Abridged Version
Starting Points
Meeting the Needs of Our Youngest Children

Recommendations and Call to Action

he quiet crisis of families with children under age three requires immediate and far-reaching action. Persuaded that strong families and communities are essential to the healthy development of our youngest children, the task force calls for action in four key areas. These four areas constitute vital starting points for both children and their families.

Promote Responsible Parenthood

Our nation must foster both personal and societal responsibility for having and raising children. To enable women and men to plan and act responsibly, the task force recommends

Expanding education about parenthood in families, schools, and communities, beginning in the elementary school years but no later than early adolescence

Providing comprehensive family planning, pre-conception, prenatal, and postpartum services and support as part of a minimum health care reform package

Delaying adolescent pregnancy through the provision of services, counseling, support and age-appropriate life options

Ensuring that all couples, when considering the possibility of having children, assess their age, health, and resources in order to avoid unnecessary risks and to provide a healthy environment for raising a child

Directing state and local funds to initiate and expand community-based parent education and support programs for families with infants and toddlers

Guarantee Quality Child Care Choices

For healthy development, infants and toddlers need a continuing relationship with a few caring people in safe and predictable settings. To guarantee good child care choices in children's homes and child care settings, the task force recommends

Strengthening the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 by expanding coverage to include employers with fewer than fifty employees, extending the twelve-week leave to four to six months, and providing partial wage replacement

Adopting family-friendly workplace policies such as flexible work schedules and assistance with child care

Channeling substantial new federal funds into child care to ensure quality and affordability for families with children under three and making the Dependent Care Tax Credit refundable for low- and moderate-income families

Providing greater federal incentives to states to adopt and monitor child care standards of quality

Developing community-based networks linking all child care programs and providers offering parents a variety of child care settings

Allocating federal and state funds to provide training opportunities so that all child care providers have a grounding in the care and development of children under three

Improving salary and benefits for child care providers

Ensure Good Health and Protection

When young children are healthy, they are more likely to succeed in school and in time form a more productive workforce and become better parents. Being healthy means young children are able to grow up in safe homes and neighborhoods. To ensure good health and protection, the task force recommends

Making comprehensive primary and preventive care services, including immunizations, available to infants and toddlers as part of a minimum benefits package in health care reform

Offering home visiting services to all first-time parents with a newborn and providing comprehensive home visiting services by trained professionals to all families who are at risk for poor maternal and child health outcomes

Expanding the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) nutritional supplementation program to serve all eligible women and children

Making the reduction of unintentional injuries to infants and toddlers a national priority

Expanding proven parent education, support, and counseling programs to teach parents nonviolent conflict resolution in order to prevent child abuse and neglect, and implementing community-based programs to help families and children cope with the effects of living in unsafe and violent communities

Enacting stringent national, state, and local laws to control possession of guns

Mobilize Communities to Support Young Children and Their Families

Broad-based community supports and services are necessary to ensure that every family with a child under three is linked to a source of comprehensive health care, quality child care, and parenting support. To mobilize communities to support young children and their families, the task force recommends

Focusing the attention of every community in America on the needs of children under three and their families, by initiating a community-based strategic planning process

Experimenting broadly with the creation of family-centered communities through two promising approaches: creating family and child centers to provide services and supports for all families; and expanding and adapting the Head Start model to meet the needs of low-income families with infants and toddlers

Creating a high-level federal group, directed by the President to coordinate federal agency support on behalf of young children and to remove the obstacles faced by states and communities in their attempts to provide more effective services and supports to families with young children

Funding family-centered programs through the Community Enterprise Board in order to strengthen families with infants and toddlers

Establishing mechanisms, at the state level, to adopt comprehensive policy and program plans that focus on the period from before birth through the first three years of a child's life

A Call to Action

We ask the President to direct a high-level federal group to review the findings of this report, and to ensure the adequacy, coherence, and coordination of federal programs for families with young children. We urge him to introduce legislation to strengthen the Family and Medical Leave Act, to include pregnant women and young children in health care reform, and to channel new money into quality child care for families with children under three.

We call upon Congress to enact legislation that focuses resources more sharply on the needs of children under age three and their families. We urge Congress to enact legislation that strengthens the Family and Medical Leave Act and that provides increased resources for quality child care and parent education and support. Congress should ensure that pregnant women and all children under three are the first to be included in health care reform.

In the spirit of "reinventing government," we urge federal agencies to identify and remove the obstacles that states and communities encounter as they implement federally funded programs or test innovative solutions.

We call upon states to convene or form child and family councils to review this report and consider its implications for children under age three in each state and its communities. We urge every state to review its legislative and regulatory framework, particularly standards in child care, with a view toward raising the quality of existing services and creating incentives for local innovation.

We call upon community leaders to assess the adequacy of existing services for families with young children (especially those with multiple risks), to recommend specific steps to improve and coordinate services, and to introduce mechanisms for monitoring results. We ask them to create or strengthen existing neighborhood family and child centers in order to meet the needs of families with young children. We urge community leaders to work toward creating communities that are safe and healthy for young children and their families.

We call upon the private and philanthropic sectors, including foundations, to pay more attention to families with children under three, and to expand their support of initiatives that give our youngest children a decent start in life. We urge community foundations to support local efforts to direct attention and resources to meet the needs of children under three.

We urge educators, working with other community agencies, to incorporate services to children under age three in their plans for the schools of the twenty-first century. We urge a substantial expansion of efforts to educate young people about parenthood. We ask educators in secondary schools and community colleges to provide more training and technical assistance to child care providers.

We call upon health care decision makers to include, in any plan for national health care reform, family planning services, comprehensive prenatal care for expectant mothers and universal primary and preventive care for young children. We ask them to give serious consideration to a specific standard of coverage and service for young children.

We urge service providers in child care, health, and social services to take a family-centered approach to meeting the needs of young children and the adults who care for them. We ask them to offer staff, parents, and other caregivers opportunities to learn more about the needs of families with young children, about child development, and about promoting children's health and safety.

We call upon business leaders to support policies that result in family-friendly workplaces, in particular strengthening the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, introducing flexible work schedules, and providing assistance with child care. We ask corporate leaders who are on the cutting edge of these policy innovations to help businesses of every size to adopt family-friendly policies. We ask them to participate in local efforts to promote family-centered communities.

We call upon the media to deliver strong messages about responsible motherhood and fatherhood and to portray family life in ways that further society's understanding of the importance of the first three years. We urge them to expand coverage of the quiet crisis and of the requirements for healthy development in these early years. We urge the media to publicize information about preventing injuries--the leading cause of death and disability of children under age four.

Perhaps most important, we call upon mothers and fathers to do everything in their power to secure the knowledge and resources they need to plan and raise children responsibly. When these resources are not available, we urge them to make their needs known to government representatives, community leaders, and service providers. We urge parents to participate in community child and family councils.

All Americans must work together, in their homes, workplaces, and communities, to ensure that children under the age of three--our most vulnerable citizens--are given the care and protection they need and deserve. Nothing less than the well-being of our society and its vital institutions is at stake.