August 2015 Footnotes

I’m writing this as I ride the train from New York City headed back to Washington, D.C. on the last day of summer. Tomorrow the kids will return back to school in Virginia, and I am certain that there will be anticipation and perhaps a bit of (unadmitted) anxiety for what’s to come in the school year ahead. But before I too begin to think about the launch of the year ahead, I must share about our last weeks of summer!

Around the Country

This month we launched the Healthy Child Care, Healthy Communities project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to expand technical assistance activities in targeted states to emphasize health, nutrition, and obesity prevention. The project will be managed by Krista Scott, Sr. Director of Health Policy.

Krista has her bachelor’s degree in political science and her M.S.W. with a focus on management and policy. Most recently, she served as the Early Intervention Monitor for District of Columbia’s Early Intervention Program, which provides services to infants and toddlers with disabilities and their families and as the District’s Lead for Preschool Special Education. She has over a decade of experience providing quality assurance reviews, developing policies and procedures for early childhood programs, overseeing program budgets, providing access to health care to children with special health care needs, providing case management, providing reflective supervision and performing legislative bill analysis. She holds expertise in group facilitation, reflective practice, early childhood mental health, early childhood education, early childhood special education, policy and procedure development, training, technical assistance, coaching, mentoring, systems and program development, quality assurance, and special education regulations. We are thrilled to have her join our team!

Online and On-Air

Earlier this month CCAoA participated in a joint Twitter chat with MomsRising to discuss the needs of parents. Together we reached over 128,000 accounts with 324 tweets and 51 contributors participating. You can find an archive of the chat on Twitter with the hashtag #WhatParentsWant.

For many children and families August means back to school, which is why we joined ABC News in a Back to School Health Tips Twitter chat with Dr. Besser, ABC News Chief Health and Medical Editor. As a group, we sent over 3,523 Tweets which are available for review using the hashtag #abcDRBchat.

Member Connections

Child Care Aware® of America is pleased to announce the dates and location for the 2016 Symposium: Celebrating Milestones, Collaborating for Results.

We hope to see you at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. April 4-6, 2016! Mark your calendars and be prepared to join in discussion on topics around policy, research, practice and innovation.

ICYMI: August in the News

Bringing home the point that child care issues are workforce issues, the Washington Post had a front page article on the cost of child care. In it, they cited a recent WaPo poll that said more than three-quarters of mothers and half of fathers in the United States say they’ve passed up work opportunities, switched jobs, or quit to tend to their children. A lack of affordable, quality child care was the primary factor in this decision. You can learn more about the poll results and how CCAoA statistics were used to come to this conclusion in, “The surprising number of parents scaling back at work to care for kids.”

On August 10, I appeared on the Fox 5 News morning show to discuss the cost of child care, especially in light of the recent poll commissioned by the Washington Post.

Martin Austermuhle of NPR station WAMU interviewed Michelle McCready, deputy director of policy, on the cost of child care in Washington, D.C. Michelle weighs in on some of the aspects of the cost of living that are more expensive in the D.C. area, and how that contributes to the overall cost of care. it's definitely a must-read: D.C. Is One of the Most Expensive Places in the U.S. For Child Care. But Why?