Excellence and Equity of Care and Education for Children and Families (Part 2: Availability, Accessibility, and Affordability)

This week has been a very hectic one. I have been dedicating 12-13 hours of my day since Sunday to making sure that my center is meeting the needs of all children that attend and that care and quality meet excellent standards.  This course has helped me so far by providing me with current research and policies supporting quality child care.

In our course this week we continued to discuss Excellence and Equity of Care and Education for children and families. As we continue to place focus on the trilemma of child care quality, affordability, and availability as mentioned in the article, The child care trilemma: How moral orientations influence the field, I found myself wanting to gain insight on what the parents themselves want  from a center or a facility. ChildCare Aware of America formally NACCRRA- has dedicated a section of their website to the parent perspectives. This section can be located in one of their main categories Public Policy. The National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies, has conducted  several national parent  poll that  focus  on understanding  what parents  look for  in child care, the  assumptions that  make  about  licensed  centers, the  availability  of  care  that  they  have in their area, and current  policies they  would  support to  strengthen quality  child  care. On study conducted  to better understand parents’ views and experiences in the current economy regarding child care, as well as the types of changes they support to improve the quality and availability of affordable child care, NACCRRA  conduct a nationwide telephone survey of 1,000 parents with children under the age of 12; The Economy’s Impact on Parents’ Choices and Perceptions About Child Care completed September 2010.The survey concluded that many  families are  still  struggling are  worse off than they were  before. The survey shows that 31 percent of parents rate affordable child care as the most important factor in helping working families. The  greatest concern when  parents  were  asked  to  identify their single greatest concern about  child care  nearly  four  in  10 chose  quality  as  their highest  concern for  their  children’s care, the  cost  of  care  is  their  second  biggest  concern.  Fifty  one  percent  of  families  with  children  under the  age  5 say  that  they  worried  at  least  some  of  the  time  about  paying  their bills. Many  families also  worried that  they  total family  income  would not  be  enough  to  meet  their  family ‘s expenses and  bills  worrying  about  being  able  to  afford  child  care. Due  to  many  parents  economic  situation more  than one in 10 said  that  they  have  had to  move  their  children to  be  closer to relatives for their help or moved their  child to  a  child care  setting  of  lower  quality.  Though  most  parents were  experiencing  difficulty  many of  them  still  were willing to support increased funding  for  child care to improve quality  care even if it  increased  their  taxes by  10 dollars a year. The study concluded with NACCRRA making recommendations to Congress and the states. Some of them where: Require that inspection results and substantiated complaints be publicly posted on the Internet so that parents have access to current, accurate information and can make informed choices about child care, require all paid providers caring for unrelated children every week (like a business) to be licensed, and  require 40 hours of initial training (before working with children or within the first few months) and 24 hours of annual training,(Training should include child development, guidance and discipline, CPR/first-aid, recognizing child abuse and neglect, and related health and safety issues).  This survey shows that regardless of families economic situation the value of quality care is still a very important indicator of child care.

The Economy's Impact on Parents' Choices and Perceptions about Child Care http://www.naccrra.org/public-policy/resources/policy-library-recent-reports/economys-impact-on-parents-choices, retrieved June 9, 2012

Lash, M., & McMullen, M. (2008). The child care trilemma: How moral orientations influence the field. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 9(1), 36–48. Retrieved from http://www.wwwords.co.uk/pdf/freetoview.asp?j=ciec&vol=9&issue=1&year=2008&article=5_Lash_CIEC_9_1_web