Research confirms that the quality of the early care and education children receive is dependent on:

• program quality;
• the training, education, and credentials of their teachers; and
• consistency in providers.

Program Quality

High-quality early care and education programs offer children learning opportunities in a safe and nurturing environment and loving, stable relationships with caring adults. To this end, Kids Are Priority One recommends that Vermont:

• Expand the existing quality incentive bonus to an annual payment for all early care and education programs that have attained national accreditation or state recognition ($80,000 estimated cost).
• Work incrementally toward linking all government funding for early care and education services to accepted measures of program quality.

Professional Development

Specialized training for early childhood educators contributes significantly to high-quality early care and education. To support professional development, the Kids Are Priority One recommends that Vermont:

• Expand course work offered under the Northern Lights Career Development Center for people working with young children in early care and education settings ($200,000 estimated cost).
• Expand the existing quality incentive bonus to an annual payment for all early childhood educators who have attained a credential or degree ($220,000 estimated cost).
• Establish a Vermont loan forgiveness program for early childhood or school-age program educators who complete a degree or obtain early childhood or early childhood special education licensure and commit to staying in their job for a certain amount of time.

Increased financial compensation and benefits contribute to retention of a high- quality early childhood and school-age care workforce. However, high staff turnover among early childhood educators, which is directly tied to low wages and lack of benefits, remains a problem in Vermont. To improve services to children by promoting consistency in caregivers, Kids Are Priority One recommends that Vermont increase access to affordable health insurance for providers of early childhood services.

#2:Make Early Care and Education More Affordable

Kids Are Priority One supports using a variety of funding strategies to help Vermont's families pay for early care and education services and to ensure the financial stability of the state's early care and education services. Providing child care assistance to low- and moderate-income families and using public education dollars to help fund early care and education are two effective funding strategies.

Child Care Assistance

Vermont's economy depends heavily on lower-wage, service-sector jobs. Child care assistance helps parents working in low-wage jobs to pay for child care. This strengthens Vermont's economy by helping families enter and remain in the workforce and be economically independent. Experience shows that child care assistance through the state's Child Care Subsidy Program is an effective means of supporting working families and their employers.

However, subsidy rates have not kept pace with actual child care fees charged, and income eligibility guidelines lag behind federal poverty guidelines. This limits parents' choices and results in cost-shifting to early care and education programs, which then absorb the difference between subsidy payments and actual fees charged. Kids Are Priority One supports legislation that:

• Annually adjusts eligibility for the Child Care Subsidy Program to reflect federal poverty guidelines and cost-of-living increases ($3.3 million estimated cost).
• Annually adjusts Vermont's child care subsidy rate and sliding fee scale so that subsidy rates are comparable to fees charged by early care and education programs ($2.5 million estimated cost).

Kids Are Priority One supports using public education funds to expand access-on a voluntary basis-to high-quality early care and education programs in schools and community settings.

Kids Are Priority One recommends:

• Combining public education funds with those from other state sources and federal monies to maximize the resources available for early care and education services.
• Integrating new early education initiatives with the existing early care and education infrastructure to improve the availability, quality and affordability of early care and education.
• Encouraging and facilitating collaboration between public school districts and private early care and education providers (licensed centers and registered family child care homes), including providing resources for a community planning and needs assessment process and allowing school districts flexibility to contract with qualified family-based providers.
• Permitting school districts to establish agreements with other school districts and/or community-based early care and education programs if parents need to use services outside the school .
• Addressing the issue of delayed payment to school districts for early care and education programs that receive public education funding.

#3: Expand Access to Early Care, Health and Education

In addition to the cost barriers addressed in the previous section, certain groups of young children in Vermont have greater difficulty accessing early care, health, and education services. In particular, children with special health, mental health, or education needs; infants; and young children in families without access to adequate private health insurance rely on government support of programs and services in order for those services to be available. Without governmental programs, supports, or subsidies, many of these children would have little access to basic early care, health, and education services.

Kids Are Priority One recommends that, at a minimum, existing eligibility requirements and services be maintained for these populations. In addition, Kids Are Priority One recommends some areas of additional support to ensure access to early care, health, and education services for all Vermont children.

Infant and Toddler Care

The state's regulated early care and education system (licensed and registered child care programs) can only meet approximately 65% of estimated need. That figure is much lower for infants and toddlers, for whom regulated care is even harder to find. In addition to supporting paid family leave (see last item on this policy agenda) Kids Are Priority One advocates for:

• Funding to support 120 additional infant/toddlers slots in child care programs statewide ($420,000).
• Funding for an Infant/Toddler specialist in or under contract to the Child Development Division to assist in the administration of the program, assure best practice, and provide professional development to child care programs in the provision of infant and toddler care ($65,000).

Early Intervention Services for Young Children with Special Needs

There are approximately 22,000 children under age 18 in Vermont with a special need. Early intervention and support services have been shown to dramatically reduce future special education needs, substance abuse, school drop-out rates, and entry into the juvenile justice or adult corrections systems.

The Kids Are Priority One supports continued funding to sustain current levels of early intervention service, regardless of funding stream or the way programs are currently structured. This includes services like Children's Upstream Services (CUPS), the Family, Infant and Toddler Program, and Healthy Babies, Kids and Families.

In addition, Kids Are Priority One supports a more comprehensive and better coordinated approach to providing early intervention services. Young children should not experience a significant gap in services depending on whether they are age two or three or six, or if a child moves to a different program or geographic area. In addition, flexible and differing approaches are needed to address the varying challenges children face.

Kids are Priority One also recommends a $600,000 appropriation to fill gaps in funding for federally mandated and other needed early intervention services including:

• $300,000 for the Family, Infant and Toddler Program (Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) to pay for evaluations for young children who are victims of child abuse as mandated by the federal government in 2003.
• $300,000 state appropriation to provide program enhancement for full inclusion of children with special needs in integrated child care settings, including clinical supervision of staff, training, individual assistants, and specialized equipment.

Ensure Access to Children's Health Care

Recent large premium increases and billing changes in Dr. Dynasaur-Vermont's state health insurance program for lower-income children-required many families to pay significantly more for their children's health care. This resulted in families dropping out without availability of private medical insurance coverage in Dr. Dynasaur's place. Current budget proposals to apply premiums to low income families and further increase premiums for others will force many more families to drop out of the program without other coverage. Kids Are Priority One is calling on legislators to reject any proposed increase to Dr. Dynasaur premiums, and to closely monitor the impact of past changes in the program, to ensure that children do not lose access to health care.

In addition, Vermont families report a shortage of children's mental health services, including respite and respite providers, emergency psychiatric care and services, and in-home supports. Kids Are Priority One requests that legislators survey the availability of children's mental health services in order to ensure access to appropriate mental health care.

#4: Create a Unified, Coordinated Early Childhood System

Kids Are Priority One is committed to increasing access to high- quality early childhood services for all Vermont's young children. Building a unified, coordinated early childhood system through Building Bright Futures: Vermont Alliance for Children is an effective way to accomplish this. The Early Childhood System Plan, which outlines how Building Bright Futures: Vermont Alliance for Children will work, has grown out of a vital partnership among state government, community organizations, and businesses. Kids Are Priority One supports legislation that would create a unified, coordinated early childhood system with the resources and capacity to support this vision.

#5: Enact Paid Family Leave

Under current Vermont law, parents of a newborn or newly adopted child are entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Kids Are Priority One supports the enactment of paid family leave in Vermont-an effective way of supporting families while they care for a loved one, including after the birth or adoption of a child. Paid family leave would also help to address the statewide shortage of infant child care slots.