Early Care & Learning Council

POLICY and ADVOCACY ALERT

6/11/13 CCDBG Reauthorization Bill Introduced through Bi-Partisan Effort in US Senate Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), and Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) have introduced a bill to reauthorize the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), the primary federal grant program that provides child care assistance for families and funds child care quality initiatives. The legislation, “The Child Care Development and Block Grant Act of 2013,” would reauthorize the program for the first time since 1996. Under the Reauthorization Bill, states would be required to ensure that all child care providers who care for CCDBG funded children: • Receive health and safety training in specific areas • Receive comprehensive background checks (including fingerprints, checks of the sex offender and child abuse registries) • Receive on-site monitoring This bill includes many measures to improve the quality of child care and ensure that all children in child care settings are safe. Currently, more than 500,000 providers serve about 1.6 million low-income children through this funding nationwide.  The bill is currently being considered by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. Early Learning Days of Action Last week, advocates across the country participated in the Strong Start for Children Campaign’s Early Learning Day of Action which included a tweet chat using the hashtag #PreKforAll.  This chat and usage of the hashtag resulted in 1.3K unique participants and a reach of 4.5 million people! To compliment this, many CCR&Rs are participating in Winning Beginning NY’s Early Learning Days of Action to support President Obama's Early Learning Initiative which calls for an investment of $75 billion in early childhood education. The President's bold plan includes investments in supporting early learning and healthy development from the prenatal period, through school age!  The plan also includes critical investments in quality improvement, including better compensation for the early childhood workforce.  To see pictures and media from the NY events as well as our partners, visit https://www.rebelmouse.com/NY4EarlyLearning/. To support the President’s Early Learning Plan: Click Here to Contact your Member of Congress today. Stay tuned for more updates. Sincerely, Jessica Jessica Klos Shapiro Senior Policy Associate (518) 690-4217 ex. 32