• Monitor the provision of high-quality child care
• Develop or adopt a certification process to gauge and improve the quality of child care providers and to ensure that poor-quality or dangerous programs are eliminated
• Assure the continuity of care for individual children, and minimize administrative burdens on parents and providers
• Help providers mobilize specialized help for individual children and families, including consultation for child care staff whose clients face special challenges, crises, or chronic difficulties
• Ensure that child care staff (including family child care providers) have access to training, technical assistance, decent wages and benefits, accreditation, and other resources
• Help businesses and child care providers (public and private) form partnerships or networks to improve the quality and affordability of child care
• Create links among services for child care, health care, mental health, substance abuse, developmental assessment, and child protection
• Ensure that all out-of-home caregivers, including parents, "kith and kin" caregivers, family child care providers, and child care professionals receive information, training, supervision, supportive services and technical assistance on caring for infants, toddlers, and young children (especially those with special needs)

The community has the capacity to advocate for:

	The goal of the Allegheny County Early Childhood Initiative (ECI), a program of United Way, is to create high-quality early education services in 80 targeted high-risk neighborhoods in and around Pittsburgh. ECI has attracted more than $36 million in funding since it began in 1996, including a HUD grant of $1 million to establish ECI in public housing. With the guidance of broadly based Neighborhood Coalitions, neighborhoods assess the status of young children, families, and early education resources and propose systems of high-quality early childhood services to replace the existing patchwork of services. Substantial time and energy has been devoted to linking and integrating funding sources and providers and to changing perspectives and practices. Policy work by ECI managers helps to develop cross-system agreements with state and locally funded services providers, including a uniform intake form for early education services. www.nccic.org/ccpartnerships/ profiles/allegheny.htm Despite a recent shortfall in the Illinois state budget, the Ounce of Prevention Fund and advocates from across the state secured a nearly $30 million expansion of the Early Childhood Block Grant, an historic increase that will serve more at-risk 3- and 4-year-olds as well as children younger than 3 and their families.www.ounceofprevention.org

• More child care funding from all sources, to levels and on terms that support high-quality care for all families (especially those whose children are at highest risk)
• Increasing the number and proportion of parents of young children, especially infants and toddlers, who are able to choose between paid parental leave and child care that is nurturing, trustworthy, and affordable
• Efforts by the appropriate state and community governance bodies to collaboratively (and continually) assess child care needs and expand child care capacity, including through infant/toddler centers and family child care settings
• Efforts by the appropriate jurisdictions to establish, monitor, and enforce basic quality standards and to help diverse types of child care providers meet quality standards, gain accreditation, and become licensed
• Coherent, well-coordinated plans for the appropriate governance body to help programs achieve high quality, by strengthening professional development, training, program accreditation, facility licensing, governance, and funding; include opportunities for providers to enhance their management skills.

Local coalitions foster a network of child care environments that all meet high-quality standards but differ in how they:

	The Haitian Health Institute, with support from Boston Medical Center, serves as facilitator and networking point for the Haitian Multi-Service Center of Dorchester, Massachusetts. The center prepares and assists immigrants in their move toward social and economic self-sufficiency. In addition to child care, it provides education; adult and children’s health services; emergency support; immigration services; and HIV/AIDS counseling, case management, and support. www.bmc.org/program/haiti/ hcomfact.html#anchor643617.

• Respond to family beliefs about education and child rearing
• Support cultural and linguistic heritages
• Meet families' work-related needs for care during nights, weekends, summers, and holidays

Local coalitions undertake campaigns to shape community norms in ways that confirm the long-term importance of:

• Making out-of-home care stable, affordable, and high-quality
• The inter-relatedness of social, emotional, and cognitive development

	In Chicago, a high-profile group of representatives from the media, business, direct service agencies, and the government launched a citywide Heart Start public awareness campaign. With matching funds from local foundations and businesses, the group drew attention to the social and emotional characteristics that underlie cognitive achievement. www.zerotothree.org/sch_read.html In Dade County, Florida, community leaders spearheaded a range of efforts, including collaborating with the local PTA, to develop two-day Heart Start awareness training sessions for high school students. A local university joined in the campaign by including content on social and emotional development in its new certification program for teachers of children from birth to age four. www.zerotothree.org/sch_read.html

Local coalitions keep funders and policymakers informed about barriers to effective action that require solutions at the funding, policy, or regulatory level.

	The Birth to Five Project of the Illinois-based Ounce of Prevention Fund brings together early childhood practitioners, government agency staff, health care providers, advocates, researchers and others to identify system gaps and barriers that stand in the way of families' ability to protect, educate, and nurture and support the development of their young children and to develop solutions.

The community enlists child care providers in working with neighborhood-based child welfare services and intensive family support to prevent and respond to abuse and neglect.

Local coalitions promote access to high-quality, out-of-home child care by:

• Maintaining information and referral networks that offer easily accessible, useful information about child care options and supports
• Making knowledge about how to recognize, find, and enroll children in high-quality, stable out-of-home care universally available
• Providing training, technical assistance, facilities support, and quality assessments to child care providers

	Child care providers who participate in a quality assessment program under KIDS NOW (Kentucky) receive free technical assistance and monetary incentives to improve their quality. The Children’s Services Council of Palm Beach County, Florida, helps local child care centers enhance their facilities and obtain equipment, training, and other assistance. The program hires staff who represent the cultures of the children enrolled and speak the languages of their parents. All materials are printed in the three languages spoken by participants, and interpreters are provided at all events. World of Difference training is provided to staff through the Miller Early Childhood Initiative. The Program for Infant/Toddler Caregivers, operating in California and other states, provides child care staff with pre- and in-service training that emphasizes children’s developmental and learning needs. The program also offers educational materials, a certification program for infant and toddler caregivers, and an annual conference. Ready to Learn Providence maintains a small grants program to enable child care providers (especially family and home-based providers) to purchase developmentally appropriate educational materials. Child care providers may use the funds to purchase packages developed by Ready to Learn or can propose their own project.. Ready to Learn provides technical assistance to applicants in preparing proposals, which are reviewed and prioritized by community members and childcare professionals. http://www.r2lp.org