Happy New Year! It's finally 2020, Census year. You've been preparing and now it's here.  While the Census will occur throughout the year, in some parts of the country the count will begin as early as this month.  

New research shows that much work needs to be done to help families understand the importance of participating in the Census. Child care providers and Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (CCR&Rs) can play an important role sharing these messages. 

Congress and the White House have officially approved federal funding for the remainder of FY2020, reaching a bipartisan agreement that provides more than $1 billion in increased funding for federal early childhood programs, including:

In response to today’s White House Summit on Child Care and Paid Leave, Child Care Aware^® of America (CCAoA) Executive Director Dr. Lynette M. Fraga released the following statement:

Child Care Aware^® of America has responded to the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the Department of Health and Human Services and their notice for a request for information (RFI) on “Improving Access to Affordable, High Quality Child Care.” 

Once every 10 years, our nation undergoes the gargantuan task of “counting every one, only once, and in the right place.”

An accurate census count is critical to the federal government accurately distributing more than $800 billion in federal funds each year. Accurate counts in the census affect federal funding distributions for many public programs ⁱ, including child care subsidies and the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP). They also help allocate funding more equitably for other programs children rely on like the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicaid, foster care, adoption assistance, Section 8 of the House Act of 1937, Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), and community health centers.

It’s no secret that families across the country with infants and toddlers struggle to access licensed child care more than families with preschoolers - Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agencies have been shouting this from the rooftops for decades!

Over the past two years, Child Care Aware® of America has worked with CCR&Rs in five states to quantify the challenges families with infants face through our Mapping the Gap™ project. In our latest story map, Mapping the Gap™ in New York, we found many more examples of communities in which the supply for infant care does not meet the demands of families. For the estimated 425,000 infants and toddlers living across the state, there are only an estimated 127,000 slots, leaving an approximate supply and demand gap of 298,000 slots. This means that roughly 70% of infants and toddlers in New York might not have access to licensed child care in their communities.