Addressing Educational and Safety Needs Through Direct Intervention

Unlike the previous proposals of scholars intending to improve the quality of services delivered in the child care sector, I would not recommend investing massive amounts of public money to develop subsidiary programs. At the present moment federal policies focus on three major issues.
Firstly, the major focus of federal programs is on the economic life of families intending to help low income families satisfy their needs of child care services. Secondly, only a few federal policies address the issues of safety and security of children. Thirdly, federal government views child care policies primarily as a way to promote employment of parents and pay no attention at the programs enhancing child development. As evident from the research findings, governmental subsidies to low income families proved to inefficient, as an increase in the amount of subsidies by 50 percent would be followed by only 2.9 per cent increase in the level of employment among women. As such, governmental policies that target this segment require extensive financing of public funds and do not lead to significant improvements. At the same time, the focus should be shifted to solutions that address the issues of safety of children and raise the level of confidence in health care services of working mothers.
There are several programs currently in force that stimulate child development or are directly related to the issue of single parenthood. Child support enforcement policies for single parent families (referred to as Title IV-D of the Social Security Act) allows single mothers and fathers receive financial support for child care services. Another program is called Even Start; it targets community organizations that stimulate literacy among children and parenting education. It should be further pointed out, that programs that promote child development have been introduced within only the last few years. The amount by which child development and support expenditures have been increased in 2000 as compared with 1998 – represents over 109 per cent. The focus of the programs remains on children of 4 years old and under.
As such, solution to the child care programs should continue on in the direction already undertaken; however several points should be particularly highlighted. Firstly, providing training to caregivers would significantly improve the quality of services delivered. Secondly, the impact of home visiting programs should be increased and strategic plan for infant initiatives worked out. Thirdly, the focus should be shifted to the earliest ages of child life, considering the growing interest of women in participation in the labor force. Finally, legislature that regulates quality of child care services provided and sets the standards that would increase the level of certainty in the services provided.