CHILDCARE

Childcare Programs



Childhood Programs

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to enlighten and explore different programs that aim at the betterments of children. The paper will discuss different perspectives of the child care programs including the early education of the children along with the policies and regulations issued by the federal government to improve the effectiveness of the programs aimed at child care. This paper also explores the assessment of diverse childcare programs; in addition, the paper enlightens different approaches used by the regulating authorities of these programs in order to guide children. The paper would discuss various issues regarding the concerns of multi-culturism and discuss the concept of children with special needs along with the role of their families to improve the efficiency of the childcare programs and prosperity of the children with special needs.

Head Start Program

Head Start is a national early childhood comprehensive program that is comprised of Head Start and Early Head Start. It serves primarily at-risk children and their families and provides a range of education, health, mental health, nutrition, disabilities, as well as family and community support services and programs. The services are free to children and the families whose income is at or below the federal poverty level. Unlike day care, Head Start programs must comply with national program performance standards and are monitored to ensure that they are meeting those performance standards (Administration for Children and Families. Because of the holistic approach required in Head Start programs (e.g., parental involvement and education, focus on children's physical, oral, and mental health and education), findings from this study may not generalize to other early care and education settings.

Childcare

The past few decades have seen the rise in the number of young children in need of non parental childcare. Much of this has been driven by changes in the world economy, which has resulted in an increasing number of women of working age employed outside the home. Many families find themselves seeking non parental care, and most children are cared for in private, unregulated care situations. When regulated early childhood education and care is available, most children benefit (Center on Education Policy, 2008). Studies show that local and national economies also benefit from high-quality education and care. At the same time, some have found that non parental infant care, if begun too early and for too long, comes with some increased risks to psychosocial development. For all other children, including and especially children from disadvantaged families, high-quality childhood programming has been found to support children's social, emotional, and intellectual development. High quality is largely determined as having well-trained and well-paid early childhood education and care professionals. However, most early childhood education and care work continues to be underpaid and undervalued (Clewell, Cohen, Murray, 2008).

Federal Government

Studies of early childhood education and care in a number of countries uncover a strong relationship between quality early childhood programs and improved school performance. High-quality, early childhood programs support children's social, emotional, and intellectual ...