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Family Child Care Systems
A Model For Expanding Community Services
CWLA's National Child Care and Development Advisory Committee has been working with CWLA members over the past several years to develop and expand family child care systems. CWLA sees the development of a family child care system as an alternative to center-based care to help agencies build and expand the child care capacity in their communities. For family child care providers, systems also offer them an alternative and an opportunity to be part of a program that ends isolation and gives them support. Some 50 CWLA members now operate systems or are involved in family child care networks.
The CWLA Advisory Committee has been developing written materials concerning the development of family child care systems and is involved with the U.S. Child Care Bureau in exploring the issue relating to the employment status of family child care providers in systems. Read a brief overview of family child care systems. As part of this initiative, CWLA received a multiyear grant from the Surdna Foundation to develop a national policy report on the development and expansion of family child care systems and networks. The grant also included funds to support advocacy work in several states.
Family Child Care Systems/Networks: A Model for Expanding Community Resources is a policy report designed to be used to develop and to promote the development of family child care networks and systems. (File is 2MB; download time will be longer with dial-up Internet service. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view this document.) CWLA engaged several consultants and experts to write the report. The objective is to give child care providers, policymakers, advocates, and program administrators, and other stakeholders. with information to better understand how networks are structured, how they are perceived in the community, and how they are an important component of a comprehensive early care and education delivery system.
As part of the initiative to promote the development and expansion of family child care systems and networks in several states, funds were used to develop a series of issue briefs.
Three policy issue briefs were developed by Associated Early Care and Education of Boston to be used in its effort to advocate for the development, expansion, and improvement of family child care systems in that state:
Recognizing that family child care providers are perhaps the most underrepresented segment of providers in the New Jersey child care network, the New Jersey Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies partnered with CWLA to examine the state of family child care in New Jersey. The study looked at the diverse services provided by the state's child care resource and referral agencies to support and enhance the availability and quality of registered family child care, as well as what other states are doing to involve family child care providers in their pre-kindergarten programs. Their report, The State of Family Child Care in New Jersey, (PDF File; Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.) provides the results from the surveys conducted in New Jersey.
Public Policy and Advocacy
To learn more about CWLA's current federal legislative agenda, CWLA Kids Advocate Online, policy and legislative alerts and updates, and information on Head Start and child care and development legislation, visit the CWLA Advocacy page.
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