One year ago, I stepped into my new role as Editor-in-Chief of Exchange, a magazine for early childhood leaders. I was to fill the biggest shoes imaginable—those of a founding editor who had helmed the magazine since its inception 38 years ago. Although I’m a mother of two young boys, I was new(ish) to the field of early childhood. I’d previously edited a university alumni magazine, but taking over a bi-monthly 96-page professional publication offered me a learning curve as steep as Space Mountain.

Last week, Child Care Aware® of America’s (CCAoA) Research Team attended the latest public convening for the Committee on Financing Early Care and Education with a Highly Qualified Workforce, sponsored by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The committee is studying how best to fund early care and education for children from birth to kindergarten entry so that education is accessible, affordable to families, and of high quality. They are also tasked with including proposals for a well-qualified and adequately supported early childhood education workforce. CCAoA has a long history examining the cost and financing solutions for child care at the state and federal level. Our annual report, Parents and the High Cost of Child Care, discusses not only the unaffordability of child care but also the creative financing strategies that states and localities have used to help defray the cost of child care from parents. We were especially interested in hearing what experts across the country had to share on the subject.

Talk about change. Colorado’s early care and education system is undergoing major shifts, largely in response to new requirements at the state and federal levels. For starters, there are the new federal requirements in the reauthorized Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act. In addition, last year Colorado’s child care licensing regulations were updated and now are among the strongest in the nation. For the first time, child care health consultants in the state are required to take introductory training, and child care staff who work with infants must undergo annual training on safe sleep practices.

Every week in the United States, nearly 11 million children younger than age five are in some type of child care arrangement. While all families with young children benefit from an awareness and knowledge of high-quality, affordable child care options that match their need for safe, healthy, and developmentally appropriate care, children from economically challenged and diverse families benefit even more monumentally from a high-quality child care environment. There are, however, many barriers for low-income and otherwise vulnerable families accessing care including preventable barriers such as the lack of knowledge of early care options.

It was a crisp breezy fall morning as I drove my car into the garage near my job. Suddenly my cell phone rings and I look at the caller ID and take a deep breath. Sigh…it’s my daughter’s child care provider again.

Arlington, Va. -- Child Care Aware® of Kansas was recently awarded the Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies as Resilience Hubs grant. Grant funding from Child Care Aware® of America will support a new two-year project designed to strengthen emergency preparedness efforts for children, parents, and child care providers and also enhance coordination with first responder and disaster response organizations. This project will create new trainings, resources, publications, and tools to benefit the 15,612 professionals that work in the early childhood field in Kansas.