Communities across the country are experiencing a dearth of child care options for families with infants and toddlers. Frequently described as a crisis, the availability of high-quality child care for infants and toddlers has only worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic began in spring 2020.
The need for expanded access to quality care for infants and toddlers in Illinois is clear—what is less clear is how to overcome the many challenges to meet this urgent need. The Infant and Toddler Child Care Roadmap project, led by Start Early, explores various ways Illinois can better meet the needs of families with infants and toddlers through the lens of the State’s child care community. The purpose of the project is to examine the current supply, demand and impact of infant-toddler child care on family well-being and the economy. The project is part of Raising Illinois’ Prenatal-to-Three Policy Agenda.
The Infant and Toddler Child Care Roadmap includes a review of recent and relevant literature on infant and toddler child care, a scan of relevant policies and practices in Illinois and other states, and a summary of findings from our engagement with Illinois’s child care field through focus groups and surveys. To better contextualize and interpret the data collected through these activities and to identify subsequent policy recommendations, a series of community conversations were convened around the State to share findings from the literature, state policy scan and surveys and focus groups and to reflect with communities on their implications. Input received from community conversations was integrated into this report, which details the project’s findings and recommendations for increasing access to infant and toddler child care in Illinois.
The following recommendations are reflective of the need for an intentional focus on infants and toddlers and are centered on the professionals who deliver child care services, as our State’s ability to expand infant-toddler child care capacity largely hinges on their ability to do so.
Key Recommendations:
Strengthen the perception and reputation of infant-toddler teachers and other professionals working with children under age 3.
Strengthen the workforce.
Increase engagement with local communities.
Improve the Child Care Assistance Program.
Increase supports for children with disabilities, and early childhood staff and families struggling with mental health and social emotional challenges.
Increase business and operational supports to child care programs.
Improve availability of data on infants and toddlers.
Research Associate, Research & Evaluation, Start Early
Carmen Garcia
Policy Specialist, Illinois Policy, Start Early
Vanessa Soto
Intern, Illinois Policy, Start Early
Special thanks to: City of Chicago Mayor’s Office & Every Child Ready Chicago Working Group; Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map; SAL Family and Community Services; Children’s Home & Aid Child Care Resource and Referral; Child Care Resource and Referral at John A. Logan College; Southern Illinois Coalition for Children and Families; Christine Brambila; Madison Conkin; Ireta Gasner; Brenda Eastham; Jennifer Kemp Berchtold; Beth Knight; Ann Kremer; Lindsay Maldonado; Marcy Mendenhall; Gail Nourse; Emily Ropars.
Funders
This project was made possible by grant number 90TP0057. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the United States Department of Health and Human Services,
In spring 2020, Start Early engaged more than 150 participants from 12 states and the District of Columbia in the Build it Back Better Dialogues*. The dialogues afforded space for Start Early to hear directly from parents, systems leaders and early childhood practitioners. Actively listening to stakeholders’ concerns provided critical insight into the challenges facing early childhood professionals and the families they serve. By sparking courageous and often difficult conversations, Start Early gained a deeper understanding of the disparities that perpetuate the opportunity gap among our youngest learners.
This report outlines key findings from the Build it Back Better Dialogues, including actionable information to help lead long-term, systemic changes through research- and evidence-based policies. Listening to the lived experiences of families and early childhood professionals generated critical questions that can be used to guide further discussions about the future of early childhood education and care in a post-pandemic world. Paying attention to the voices of people on all sides of early childhood systems will allow the creation of more equitable, responsive policies moving forward.
The following two modules provide a brief overview of NEAR@Home core concepts and what a NEAR home visit looks like in practice.
NEAR@Home is a resource for home visitors to respectfully and effectively address adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) with families. In addition to our free and easily accessible NEAR@Home Toolkit, we have developed a Facilitated Learning process through which trained facilitators guide home visitors and supervisors through the process of implementing a NEAR home visit.
Learn more about the NEAR@Home Facilitated Learning program and how it can support you and your home visiting program by watching the two videos below (Module #1 and Module #2).
Interested in bringing the NEAR@Home Facilitated Learning program to your community and developing your own team of NEAR@Home-trained facilitators? Please reach out to us at ProfessionalDevelopment@StartEarly.org.
Introduction to NEAR@Home: Trauma and Hope Informed Home Visiting Module 1
Rhonda Crooker, a NEAR@Home Facilitator, shares why and how NEAR@Home was created and explores some of the core concepts that guide this work including: our social justice perspective, a life course view of trauma and adversity, and how to ensure safety for the home visitor and the family.
Introduction to NEAR@Home: Trauma and Hope Informed Home Visiting Module 2
Rhonda Crooker, a NEAR@Home Facilitator, shares the process of becoming a trauma and hope informed home visitor and the steps in doing a NEAR home visit.
