Skip to Content

In Case You Missed It

What They’re Saying: Child Care Stakeholders Support Bipartisan Bill to Help Working Families

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 15, 2014

Child care and community leaders are voicing support for the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act, a bipartisan, bicameral bill to help low-income families access child care while a parent pursues an education or job-training.

“This bill will provide important reforms that will directly address quality improvement, affordability, continuity of care, and cost stabilization measures that will benefit families and support providers.” – New Horizon Academy

“This bill sets the standard all families expect for their children by requiring providers to undergo comprehensive background checks, annual and pre-licensure inspections, and training... [and] includes significant measures to improve the quality of child care and ensure that all children in child care settings are safe.”– Child Care Aware of America

“Your substitute amendment retains that critical provision and even adds language in various sections that supports the availability of a variety of approaches to childhood development.” – Council for American Private Education

“CCDBG ensure[s] parents continue to have the capacity to choose from a broad diversity of delivery models – including faith-based models – in early education.” – Association of Christian Schools International

"The Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Program helps low-income working families and parents transitioning from welfare to work find safe, supportive, caring environments for their children.” – National Education Association

“CCDBG serves as essential support to working families who need to ensure their children are cared for and learning in a safe and high-quality setting during parents’ hours of employment, which often exceed the regular school day.” – Early Care and Education Consortium

“[CCDBG reauthorization] will greatly support the child care industry as a whole, especially private providers, and will allow families to fully explore a mixed-delivery system and seek out the best child care center for their children.” – National Child Care Association

“Working families with young children depend on child care so that they can obtain and retain a job … The Child Care and Development Block Grant Reauthorization Act will combine important safety protections for children in child care with more accountability for the expenditure of public dollars.” – First Children’s Finance

“The quality improvements in the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014 will work to ensure that more children of low-income working families have access to a high-quality early care and learning experience that best meets their needs.” – Knowledge Universe

“The CCDBG Reauthorization Act is truly historic.” – Early Learning Policy Group

“We support the proposed CCDBG improvements focused on safety, health, and quality.” – Save The Children

“Child care assistance is an essential work-support for low income parents … [CCDBG] is unique among federal programs in that its two-generational focus has the ability to support both parents’ economic success and children’s healthy development.” – Center for Law and Social Policy

“The members of Congress, in this agreement, strengthen a program that was worked well over the last two decades and continues to provide low-income working families with the child care assistance they need, from the provider they choose.” – United States Council of Catholic Bishops and National Catholic Education Association

“The bicameral, bipartisanChild Care and Development Block Grant Reauthorization Act will combine important safety protections for children in child care with more accountability for the expenditure of public dollars."  – Child Care Aware of Virginia

"Working families with young children need child care, and children need a place to be safe and a setting that promotes their healthy development. Thank you for your efforts on behalf of working families.” – Child Care Resources

"The law was last reauthorized in 1996, and given the amount of research, particularly in the area of brain science, that has been conducted since, [the First Five Years Fund] appreciates that S. 1086 emphasizes quality, continuity of care, and stability of care arrangements that frees parents to work and supports child development."  – First Five Years Fund

“We are pleased to see more attention to the quality of children’s experiences and ways to help providers meet and sustain standards for health, safety, and children’s learning.” –National Association for the Education of Young Children

“We support the proposed CCDBG improvements focused on the safety, health, and quality of child care in the U.S.” – National Coalition on Children and Disasters

“The proposed bill puts a much larger focus on quality – supporting efforts to increase the quality of care and to communicate quality information to parents in ways that are both transparent and easy to access.” – Minnesota’s Future

"We must prioritize the development and care of our youngest citizens now. We support S.1086 and its enhanced quality requirements as an investment in our future military preparedness" - Mission: Readiness

Nemours enthusiastically supports S. 1086, as we believe it will create a solid foundation to increase access to and improve the quality of child care for families and children benefitting from the CCDBG program." –Nemours

"Quality child care is critical for working families. However, parents can't have choices among quality settings unless children are safe and the child care workforce has the training they need to promote quality care. Thank you for supporting working families and for working to strengthen the quality of child care.” – OCCRRA

"Your efforts will have a positive impact on a program critical not only to working parents but to the 6 million infants and toddlers who currently spend some portion of their days in child care." – Zero to Three

# # #

Stay Connected