Zero to Three News

This week I explored ZERO TO THREE’s podcast series (for parents), Little Kids, Big Questions. The podcasts address some of the most common and challenging issues facing parents of babies and toddlers including: helping a baby learn to sleep through the night; dealing with a picky eater; and learning to set limits on children’s behavior. These questions and more are covered in a series of 12 podcasts, hosted by Ann Pleshette Murphy, a past contributor to ABC’s Good Morning America Parenting Segment and Vice President of the ZERO TO THREE Board of Directors.  Each podcast features an interview with an expert that focuses on how to apply the research of early childhood development to your daily interactions with your baby or toddler and additional resources on the topic. This is a wonderful resource to share with parents.

I did receive an enewsletter this week, Zero to Three: In the News. The newsletter contains highlights from new research, articles, and other recent news items of interest for professionals working with expectant parents and parents with infant and toddlers. The current issue contains the latest research related to breastfeeding, maternal infection during pregnancy, diagnosis and treatment of ADHD, and resources related to poverty in the United States and its impact on infants and toddlers. There is a brief from The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) called, Disparate Access: Head Start and CCDBG Data by Race and Ethnicity, that relates to this week’s learning about inequities in access in the newsletter. CLASP finds that access to child care subsidies and Head Start is sharply limited for all eligible children and even more so for particular racial and ethnic groups and in particular states. The report confirms low levels of access nationally to Head Start preschool, Early Head Start, and child care funded through the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), because of the large gap between current investment and need. It also finds distressingly low levels of access for particular groups of children. Most striking is the low level of access that eligible Hispanic or Latino children have to childcare subsidies, especially in some states including Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Tennessee. Less than half of eligible preschool-aged children participate in Head Start, less than one in six eligible children receive child care subsidies funded through the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), and fewer than 5 percent of eligible infants and toddlers participate in Early Head Start (EHS). The report offers early insights about the reasons for these disparities and notes that more analysis is needed to fully understand and fix them. “Stagnant federal funding and antiquated funding formulas for both child care and Head Start prevent states with growing or diversifying child populations from targeting new resources to underserved communities. State-level decision making in CCDBG may result in state policies that contribute to inequities in access,” said Stephanie Schmit, senior policy analyst at CLASP and co-author of the report.

This website contains a wealth of information regarding issues and trends related to infants and toddlers that collaborates and expands on the topics we have been studying. The information is very useful to parents and professionals in the field.

CLASP. (2016). Disparate Access: Head Start and CCDBG Data by Race and Ethnicity. Retrieved from –

http://www.clasp.org/issues/child-care-and-early-education/pages/disparate-access

Zero to Three: In the News. (2016). Retrieved from http://main.zerotothree.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=17904.0&dlv_id=49145