In March 2021, Start Early received a short-term exploratory grant from the Illinois Council on Developmental Disabilities to gather insights into how to better support the inclusion of young children with disabilities across school and community settings by engaging school district leaders and their management organizations. From March through August 2021, Start Early conducted key informant interviews and focus groups with school management associations and school district leaders, including principals, superintendents, school board members, and early childhood and early childhood special education coordinators to gain an understanding of what Local Education Agencies (LEAs) would need to be able to provide services to all preschool aged children with IEPs regardless of setting, with a focus on outside-of-school settings.
This report outlines key findings from these focus groups and potential next steps for policy makers and systems leaders to build LEA and state capacity to leverage new federal resources on inclusion. This work will inform early childhood systems efforts in Illinois including the Early Childhood Transformation’s implementation of the Funding Commission recommendations, the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood’s needs assessment and strategic planning process funded through the federal Preschool Development Grant, and the work that is anticipated under the Build Back Better Act.
Start Early Illinois Policy Team
Policy Specialist
Zareen Kamal
Start Early Illinois Policy Team Policy Specialist
Acknowledgements
This report was prepared thanks to many individuals and organizations that generously provided time and expertise, research, consultation and other supports. Special thanks to: Debra Pacchiano, Isabel Farrar, Ann Kremer, Emily Ropars, focus group participants and key informants.
In partnership with the Illinois Council on Developmental Disabilities. This project was supported, in part by grant number CFDA 93.630, from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. 20201. Grantees undertaking projects with government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official ACL policy.
Plenty of adults have a hard time staying on top of their own dental health and may even dread going to the dentist for care. Some people may even wrongly think that baby teeth aren’t important since little kids are just going to lose those baby teeth anyway. However, it is very important to start building healthy habits early on. Did you know that a child’s dental health can have huge impacts on their school readiness and their ability to learn?
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We know that children must be healthy and ready to learn for school, and good dental health plays a bigger role than you might think. When we think about health and wellness, often dental health doesn’t come to mind; however, poor dental health during a child’s earliest years of life can be connected to poor attendance in school, lower test scores, decreased high school graduation rates and fewer job opportunities. Dental decay is the leading chronic health condition among children in the United States, and it’s 100% preventable!
Taking charge of your little one’s dental health is so important. The earlier you start taking your child to the dentist the easier it will become! They’ll get used to going and are likely to really enjoy it. We recommend taking your little one to a pediatric dentist and always seeing the same provider so they know your family better.
Why a Pediatric Dentist?
Pediatric dentists have been trained to expertly provide care to young children.
If treatment is needed, pediatric dentists can often provide care in fewer visits.
Having a consistent dentist will help both you as a parent and your child build a relationship with someone they know and trust.
As a parent you will receive quality dental health education on what you need to do to make sure your children are healthy. This includes information on nutrition, bottles, pacifiers, how to brush children’s teeth well, future growth and development and dental health issues associated with conditions like asthma or ADHD.
In a dental health emergency (fall, chip, pain), you have a trusted place you can take your child to be seen.
Important Reminders:
Exams and preventive care are important, but a child is not healthy if they have an infection (cavity) in their mouth.
The sooner tooth decay is treated, the easier it will be for the child and parent. If ignored, it will get worse and may cause a serious problem.
Children should be seen every 6 months (or more often if a child has a high risk), starting no later than 12 months. Parents shouldn’t leave the dental office without making a follow-up appointment.
Questions to Consider About Your Child’s Dental Health:
Do you need a referral to find a dentist? Is your dentist in your insurance network?
Are you happy with your child’s dentist?
When was the first time your child visited a dentist?
When was the last time your child visited a dentist?
Do you brush your child’s teeth daily?
Do you ever notice your child avoiding hot or cold drinks or hard to chew foods, having tooth pain (especially when chewing food), bleeding from the gums, or any odor from their mouth?
Tips for Infants:
Start cleaning your child’s mouth with a small soft toothbrush even before teeth come in. This will make it easier for your child to get used to it.
Do not let your child fall asleep with a bottle or while breastfeeding.
Never add sugar or honey to a bottle.
To sooth teething, rub gums with a cold spoon or clean teething ring.
As soon as the first tooth pops up, (at about 6 months) use a soft bristle brush and small amount of fluoride toothpaste (no more than grain of rice size) to brush.
Stop use of bottle at 1 year; instead use cup for drinking.
Visit dentist when teeth appear—experts recommend taking your baby to the dentist by the time their first tooth comes in, and no later than 12 months. It’s never too early to see the dentist!
Tips for Toddlers & Preschoolers:
Continue to brush your child’s teeth. They don’t have the skills to effectively do on their own until they can tie their shoes (at about 6-8 years).
