Sec. 2. Findings

717 words·~3 min read·/bill/113/hr/5000/ih/section-2

A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.

Congress finds the following: Child care for infants and toddlers is often difficult to access or afford. Only about a third of child care centers serve infants. While 70 percent of centers serve toddlers, only a third of teachers report that they care for children under age 3. About half of all requests to child care resource and referral agencies concern care for infants and toddlers. Child care is second only to the family as the setting in which early development takes place for many infants and toddlers.

Sixty-one percent of mothers with children younger than 3 years of age are in the labor force and over 6,000,000 children younger than 3 years of age are cared for by someone other than their parents for some part or all of the day. Therefore, the relationship between the child and the child care provider often plays a significant role in child development. Dramatic brain development in a child’s first 3 years of life, shaped by the quality of early experiences and relationships with trusted adults, builds the foundational architecture for thinking, reasoning, language, emotion, and self-regulation.

Early adverse experiences, such as economic hardship, unstable housing, poor nutrition, abuse or neglect, or parental mental health or substance abuse problems, affect brain development, with effects on long-term productivity and health that can last a life-time. Children with such hardships early in life often experience high levels of chronic stress, which can alter the brain’s architecture and undermine developing biological systems. Almost half of all infants and toddlers live in low-income families, and 61 percent have at least one risk factor for poor health or developmental outcomes.

Teachers serving infants and toddlers receive wages that are 28 percent lower than those of teachers serving 3–5 year olds. Some difference remains even when education is taken into account. The median hourly wage for a teacher with a BA degree serving infants and toddlers is $11.30 compared with $15.50 for teachers serving 3–5 year-olds. Low reimbursement rates to providers make it extremely challenging to offer high quality care to low-income children. In 2013, just three states set their reimbursement rates at the 75th percentile of current market rates.

Many states set their rates substantially below the 75th percentile. Research shows that high-quality child care can mitigate some of the effects of adverse experiences, including poverty, and that low-income children in particular can benefit from high-quality child care that provides nurturing, child-centered teachers and a safe, predictable environment. Yet, at-risk children younger than 3 years of age often receive low-quality child care that can lead to poor developmental outcomes.

High-quality child care has been shown to promote positive cognitive, language, and social and emotional development, and contribute to academic success. Specifically, high-quality child care can also help improve a child’s communication skills, behavioral skills, math and language assessment scores, and verbal intelligence. Research has found strong connections between provider education and training levels and child care quality, including positive caregiving that can improve child outcomes.

More than a quarter of infant-toddler teachers have only a high school education, twice the rate for teachers of preschool age children. 19 percent of infant-toddler teachers have a bachelor’s degree compared with 45 percent of teachers of 3–5 year olds. Twenty-seven States have an infant-toddler credential defining the particular knowledge and skills needed to work with children younger than 3 years of age, but only 17 States require specific qualifications for infant-toddler staff.

Twenty-four percent of infants and toddlers receiving CCDBG subsidies are cared for in family child care homes. Family child care networks that create a supportive relationship with a specially trained coordinator and provide on-site training and mentoring have been shown to improve the quality of family child care providers. Twenty-seven States use infant and toddler specialist networks as the structure for providing training and technical assistance, using research-based training and techniques such as mentoring and on-site coaching, to all types of providers of child care for infants or toddlers.

Infants and toddlers have unique needs that differ from those of older children in areas such as health and safety, interaction with teachers and caregivers, and learning, yet not all States recognize those differences in their Quality Rating and Improvement Systems. Just 16 States have infant and toddler standards in their Quality Rating and Improvement Systems.