Engaging families meaningfully in child care advocacy has been central to Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA)’s mission for over a decade. The voices of families as they share their child care experiences are critically important to contextualizing the child care system challenges that we face nationwide. I have had the privilege of personally getting to know many of the family advocates that have partnered with CCAoA over the years. This year’s call for family advocate applicants has closed and notifications of acceptance have been sent to selected advocates. I adore being witness to the excitement as I see a flood of social media posts and personal notes from family advocates as they share proudly that they have been selected to join us for this year’s Child Care Works Summit.

Denise is a family child care provider who just enrolled a family who recently immigrated to the United States from El Salvador. Although the family speaks some English, their home language is Spanish and 3-year-old Jorge, their son, communicates solely in Spanish. Jorge has transitioned well into the program and enjoys playing with the other children in the program but struggles to communicate verbally with his English-speaking peers. Denise wants to help Jorge fully participate in the program, but she is unsure how to best support him since she does not speak Spanish. Does this scenario sound familiar? 

This year, Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) will host our first Child Care Works (CCW) Summit in Washington, DC on April 3-4. The summit is an abridged version of our regular biannual Symposium and will welcome Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agency staff, child care providers, family advocates and other partners for a full day of trainings and sessions followed by our annual Day on the Hill event.

For decades, Child Care Resource and Referral (CCR&R) agencies have prioritized tracking child care supply and demand in order to better serve the children, families and child care providers in their area. With the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant in 2014, states are now required to do this, and CCR&Rs are written into the law as experts in tracking child care supply and demand. For most state agencies or CCR&Rs, this means tracking the number of licensed child care spaces for children available at licensed child care providers. But, in recent times we’ve seen challenges with only being able to track the total number of children in a program, not the number of child care spaces by age group.

Working Parents Need More Than “Day” Care

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) released its Nonstandard Hours (NSH) Paper: “It’s About Time! Parents Who Work Nonstandard Hours Face Child Care Challenges,”  which found that the inadequate supply of NSH child care is problematic and raises concerns about access to safe, affordable, and quality child care for many families in our country. In today’s economy, where anyone can work 24/7, many parents struggle to find reliable, affordable NSH child care. NHS is defined as hours worked outside the traditional Monday through Friday work week. By 2020, occupations requiring nonstandard schedules are projected to see the most employment growth.

New Hampshire Senator, Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), just reintroduced the "Right Start Child Care and Education Act," which would help make child care more affordable for working class families by amending the federal tax code.