When you brush your child’s teeth, lift the lip and look for color changes
Give fruit rather than juice. If you do give juice, give no more than 6 oz. per day, and follow-up with water.
At age 3 begin flossing when two teeth touch.
Teach child to flush mouth with water after every meal.
Visit the dentist every 6 months, or more often if your dentist recommends it.
Cheese makes a good snack swap and is great for teeth!
Always be positive when you talk to your child about going to the dentist.
Children with a toothache may not know how to tell you they have pain. Be on the lookout for these signs:
Biting on one side
Eating only soft foods
Avoiding eating or drinking hot or cold foods
Moodiness
You have the power to make sure your child is free from tooth decay!
The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) began its hearings–the first step in determining next year’s proposed budget. These hearings provide us an opportunity to help shape the early childhood proposal in the upcoming budget. Please consider participating *virtually* in requesting a 10% increase to the Early Childhood Block Grant for Fiscal Year 2023.
This pandemic continues to add challenges to what children, families and educators are facing.
Children are young only once. We must act boldly and decisively to invest in their futures.
The essential work performed by professionals throughout the early childhood system requires compensation parity for teachers and staff, particularly those in community-based settings.
Learn More How to Participate in ISBE’s Budget Process:
Submit your funding request: Complete and submit ISBE FY2023 Budget Hearing Form. This step must be completed prior to registering to speak at a hearing. Written requests must be received by ISBE no later than October 21.
Sign up to testify or register to listen: After completing your funding request, you can also sign-up to testify at one of the budget hearings. You must sign up if you wish to speak at a hearing so that you can be included in the official schedule for the meeting. You must also register prior to the hearing if you choose to be a “listener.” Registration links are included below.
As educators and parents of three young children, Kapria Robinson and her husband know starting early shapes not only a child’s kindergarten experience, but their entire educational journey.
“We wanted to make sure we provided early learning programs for our own children that supported their academic, social and emotional skills. And where they got to experience joy every day at school; a place where they were happy, knew that they were loved, and would thrive,” she recalls.
So when Kapria toured Educare Chicago on the recommendation of their foster care agency five years ago, she knew she has found the right program for her family. She enrolled her two eldest children, Alexander and Catalina, who were just 16-months and 6-months at the time.
Kapria, Alexander & Catalina
“Our case manager said families who had their children at Educare Chicago were thriving and that they were supportive of the blended foster-adoptive family dynamic,” Kapria remembers. “With the foster care process, they were very open to things like working with biological parents. Also, the smaller class sizes and the student-to-teacher ratio is amazing. To have three adults, working with kids when they’re younger just makes all the work of difference.”
I strongly believe that all children should attend preschool prior to going to an elementary school, just so that they get those beginning foundational skills in a classroom setting.
Kapria Robinson
An Approach Making a World of Difference
Parent engagement and coaching is at the core of Educare Chicago’s approach, which begins before the first day of school.
“Early on, Educare staff wanted to learn what our kids were interested in and what life was like outside of school. In fact, we met the teachers and had already spoke with the family support specialist in our own home by the time the kids began school,” Kapria reflects.
From Kapria’s perspective, “Educare’s approach is years ahead of most other programs. They make sure to ask a lot of higher order thinking questions. They engage the kids in a lot of discussions, they encourage them to, you know, have their own voice and to have their own throughs — and they positively affirm them.”
“Their team made sure that the kids got what they needed. When my son had challenges with separation anxiety, teachers like Miss Danielle would reach out with different stories we could read with him to make that transition a little easier. It has been a wonderful experience for us,” she continues.
Catalina & Alexander
Educare Chicago’s family engagement and parent coaching helped Kapria and her husband stay fully informed about their children’s education and able to reinforce behaviors and learnings at home.
“They would make sure that we understood what our kids were learning. During the parent engagement activities, they really make sure to break down different ways to engage your kids around math, literacy, STEM and art activities,” Kapria shares. “They helped us to truly understand how to engage our children, what questions to ask them, what vocabulary to focus on.
In addition to empowering Kapria and her husband in their role as their children’s first and best teachers, the Educare Chicago community offers a space to meet, engage with and learn from other parents.
“It gave us an opportunity to connect with some of the other parents, which is hugely important in building a community for your children, so that you have other families for them to visit for play dates and that share the same ideas about what is important for their children and their education.”
Ready for Kindergarten and a Lifetime of Learning
Quality early learning and care programs like Educare Chicago help children like Kapria’s enter kindergarten ready to learn. Because early childhood is a time of rapid development in multiple areas — physical, emotional, cognitive and social growth — kindergarten readiness is more than observing a child recite shapes, numbers and colors. A child who is ready for kindergarten is curious, can form relationships and has social interactions with nurturing adults and peers.
