On Dec. 3-4, Child Care Aware® of America’s Executive Director of Respite Care of America (RCoA) Fran Jamison and Senior Vice President of Program Impact Ariel Ford participated in the National Child Care Innovation Summit: Business Leaders in Action. The event, hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Executives Partnering to Invest in Children (EPIC), and presented by the David and Laura Merage Foundation, aimed to "dive deep" into how the business community can support their employees and working communities in tackling child care challenges that are preventing families and economies from thriving. Fran coordinated experts for a panel that highlighted the U.S. Military’s approach to child care, how parts of it might translate to the private sector, and how child care plays a critical role in national security. Ariel presented on a panel that highlighted emerging issues in child care in disaster preparedness, relief, and resilience. 

 

National Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Day celebrates the use ofGIS, a powerful software toolused to create and display maps that help geographically illustrate and communicate complex problems. GIS maps can help identify assets and resources, as well as understand underlying location-based trends in datasets.  

Building off a busy legislative year in 2023, states continued to make progress in 2024 on advancing policies and investments for their child care systems. This year, states had multiple factors to juggle related to child care policy, including spending down remaining American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding, developing new Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Plans for 2025-2027, and addressing new federal requirements in CCDF regulations.  

On July 31, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) introduced two bipartisan child care bills that aim to ease the burden of child care costs for families, encourage businesses to support additional child care supply, and support the child care workforce. CCAoA supports Senator Kaine and Senator Britt’s bills and applauds their bipartisan effort to strengthen the child care system.