by nsspauline

nsspauline — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:47:05 +0000

Child care law overhaul should be pursue as soon as possible. There are a lot of parents who go for child care center because they need someone to look after their child/children. And I don’t think parents and children deserve this kind of services, whether it’s for free or not. For those child care center I don’t think having a license is that hard, come on! parents wouldn’t go for your services if they don’t have to.

Comment on Early Learning is an Economic Development Strategy by geolith

geolith — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 23:04:21 +0000

What will be challenging, I suspect, is developing a broad base of support among parents.

Figure 40% cringe and fade when they hear “government” in the same sentence as “my child.” Figure 20% are challenged parents, in some form or fashion. Figure 30% have no problem with government programs that serve those in need, but don’t know what they themselves don’t know. and parent as they know it.

On the positive side, most parents know they need something, but I doubt many are looking to get it from the government. There are some excellent NGOs that provide home visiting and child care, and there are definitely things that parents and caregivers can learn which could make the 0-36 mos. interval work better for parent and child.

It would be great to collaborate with the reality TV world and develop some media showing individual parenting challenges and solutions, then deplay them through cable, YouTube channels and social media.

For example, wouldn’t it be good to pick up tips on managing a child on the spectrum from other parents who’ve gone through similar circumstances, or share what you’ve learned on your journey? Especially if you could choose a channel that matches up with your child’s age and gender? Or your first language?…

Or if you could watch Beyonce talk about parenting a toddler? Of course, she presumably has a few more resources than the average parent, but there are probably a few similarities too..

She might be a great spokesperson for the effort, and might even enlist a few other celeb parents from the pages of People.

Comment on Safe Child Care: Violence Prevention by geolith

geolith — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 22:12:05 +0000

Child care providers are a great channel for educating new parents, especially those with a child in the 0-2 year age, about the good and the bad parts of raising children.

There aren’t a lot of other channels that new parents use, and there aren’t a lot that are even available for many.

A few years back, 0-3 did a survey and found most new parents turn to their own parents for help, but as I remember it, 15% reported asking their child care provider about issues with their child and only 4% asked their pediatrician.

Providing a safety certification for providers can enhance their knowledge and skills at bringing safety messages to new parents. It not only would serve as a information channel, but enhance their professional standing in the eyes of their clients.

Comment on Progress Toward Quality Child Care by Harley Jackman

Harley Jackman — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 16:45:17 +0000

This is some good stuff! I'm glad that they are upping the quality. My sister has been looking for daycare in Tacoma and I know that she is happy about the progress.

Comment on Children Should Be Safe in Child Care by Grace Reef

Grace Reef — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 19:58:30 +0000

Great idea! Let’s find a way to work together on this.

Comment on Children Should Be Safe in Child Care by geolith

geolith — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 23:30:29 +0000

Good work by CCA on a vitally important issue.

The House recently passed legislation to improve the accuracy of child fatalities due to abuse, HR 6655 (the Protect Our Kids Act), sponsored by Rep. Doggett of Texas. It was spurred by a GAO report last year that looked at the sad state of reporting by child protective services.

If it isn’t happening already, seems like there would be opportunities for collaboration to ensure that the Commission envisioned by the Act addresses this issue.

Aside from that, it would good if CCA could take the lead on creating a minimum standard for safety training that child care providers could use as evidence that they meet a voluntary national standard. Sort of a “Good Housekeeping Seal”…

Link: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr6655/text

Comment on Child Care Training Matters! by Linda Asato

Linda Asato — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 22:02:59 +0000

Thanks Grace for posting and informing the field of new developments. While obvious to us in the field, sometimes we need to simplify for audiences the connection of infant brain development to success in school (and executive function). Here’s one elevator pitch: when an adult looks into that infant’s eyes and speaks to the baby, that baby’s brain is developing neural connections at a rate of 700 per second. That little baby’s brain is distinguishing between voice sounds vs. other sounds. When the infant is a toddler, she starts to make associations with words to objects. As the child in in pre-school setting, she starts to see objects are associated with print words. print words later are associated with reading and further context for learning.

In sum, Executive Function = working memory (see Grace’s definitions above) has long term affects on school success. Positive experiences beginning at birth affects brain development, and from conscious and trained adults, can boost executive functioning, thus supports school readiness. It makes sense to me to go with the evidence of what works and reserach based — invest early in children’s lives, with trained adults in safe and enriched environments.