- Alameda County Early Care & Education Planning Council
- Helpful Links to Organizations
-
Links
Annie E. Casey Foundation - The Annie E. Casey Foundation has for almost 60 years advocated for the needs of today's disadvantaged and vulnerable families and children in the creation and reform of public policies in the areas of education, health, housing, employment opportunities, and community building. The Casey Foundation awards grants and assistance to community organizations, policy reform projects, and public awareness initiatives as well as sponsoring the KIDS COUNT project, which tracks the well-being of children at both state-by-state and national levels; data from KIDS COUNT may be found at this website, along with a variety of other publications and information.Children's Defense Fund - The Children's Defense Fund (CDF) acts as an advocate for children across the nation, especially those coming from low-income and minority backgrounds, and those with special needs. CDF focuses on educating the public with a comprehensive view of the issues facing children's well-being, including health and health care, education and development, as well as family income and job opportunities; a range of publications and research data on these issues may be accessed from this website. A non-profit, non-governmental organization, CDF also sponsors programs organizing and encouraging citizens' participation and action in advocating children's issues both in their communities and with their local and federal representatives.
Center for the Child Care Workforce - The Center for the Child Care Workforce is dedicated to improving the quality of early care and education for all children through advocating for the child care workforce. The Center works at both the state and national level for quality education and compensation for the workforce of child care providers through programs and initiatives that promote a worthy wage and wage incentives, health care benefits, increasing retention rates, and ensuring a structure of opportunities for training and professional development for child care providers.
Children Now - Children Now focuses on advocating children's issues and needs as the main public policy at both national and state levels. Based in Oakland, they have campaigns and projects currently underway in a variety of areas from health care and education concerns to the media's role in children's lives and supporting parents' efforts to talk with their children about important issues. Children Now also publishes an annual Report Card, a comprehensive collection of data describing the state of California's children, as well as numerous other research publications featuring children's issues.
National Center for Children in Poverty - The National Center for Children in Poverty, at Columbia University in New York, strives to identify and advocate strategies for combating and ultimately preventing child poverty in the United States, as well as strategies for improving the lives of low-income families and their children. The Center's website includes articles and reports, fact sheets, demographic data, as well as policy profiles for all fifty states in addition to descriptions of federal policies.
Family Initiative - The Family Initiative, a program sponsored by the women's rights organization Legal Momentum, focuses on the importance of publicly funded quality child care available for every family that wants it. To this end, the Family Initiative supports political action and legislation at both the state and national levels, provides information and publications on-line, as well as a state-by-state listing of organizations and ways to get involved locally.
Child Care Law Center - The Child Care Law Center provides legal resources and advocacy on a wide range of topics affecting child care, focusing their support particularly on families who face difficulties in obtaining quality care. The CCLC is devoted to increasing the supply, affordability, and quality of child care for all children in all communities. Support services include a legal service hotline, educational publications, and training sessions on a wide range of topics.
Career Development
Center for Career Development in Early Care and Education - A part of Wheelock College in Boston, Massachusetts, the Center for Career Development in Early Care and Education is a resource for further development of one's career in early care and education. They provide information on licensing and degrees, as well as links to websites for educational job searches.
Children and Families First Commissions
Alameda County - Funded by a surtax on tobacco products in California (through Proposition 10), the Children and Families First Commissions are committed to providing a community-based system of care and services aimed at supporting and increasing the health and well-being of young children in the county and their families. In Alameda County, this commission - known as Every Child Counts - provides a wide range of support, resource, funding, and training services to children, parents, child care providers, educators, and the community as a whole.
Economic Development
Alliance on Early Childhood Finance - The Alliance for Early Childhood Finance works with early care and education policy activists and advocates to improve the financing of the country's system of early care and education. The Alliance produces early care and education issue briefs as well as publishing a range of reports, presentation materials, and other resources.
Government
California Department of Education's Child Development Division -California Child Development Policy Advisory Committee - The Child Development Division of the California Department of Education supports numerous child development programs across the state, including child care and development programs for the general population as well as migrant children, children on college campuses, and children with disabilities. The CDD also supports state preschools (part- and full-day programs), Latchkey programs, Alternative Payment (AP) child care, CalWORKs child care, resource and referral agencies, quality improvement plan activities, and local child care and development planning councils.