Kapria believes Educare Chicago’s approach helped spark an ongoing love for learning within her children that has set them up for a lifetime of success.
“Educare’s approach to involving parents in their children’s education journey and constantly getting feedback has been a huge part of why our children are so successful and driven to keep learning,” she says. “They not only taught the preschool curriculum in ways that were engaging, but they also expanded it to include skills or concepts we were interested in our children learning and based on their assessments of what our kids were ready to learn.”
Today, Kapria’s two oldest children have graduated Educare Chicago and are thriving in Chicago Public Schools. Alexander is in first grade and Catalina is in kindergarten, and both recently tested into gifted and classical programs. Her youngest, a 2-year old, is currently enrolled at Educare Chicago.
“Alexander just completed his first year in a gifted kindergarten program and received straight As, awards for citizenship, being a good friend to his classmates and being helpful. He’s accelerated through the remote learning challenges they provided. I know a lot of that had to do with the competence he had in his skills and the motivation Educare Chicago gave him that if he wanted to do something he could absolutely do it,” Kapria proudly shares.
Given her children’s early education success and her own work in education, Kapria advocates that all children should start early.
“I strongly believe that all children should attend preschool prior to going to an elementary school, just so that they get those beginning foundational skills in a classroom setting. Children just excel when they have the opportunity to interact and communicate with and learn from one another.”
“Who am I?” From the moment babies are born, they are learning about who they are, how to express their feelings and what makes them special. Their earliest relationships with parents and caregivers help develop a sense of belonging and set the foundation for their future learning and success.
Parents and caregivers can help young children along as they grow and learn more about who they are, their feelings and how they fit into this world.
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Check out Big Heart World’s Parent and Caregiver Guides for more fun ideas to support your child’s social and emotional learning in the areas of Identify & Belonging, Feelings, and Similarities & Differences.
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the latest COVID-19 relief package, provides $1.9 trillion in funding and policy changes aimed at mitigating the impacts of the ongoing pandemic. In addition to the many provisions directly targeting support to the early care and learning system, the relief package also contains important supports for accessing healthcare and economic benefits, such as tax credits.
Start Early and the Shriver Center on Poverty Law are pleased to host a two-part webinar series for early care and learning professionals that will provide an overview of what is currently known about the healthcare and economic supports available through the ARPA and how to access them. The webinar series is intended to help early care and learning professionals understand these important supports so that they can access them for themselves and assist families they work with to access them as well.
Both webinars will be recorded and available for on-demand viewing.
Watch the Recording
American Rescue Plan Act: Economic Supports
Watch the recording of the June 4, webinar. Presented by Jeremy Rosen, Director of Economic Justice at the Shriver Center.
Watch the Recording
American Rescue Plan Act: Healthcare
Watch the recording of the May 14 webinar. Presented by Stephanie Altman, Director of Healthcare Justice and Senior Director of Policy at the Shriver Center.
In support of the Every Child Ready Chicago initiative, Start Early began exploring the creation of a Chicago early childhood research consortium, which would bring together researchers, policymakers, practitioners, families, and community representatives across sectors in a robust, long-term research-practice partnership focused on helping Chicago achieve its vision for a strong early childhood system.
Access to relevant, actionable, and timely evidence and data that can guide the decisions of policymakers and program leaders is critical to the success of early childhood, and any other, systems-building initiatives. For an early childhood system as large and ambitious as Chicago, no one research partner or institution can provide these supports alone; a consortium of researchers and research institutions working together is key. Chicago already benefits from several research consortia, but none focus specifically on the city’s early childhood system.
Our exploratory report presents the findings of the initial inquiry phase: stakeholder interviews with 26 participants from 16 different organizations, including researchers, advocates, practitioners, leaders of community-based organizations, City of Chicago officials and staff, and other experts. The consensus that emerged was clear:
Chicago needs an early childhood research consortium to serve as a long-term, sustainable research partnership focused exclusively on Chicago’s cross-sector, systemwide early childhood priorities.
The research consortium should function as:
A neutral third-party without allegiance to, or conflicts of interest with, any City agency, office or department.
A trusted thought partner and capacity support for City agencies, offices and departments, as well as community and systems leaders.
A “hub” for researchers across institutions and disciplines.
An integrated complement to existing and emerging infrastructure, systems, consortia and partnerships; it should not duplicate or replace them.
The exploratory interviews also helped to specify a set of important strategic questions that remain unanswered. In the next phase of this work, it will be important to bring together potential partners for nuanced discussions regarding these recommendations, strategic questions and additional topics that emerge as this work progresses. We are excited to catalyze these conversations and facilitate this process for Chicago’s early childhood community.
