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| Family Economic Security | Early Care & Education | Health | Community Outreach | KIDS COUNT About Us | Support Us | Membership | Donate | Publications | Links | Site Map | Home |
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Early Care: Legislative Collaborative | |
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Early Care Home |
Facts About Early Care in Connecticut |
CONNECTICUT is READY… Nearly every parent is working and in need of reliable Early Care in order to be reliable employees. Employee attendance, work accomplishment and loyalty are all related to the ability to find and pay for care for their children during work hours. In a survey of 900 employees in the Metro-Hartford area, 54% identified Early Care as a primary cause of problems balancing work and family responsibilities; 44% report Early Care to be the personal responsibility most likely to affect job performance. In Connecticut, we are currently undertaking a study of the economic impact of Early Care to objectively evaluate how Early Care directly affects the bottom line for businesses, individuals, and the government. CONNECTICUT is SET… Children need quality early experiences in order to be ready for school. A high quality early care and education experience impacts on children’s early thinking ability and language development, on children’s self concepts and ability to navigate in a social world, on children’s physical and emotional health, and on their values. Recent brain research argues that we must begin to pay attention to children’s development in the first three critical years of life, stressing the importance of a quality Early Care environment even before preschool. In 1997, Connecticut made a strong commitment to support early school success with its School Readiness Initiative. Study upon study has demonstrated that this has been a wise investment towards closing the State’s education gaps. NOW is the time to GROW! Quality Early Care is an investment in the workforce of the future. The research is clear: the quality of a child’s early care and education experiences has implications for state education systems, welfare reform, workforce and economic development, and crime prevention. In our economy, human creativity and skill are increasingly more important than raw materials or physical infrastructure; investing wisely in our children, early, is an investment in these human resources. The better the early care and education experience, the lower the social costs that accrue later and the greater the resulting economic productivity. The earliest opportunity to build “human capital” involves investments in the development of our children. Even in the context of the current budget crisis, Connecticut has strong economic capacity – among the highest per capita income and family income in the nation. With some smart planning and wise investing, we can reach the goal that every child reach the schoolhouse door ready for success. The Legislative Collaborative for Early Care and Education download is available. For more information contact: |
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