Community Leadership Forums
Strengthening Families through Early Care & Education
Community Leadership Forums
What Does Idaho Think About Child Care?
The final quarter of 2008 was exciting and enlightening for IdahoSTARS. In September, October and November, Brenda Breidinger, IdahoSTARS project director, Julaine Ziegert, director of the Mentor/Coaches program, and Jane Zink, coordinator for the Quality Rating and Improvement System (QRIS) traveled around the state to meet with community leaders in each of Idaho’s seven regions. IdahoSTARS presented information on quality child care and the emerging QRIS. Legislators, university personnel, community leaders and child care providers all joined in the effort to brainstorm ideas on how to promote quality child care in Idaho.
The presentation focused on current child care statistics, many of which surprised the audience. For example, did you know 72,000 of Idaho’s children under the age of 6 are in child care? Secondly, we shared the assumptions that parents make when choosing child care - that basic health and safety are required by law – and how Idaho’s child care licensing may or may not cover even the most basic health and safety measures. Finally, we presented information about how quality environments influence the development of the brain, beginning from the time a child is born. This information on brain development caused many people to reconsider their opinions about how to ensure that our youngest citizens are cared for in quality environments.
When the presentation was over, the audience discussed what they had learned. Most were shocked by information on Idaho child care statistics, the lack of quality facilities, the lack of safety and health standards, the impact on school readiness and the high cost of care. Economically, quality care costs families more today. But low quality care costs all of us more over time.
Generally, the audience agreed that parents do not seem to know what quality child care looks like or why it is important. They agreed that price of child care is a huge issue for parents, especially if their resources are limited. Oftentimes parents do not know what a difference quality child care can make in their child’s life, and that impacts how child care is prioritized in their family budget.
All around the state, audiences acknowledged that parents want what is best for their children, and that parents have a right to choose their child’s care. But with choices for affordable quality care so limited, how can all parents have access to best care outside of their home?
Out of Idaho’s 128,000 children under age 6, 41% live in households with two working parents and another 14% live in households with a single parent. We know that that early experiences physically impact a child’s brain, in both good and bad ways. And we know there are real financial consequences of failing children in their earliest years.
Some community leaders believe that the Idaho legislature is living denial, trying to turn back the clock to the way things used to be in some time past. But with over 70,000 Idaho children in child care everyday and 25,000 babies born in Idaho last year alone, the time for looking back is over. IdahoSTARS is looking ahead. We are looking to the future. And every time we look at a child we are doing just that.
If you would like IdahoSTARS to present information on quality child care to a community, civic, or church group, dial 2-1-1 and ask to speak Brenda Breidinger.
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Strengthening Families through Early Care & Education
Idaho’s Strengthening Families program continues to grow locally and gain recognition on the national level. Idaho Children’s Trust Fund and Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children (Idaho AEYC) partner to implement Strengthening Families in Idaho.
Strengthening Families training is available in every region of the state, and this year 250 providers have attended 125 trainings throughout Idaho. Here is what one family provider has to say about the training:
I am so grateful for this class and our new experiences that not only have benefited our daycare families, but our lives as well. I would strongly suggest this series to everyone no matter how long you’ve worked with children or how skeptical you may be-- this series will definitely forever change you life and the lives of the children in your community.
In addition to positively impacting families in Idaho, our Strengthening Families work is gaining national recognition. Recently, Idaho was chosen as one of just three peer states selected to guide the rest of the nation in embedding Strengthening Families into Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS). Strengthening Families has been included as a quality standard in Idaho’s QRIS from the very beginning.
In its role as a peer state, Idaho is participating in national discussions around program evaluation as we work to establish Strengthening Families as an evidence-based practice with concrete, measurable ties to child abuse and neglect prevention.
Idaho’s Strengthening Families curriculum is also gaining national attention. In November, Idaho AEYC staff traveled to New Jersey to train 55 CCR&R trainers in the 17-hour curriculum. The training was well-received and has been recommended to the national network of states participating in Strengthening Families. Here is a comment from New Jersey:
[Trainers] are going nuts over the [training] kits!! They simply love the comprehensiveness as well as the ease of using them. They are now a critical part of the SF effort here in NJ. One of our trainers suggested that the Idaho kit be a "gold standard" states try to achieve in order to really implement this work effectively.
Strengthening Families through Early Care and Education continues to attract the attention of foundations, policy makers, and national leaders, and we are proud to say that Idaho is well poised to continue its role as a leader in the field of child abuse and neglect prevention.
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