Connecting with Infant-Toddler Professionals to Advocate
for Young Children and Their Families

Infant-toddler professionals bring a lot to the table when we get involved in advocacy for very young children and their families. We bring expertise on child development, stories about the children and families we serve, and deep knowledge about what young children need to grow up healthy and ready to learn. But infant-toddler professionals are an incredibly diverse group, with many different skill sets, knowledge-bases, and backgrounds. We come from a variety of disciplines physical health, mental health, early intervention, and early care and education, to name a few and we all have a unique and valuable perspective to bring to the policymaking process. Reaching out to other professionals working with infants and toddlers is a powerful way to bring diverse perspectives together to create better policy for young children and their families.

This new advocacy tool explores why engaging other infant-toddler professionals in advocacy can be an effective strategy for policy change and provides practical tools and examples to aid ZERO TO THREE Policy Network members in their efforts to connect with other Big Voices for Little Kids. Read the advocacy tool now!

Federal Policy Update

Among the new federal initiatives in both the President’s and the Congress’s FY 2010 budgets is a new early childhood home visitation program. The House Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support held a hearing June 9 to discuss proposals to provide federal funding for such a program. Committee Members and witnesses placed high priority on funding evidence-based home visitation models. On June 2, Representative Jim McDermott (D-7th WA) along with cosponsors Representatives Danny Davis (D-7th IL) and Todd Platts (R-19th PA) introduced home visitation legislation. The Early Support for Families Act
(H.R. 2667) would authorize $100,000,000 in mandatory funding in FY2010 (increasing to $700,000,000 in FY2014) for grants to states to establish or expand voluntary home visitation programs with the goals of reducing child maltreatment as well as improving children’s health and school readiness for families with young children and families expecting children.

In other news, on June 4, the House passed the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2009 (H.R. 626), which grants federal employees four weeks of paid parental leave to care for newborns, newly adopted and foster children. Previously, the entire 12 weeks of family leave granted to federal employees were unpaid, making it difficult for many families to take the time necessary to be with their new families. This legislation is a significant recognition of the importance of building secure and healthy attachments during the earliest days and weeks of a child’s life. In a statement of Administration policy, the Obama Administration said it supported the goals of the bill and was currently reviewing existing federal leave policies to determine the effect of their gaps and limitations. The legislation now makes it way through the Senate for consideration.

State Policy Update
Oregon Uses Stimulus Dollars to Promote Professional Development

On May 11, public and private partners in Oregon launched a new statewide initiative, the Education and Quality Investment Partnership (EQUIP), to improve the quality of the state's early childhood workforce. EQUIP uses $2.9 million in federal Child Care and Development Block Grant stimulus funds and $200,000 from the Oregon Community Foundation to create incentives for early care and education professionals to attain higher levels of education and training. The program provides education awards that are tied to the Oregon Registry, a voluntary, statewide program that documents the professional achievements of the early care and education workforce.

Members of the partnership come from the public and private sectors and include the Oregon Community Foundation, the Children's Institute, the Oregon Commission for Child Care, the Oregon Child Care Division, the Oregon Child Care Resource and Referral Network, and the Oregon Center for Career Development in Childhood Care and Education at Portland State University. EQUIP is the result of the partnership's strategic early planning and collaboration that enabled Oregon's child care administrators to quickly make use of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Acts funds when they were made available earlier this year.

Click here to read the full state policy update and learn more about Oregon's stimulus strategy!

ZERO TO THREE Policy Network on Facebook is 1,000 Strong!

Celebrating success in advocacy work is key to staying energized and active. Thanks to your commitment to infants, toddlers, and their families, the ZERO TO THREE Policy Network Facebook page recently reached the 1,000 membership mark and it's time to celebrate!

To commemorate the growing strength of our Facebook community, we invite you to share a success story from your daily work with young children and their families. Did your program/agency find a way to protect against budget cuts? Did you complete a training or certification program that informed your work with babies and toddlers? Did you share information about the importance of early childhood development with any influential people in your state or community? No success is too small to celebrate, so take a minute to let others in our Facebook community know how you have been a big voice for little kids! To share your success, go to the ZERO TO THREE Policy Network Facebook page and post a message on our "Wall".

Publications & Resources

Save the Date: ZERO TO THREE's 2009 National Training Institute
Mark your calendar and make plans to join over 1,700 infant and family professionals at ZERO TO THREE's National Training Institute, to be held December 4-6, 2009 in Dallas, Texas. Hot topics include cutting edge research on brain development, challenging behaviors in infants and toddlers, and the future of early childhood under the Obama Administration. To learn more about the conference, please visit, http://capwiz.com/zerotothree/utr/0/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zttnticonference.org%2F.

Infant Cognitive Development Associated with Father Involvement
According to a new Child Trends study, Involvement Among Resident Fathers and Links to Infant Cognitive Outcomes, father involvement in a range of activities is positively associated with infant cognitive development. Additionally, the study reveals that father involvement has a greater likelihood of benefiting male infants and infants with a disability by reducing cognitive delay. Overall, the findings show the importance of fathers' roles in early infant outcomes.

New Position Statement on Early Childhood Inclusion
Early Childhood Inclusion: A Joint Position Statement of the Division for Early Childhood and the National Association for the Education of Young Children is a newly approved document which offers a shared national definition of inclusion, developed through a collaborative process coordinated by the National Professional Development Center on Inclusion (NPDCI). This document also provides recommendations for using the statement to improve early childhood services for all young children.

Early Childhood Policy Lessons from Abroad
A new Commonwealth Fund report, An International Comparison of Early Childhood Initiatives: From Services to Systems, shows that the U.S. is not alone in the struggle to create effective early childhood policy. The report examines other countries' efforts to develop policy with enduring gains for young children, as well as implications for early childhood policy in the U.S. The report also suggests that approaches which align strategies across multiple levels of government and that integrate health, education, and family support services are proving to be the most successful.