Washington, D.C. - The Administration for Children and Families has announced the creation of six new national training and technical assistance centers. These centers, will be part of a new cross-sector Early Childhood Training and Technical Assistance system, bringing together funding, knowledge, and skills from the Office of Child Care, Office of Head Start, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Early childhood education (ECE) is in the spotlight as never before. Being in the limelight, however, has highlighted the field’s fragmentation and the variability in the quality of children’s formal early learning experiences. This reality is unlikely to change, though, unless the ECE field comes to terms with its lack of organization as a unified field of practice with defined accountabilities for a competent and responsible workforce.

Congratulations to Ilse Wilson and the staff at Fairyland Family Child Care in Sandy, Utah. They have been named Provider of the Month for August 2015, and they are the first home care provider to be honored through the new campaign!

Strengthening the economy and building a competitive workforce starts with high quality child care and early childhood education – and not all corporations understand that. Now, you have a chance to bring recognition to business partners who not only understand, but who take action.

It’s no coincidence that we’re headed into hurricane season just as Emergency Preparedness Month is beginning. Hurricane Katrina, now ten years ago, has shown us where we’re lacking in disaster and emergency preparedness as a country, and where we need to step up as organizations and individuals.

School buses are back on the roads again for most of the country, which means day time child care may not be an issue for many school-aged children right now. But what happens to children whose parents work long or irregular hours? Where do they go for care after school?