How local regulations impact the supply of child care
Early childhood care and education is becoming an increasingly important issue with educators, philanthropists, policy makers, businesspersons, and economists. While important, we know these issues can be complicated and it’s often difficult to get a real ground-level perspective of the challenges and opportunities faced by Georgia child care providers and parents. Quality Care for Children works with thousands of child care providers and parents throughout the state through our various programs including: Quality Rated support, Early Head Start, the USDA Child Care and Summer Food Programs, state-approved trainings, and its statewide child care referral service.
We plan to send periodic letters to stakeholders in the community to share key insights from our direct work with parents, providers, and state/federal programs. Below are several topics that we are actively discussing and plan to cover throughout the year.
Local regulations and ordinances create a barrier to building the supply of quality child care (read the full report). In Georgia, the smallest government jurisdiction has authority and 159 counties and cities have ordinances and regulations that impact access to high-quality child care. QCC is working with the Professional Family Child Care Alliance of Georgia to catalog these barriers and develop strategies to address them.
Supporting Latino parents and responding to the unique educational and linguistic needs of their young children is critical to Georgia’s future. QCC will share lessons learned from its innovative and nationally recognized approach to serving Latino children and families through its Early Head Start program.
Nationally there is an inadequate investment in leadership development for Directors of child care programs. QCC is documenting the impact on teacher turnover, program quality, and Quality Rated success and piloting strategies to address the issue.
National data makes the case for investing in educational opportunities for both children and their parents. A two-generation approach presents the potential to multiply the return on investment in early childhood education for children and in post-secondary education for young parents. QCC is employing this strategy in serving student parents and their young children at three Georgia Universities.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have questions or would like to further discuss any early learning issue.
Sincerely,
Pam Tatum
President & CEO
