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Positive Early Learning Experiences

laying the foundation for lifelong success

High-quality early learning and child care lay the foundation for lifelong learning. Yet families face rising costs even as care providers struggle to stay open. Strong federal investment is urgently needed to ensure every baby can receive affordable, quality care that sets them on the path to success.

 

The Challenge

The lack of access to quality early learning and care affects babies during their most critical period of development.

As families are priced out and providers shut their doors, parents are forced to choose between caregiving and responsibilities like work or school. In the meantime, babies facing the highest barriers lose access to learning opportunities, putting them at risk of entering school already behind.

The Solution

  • The Child Care Development Fund, which includes CCDBG and CCES, helps families afford child care, keeps care providers open for all children, and improves the safety and quality of care.
  • Head Start and Early Head Start provide young children with low income, especially in rural communities, with comprehensive early learning, health, employment and family support services.
  • Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG) are essential sources of funding for child care and other critical social services, keeping care providers open and serving the community.
  • IDEA Part C funds early intervention services for infants and toddlers with or at risk of developmental delays and disabilities to support their healthy development. Part C helps ensure young children receive the screening and supports they need across settings, whether the doctor’s office or the classroom.

Take Action

Tell Congress to support federal investments that keep babies on track.

Urge your policymakers to invest in the programs that support babies’ early learning.

Let's do this

Babies need Congress to:

  • Increase funding for child care access via the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and Head Start, including Early Head Start, while preserving quality standards and workforce investments and rejecting policies that would reduce access.
  • Oppose cuts to the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG), Child Care Entitlement to States (CCES), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and other programs that keep child care providers open and help families afford care.
  • Invest in early intervention through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part C, ensuring services are available in the home and integrated into early learning and care settings.

Child care is an essential building block in the foundation of our families’ and country’s future. Learn more about what’s at stake if Congress fails to invest in child care.

Families pay on average 61 percent more for child care for an infant than for a preschooler.

About 44,000 workers miss work each month because child care falls through.

Early Head Start only reaches about 10% of eligible infants and toddlers.

Despite the necessity of child care, early childhood educators earn less than 97% of all other professions.

The price of infant care is higher than the annual in-state public college tuition in 38 states and the District of Columbia.

Advocacy Tools & Resources

Child Care Advocacy Toolkit: Use these tools to urge your policymakers to Think Babies and make quality, affordable child care a reality for all working families.

State of Babies Yearbook: 2023: Use national and state-by-state data on the well-being of infants and toddlers to call on federal, state, and local policymakers to improve outcomes for babies and families.

Building Strong Foundations: Read this brief for information on how comprehensive approaches like Early Head Start support infants, toddlers, and families.