National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education - The National Institute on Early Childhood Development and Education is a part of the U.S. Department of Education dedicated to research on and improvement of early childhood development and education. The Institute provides a number of research grants and serves as a resource for all those interested in early childhood development and education, coordinating activities such as workshops and conferences, and distributing research materials and publications.
Early Intervention
Child Care Health Program - The California Childcare Health Program, affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing, Department of Family Health Care Nursing, is dedicated to improving the collaboration between the health, safety, and early care and education communities. The CCHP staffs a Child Care Healthline, as well as supports other programs that work toward improving the health and safety components of quality child care environments and programs.
Call It Early On - Early On Michigan is a program that coordinates early intervention programs and services for families with young children who have special needs. At no cost to families, the program provides evaluation and coordination of an Individual Family Service Plan, outlining the services and needs of each family from a range of services including assessment, health services, therapy, counseling, and training. The Early On website provides information on this program as well as national resources in a variety of languages.
Research
Cost, Quality and Outcomes Study* - The Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study, conducted by the National Center for Early Development and Learning and the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, began following a cohort of 800 preschool children in 1993 to study the cost and quality of child care and preschool, and how these factors may play a part in the children's development and school readiness. The study found that children enrolled in high-quality child care and preschool programs scored higher on both cognitive and social readiness evaluations than their peers in low-quality programs. The report includes a discussion of the policy implications of these findings.
The Carolina Abecedarian Project - The Carolina Abecedarian Project studied the potential benefits of early education for low-income children; the children received high-quality child care through age five, and the study continued to monitor the children's progress at ages 12, 15, and 21. Like the Cost, Quality, and Outcomes Study, the Carolina Abecedarian Project found that the children who received high-quality care scored higher on cognitive test scores, and additionally found them to complete more years of education (including college), and have overall higher academic achievement than those who did not receive care. This study provides evidence that early childhood education has significant positive effects on the academic achievement and success of low-income children
Resource and Referral
California Child Care Resource and Referral Network - The first system of resource and referral agencies of its kind in the country, the California Child Care Resource and Referral Network links the R&R agencies from each county to maximize local child care knowledge as well as experience and knowledge of the state and federal child care policies. The Network provides planning tools and resources from the 61 R&R agencies in the state, helping providers, parents, and communities address child care issues. The Network sponsors programs such as the California Child Care Portfolio, the Child Care Initiative Project (recruiting, training, and retaining providers), the TrustLine Registry (background check for license-exempt providers), and Parent Voices, a parent leadership development program.
Hively - Hively is the Resource and Referral Agency serving the Tri-Valley area (Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin). As part of its mission as an R&R agency, Hively provides valuable resources and support to parents, providers, and employers as well as providing a link between families and government and community social service agencies. Hively provides subsidized child care services, referrals to licensed child care providers (free to families from the Tri-Valley area), provider and family education and support services, a child care health and nutrition program, toy and resource lending, and employer consultation for child care issues.
BANANAS - BANANAS is the Resource and Referral Agency for Northern Alameda County. Serving families and providers since 1973, BANANAS provides counseling, resources, and referrals to parents searching for child care, develops new and maintains current child care resources within the community, and offers educational opportunities and resources (in multiple languages) for parents and providers on a variety of early care and education topics through classes, newsletters, and publications.
Alameda County 4C's - The Community Child Care Coordinating Council (4C's) of Alameda County is the Resource and Referral Agency for Mid-Alameda County, serving the cities of Castro Valley, Fremont, Hayward, Newark, San Leandro, San Lorenzo, and Union City. Like the other Resource and Referral Agencies, 4C's provides free child care referrals to families in their service area, as well as a range of resources, support, training, and education to families and providers. 4C's also collects data on child care supply and demand in an effort to help maximize child care planning in the county.
Data
Kidsdata.org - Offers more than 250 indicators on the health and well being of children. The website has collected data on all 6 Bay Area Counties; which include San Mateo, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Marin and Alameda Counties. The website, launched in 2004, and is a project of the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health. The website was built and is maintained by the Information Program of the Palo Alto-based Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health. The goal of this program is to promote the health and well being of children by serving as a source of neutral, timely, evidence-based information.
