Home visiting, infant and toddler care, healthy development supports, and pre-K make up a continuum of early care and education that enables children to have a strong and safe start. These services can prevent maltreatment and stabilize families that are vulnerable by furthering a child’s healthy development, supporting parents’ ability to work and connecting families to critical resources and services.

Families with young children—both at risk of maltreatment and served by the child welfare system—stand to gain a lot from a strengthened and more accessible birth-to-five continuum of early childhood supports. All pregnant women need prenatal information, healthy child development must be nurtured, and families need economic resources. A community investment in early childhood provides a way to meet these needs that more stable families more easily secure and sets children on a path to that stability.

• Home Visiting Program Support Letter
• ESEA Reauthorization
• Child Care & Development Block Grants
• Head Start & Early Head Start
• Home Visitation 
• Early Learning Challenge Fund/Race to the Top 
• WIC-Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants, and Children 
• Healthy Start 
• Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Early Intervention Services Program
• Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program
• Maternal and Child Health Block Grant, Title V of the Social Security Act 
• Child & Dependent Care Tax Credit

• Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2013 (113^th Congress, S. 1086)
• Strong Start for America’s Children Act of 2013 (113^th Congress, H.R. 3461)

• Child Care

  • Testimony of Beverly Smith before the Senate Committee on Finance Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy Hearing on Child Care (4/22/98)
  • CWLA Testimony to Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources a hearing on Improving the Quality of Child Care (7/17/97)

• Home Visitation

  • Child Welfare League of America Comments on the Affordable Care Act Home Visiting Program Model Criteria for Evidence of Effectiveness(8/17/2010)
  • CWLA’s Testimony to the House Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support Hearing on Early Support for Families Act (6/9/09)
  • CWLA Testimony to the House Committee on Education and Labor for the Hearing on The Education Begins at Home Act (H.R. 2343) (6/11/08)
  • CWLA Testimony Submitted to the House Subcommittee on Education Reform, Committee on Education and the Workforce for the Hearing on Perspectives on Early Childhood Home Visitation Programs (9/27/06)