Local
Study: Lack of infant care threatens development
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
December 19, 2008
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The supply of center-based care for infants and toddlers is so small and prohibitively expensive that the option simply doesn’t exist for much of D.C.’s low-income population, according to “Infants & Toddlers in the District of Columbia: A Needs Assessment,” issued this week by the State Board of Education. The study was prepared by HyeSook Chung, an early care and education consultant hired by the board.
Where there is space, in one of 183 licensed home-based providers, there are few strategies and standards, no curriculum, nor any way to credential the caregiver. Yet the period from birth to 3 is “the most vulnerable and most important time in a child’s development,” Chung writes, with a “profound impact on brain development — the development of cognitive achievements, linguistic, social and emotional capacities.”
“We cannot afford to wait until kindergarten to ensure public investments reduce preparation gaps, to ensure children are entering school ready and prepared to learn,” the report concludes.
Seizing on the report’s conclusions, the state board on Wednesday approved 19 early learning standards for infants and toddlers that could be used by home-based caregivers to guide a child’s social, physical, cognitive and language development.
“To address the problems in our city and to help reduce the achievement gap, we have to start at the very beginning,” Ward 6 state board representative Lisa Raymond said Thursday. “That is the most crucial period.”
The 348 licensed child care centers in D.C. offer only 149 slots for infants, according to Chung’s research. Those same centers have space for only 3,893 children younger than age 2. The result: 6,453 children under 4 are on child care center waiting lists.
And when a slot becomes available, it is costly. The average annual fee paid for infant care in a licensed development center is $12,000, about $3,000 more than for preschool-age children. For a family earning the median income of $36,238, quality infant care can cost up to 57 percent of their annual salary.
Among its recommendations, the report suggests setting standards and goals for infant and toddler care, subsidizing families’ child care to the greatest extent possible and implementing a formalized infant-toddler credentialing process for caregivers.
