Sharing Web Resources

Continuing my journey through the Child Care Aware America® website I found they are connected to many public policy and advocacy groups through links and posted resources.  They are either to support parents in selecting quality child care or to support providers of early childhood in the improvement of their quality.  Additionally, they provide a plethora of resources and links to provide support for an early childhood advocate.  The exploration of this website has provided me so much information and for an early childhood education public policy junkie it seems as if I have hit the mother load.  Before this class I primarily used NAEYC and National Women's Law Center so this has been very enlightening.

The section of the website that I explored this week was the Parent section.  One of the resources that I found very interesting was the "Family Decision Making Tool" to be used when deciding whether or not to return to work.  This tool provides some insight into all the different things that must be considered when making this decision.  I thought this was a great resource for family planning on having children.  They provide a plethora of resource for parents about how to select quality child care and also where and how to find quality programs.  They provide a very detailed and comprehensive resource section for parents.  They have teamed up with Parents magazine I think in a effort to ensure that parents are familiar that the resources they have are being utilized to the fullest.

I receive the newsletter "Capitol Connection" and the December 3 newsletter was about the need for increased funding and the direct link to this need with the continued battle about the fiscal cliff.  There was a link inside the newsletter that takes the reader to a NBCNews.com story about about rope-a-dope and that Speaker Boehner and House Majority Leader Cantor were discussing the fact that the proposal from the White House was not a serious offer.  The newsletter also provided information from both sides the Republican as well as the Democratic side on the fiscal cliff solution.  Both the newsletter as well as the links away from the newsletter shared that at this point in time we are not any closer to a solution and that cooperation is not being used to develop a solution.

The contents of newsletter is directly related to our coursework topic this week in that we have been talking about quality, affordability, and availability.  This website fully examines these three challenges from both the perspective of the provider, but also the parent.  The content of the website is very complimentary of the content of the course and very relevant.

The exploration of this website coupled with the information reviewed this week solidifies for me that idea that early childhood is a very political issue and when the country is in fiscal crisis early childhood is also in fiscal crisis.  This proves the need for more strong early childhood advocate working at all levels, local, state and federal because our children's lives and the quality of their lives depend on us.