As a Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agency, you play an important role in ensuring consumers receive quality information and are engaged around early care and education topics. That’s why Child Care Aware® of America created a new section of our website devoted to information and materials that can help you:
- Inform and engage early care and education professionals, families and community stakeholders using best-practices;
- Share content that speaks to an array of family experiences, especially those outlined in Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG); and
- Reach families at various points in their journeys, when they will benefit from it the most.
These new consumer education and engagement resources include:
A Social Media Guide
The Consumer Education and Engagement Social Media guide includes information on leveraging social media to reach, inform, and engage your target audiences. After all, 75% of parents consider social media a tool for accessing parenting advice and information (Pew Research Center, 2015) and nearly 70% of families with young children report using it during child care searches (Child Care Aware® of America, In press). Learn more about establish social goals, engaging your audience, analyzing performance metrics and more within this 20+ page PDF guide.
The SMART Suite
So now that you have a guide for strategizing your social media plan, you need content to post on your social media news feeds. Feel free to share our innovative and ready-to-use social media graphics, videos and share kit for digital outreach and engagement. This growing collection covers topics like quality child care, awareness of CCR&Rs, community support, and more.
Serving Young Children and Families Experiencing Homelessness
If you’re looking for more specific resources related to serving families experiencing homelessness, you may be interested in our guidance page. You can download several PDFs, a webinar recording, and more that will help you get more familiar with the facts related to homelessness and browse resources that you can share with the families in your community.
Consumer Education Under CCDBG and CCDF
This five-page PDF explores the intersection between federal policies, family engagement and consumer education and engagement. Inside, you’ll discover specific projected outcomes, important dates to know, and opportunities for CCR&Rs to impact family engagement in your state and region. States must be fully compliant to the new law by October 1, 2018.
Community Perspectives on Child Care
We have conducted several national polls and focus groups throughout the country to better understand parent preferences when selecting child care, what they look for, the assumptions they make about licensed care, the choices they have in their community, and policies or programs they believe would strengthen the quality of child care. This page includes insights (and downloadable PDFs) about child care and early learning gleaned from these survey findings.
Consumer Education and Engagement Community of Practice
We also encourage you to join this exclusive online space where you can discuss and share consumer education resource and strategies with other professionals across the country. You do not need to be a member to join, but you will be prompted to create a login.
We hope that you will find each of these resources valuable in your important work with children and families across the nation. If you have questions about a specific topic or if you have a suggestion for additional resources, please reach out to us at familyengagement@usa.childcareaware.org. We are always happy to help.
Finally, if you’ve downloaded any of these resources let us know how you used them and share any additional strategies in the comments below.
